Well, good evening. Thank you for the invitation to come and share with you. It's a pleasure to, um, share fellowship, which is indeed the topic of our study tonight in Philippians. If you have your Bible, if you could open it, please, at Philippians chapter one, and our reading is verse one to verse eleven, and that is, it appears on page one thousand one hundred and seventy eight if you have a church Bible. Philippians chapter one. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart, in Philippians. If you have your Bible, if you could open it, please, at Philippians chapter one, and our reading is verse one to verse eleven, and that is, it appears on page one thousand one hundred and seventy eight if you have a church Bible. Philippians chapter one. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart. For whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Amen. I wonder if there has ever been a time in your life when you are in special need of encouragement. I suspect if you're an England fan, that time is now. My thoughts are with Andy. Um, but I was reading this week of, uh, Richard the Lionheart, and this may well be a legend, I don't know. But apparently on, when he was returning from the Crusades, um, Richard was captured by a king, um, and he was imprisoned in a castle. And he was left alone in this castle all by himself. Nobody knew if he was dead or alive. But Richard had a faithful friend who was his minstrel, and he had the name of Blondel. And Blondel wanted to, to seek the king, so he, he traveled into Central Europe, and he, um, he wandered around playing his lute and singing these songs in the hope that he would find the king. And one day he was standing outside this Austrian castle, and he was singing a song that he and Richard used to love to sing together. And he finished the verse, and as he paused, he heard a voice coming down from one of the windows, and it was the voice of King Richard the Lionheart, eh, hearing the voice of its minstrel. Well, that must have been a very encouraging moment for Richard to know that he had not been left and abandoned and forgotten, that he still had friends who cared for him and a friend who was wanting to come and see him. And through Blondell, eh, we're told, eh, Richard was able to be released and returned to England. Well, that is a little bit like the situation Paul faces in Philippi in the letter to the Philippians. He is in prison, almost certainly in Rome. He seems to be quite alienated. He says he has no one like Timothy. Perhaps people have withdrawn their support from him. Some people in the churches are preaching against him or preaching to afflict him, and he is being persecuted for preaching the cross of Christ. Paul was in need of encouragement. And one day, we're not told when, there was presumably a knock at the prison door, and lo, there before him was Epaphroditus, who had traveled from Philippi in Greece all the way to Rome to see Paul, to encourage Paul, to talk to Paul about the church he had founded in Philippi, and to offer to the apostle a gift of money which they had raised to support his ministry. He must have been very happy to receive that visitor. And so Paul writes in Philippians a letter for Epaphroditus to return to the congregation of Philippi. And as we read the letter, we're struck by the sheer note of joy. I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy. They hadn't forgotten this apostle. They hadn't been ashamed of Paul, even though he was in prison. They continued to love him and to visit him and to provide for his needs. And so, as we look at this letter, we want to see what Paul writes in response to them, to encourage them and to challenge them. And I want to look at these first eleven verses really under two headings. The first deals with their Christian service, and the title I've given that is Be Encouraged, Paul's Joyful Gratitude for the Grace of God in Philippi. The second heading, eh, in which he deals with matters of their life, and the heading I've given that is Don't Be Complacent, Paul's loving petition for Christian growth in Philippi. So Paul thanks God for them. He thanks God that they've come to visit him in the person of Epaphroditus, but he prays with joy, verse five, because of their partnership, because of their fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. Uh, the word fellowship is one of these words, isn't it? It's a bit like, um, a bit like the word gentleman. There was a time the word gentleman meant somebody who owned land, but as time passed, it just came to mean any man, anyone who is male. And fellowship, I think, is a little bit like that. It's, um, perhaps been watered down to mean any kind of social event that Christians share together. So if I go for a round of golf with a brother from the church, we might say we had wonderful fellowship on the fifth hole. Or if somebody goes to the cinema with a friend, they say, oh, we enjoyed the film and we had great fellowship on the bus home. Fellowship is, at one level, friendship. It's not less than friendship, but it is more than friendship. The NIV translates it very accurately, partnership. In Luke's gospel, we see, um, Peter and James and John described as partners in the fishing business. They shared in the business, they had a common purpose in the business, and they participated in the work of the business together. So fellowship means active sharing partnership, eh, with a common goal. But what form did that fellowship take? And as we read the letter of the Philippians, we see various expressions of it. Firstly, in chapter one verse three, um, we see that involved personal recollection. I thank my God every time I remember you. Some translate that every time you remember me. So the Philippians were selfless enough to think of Paul, to remember him in his distress. Are we a church, or are you a church, I should say, who show, um, remembrance of one another? It took Epaphroditus an awfully long time to walk from Greece to Rome or to sail or to travel. They didn't have the benefits of email and text messages and cards on sale in bookshops, uh, by which to express their remembrance. It's a very encouraging thing, isn't it? But they were praying church. Chapter one, verse nineteen, Paul says, through your prayers I will be delivered. Chapter one, verse nineteen says, I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. They knew of Paul's plight, and they were earnestly seeking the Lord and beseeching the Lord to release him from prison, that he might continue in his defense of the gospel throughout the empire. They were a remembering church, they were a praying church, and they were a cooperating church. Chapter four, verse three, Paul speaks of these ladies, Yodia and Syntyche, and he says, yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers. They were active in their partnership. We're not told what they did. Perhaps it was opening their homes, perhaps it was ministering to the poor in Philippi, perhaps it was engaged in Paul's evangelistic labors. But the people there freely gave up their time and their energy to struggle and labor alongside the apostle, pursuing that common goal of leading others to a knowledge of Christ and depth in him. But their partnership was costly. It was costly in terms of persecution. Chapter three, verse ten, Paul uses the word again. He says, I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing, of partnering in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Chapter one, verse twenty nine, it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you know I had, and now hear that I still have. You see, in the first century, as in the twenty first century, the gospel was seen as weak and foolish. Paul tells us in First Corinthians, the Jews seek signs, the Greeks look for wisdom, but he preached the cross of Christ, and it was considered weak and foolish. It wasn't a popular message. But the Philippians were faithful to that apostolic gospel, and they were faithful to Paul. You see, it must have been quite a thing to, to be in Paul's band in Philippi, because when he arrived in the city after his initial ministry, he was thrown into prison, of course, and he got a bit of a reputation as a troublemaker. And then he goes off, eh, continuing his travels, and the next some people hear of him, he's in prison again, in Rome. And it must have raised a few eyebrows among the, the decent sort of middle class people of Philippi. They said, well, we heard of this man and this message he preaches about a crucified Messiah, but he always seems to be in jail. And maybe people were saying to their friends and family, are you sure you're mixing with the right company? Maybe this guy is a little bit of a hothead. Maybe he's, um, one of those fundamentalists. Maybe he takes his religion just a little bit too seriously. It would be very easy, wouldn't it, to be ashamed of that gospel and of the apostle preaching it. But they were not ashamed. They remembered him, they prayed for him, and they suffered alongside him, sharing in the sufferings for the gospel. But it was costly in another way, and I want to spend just a few minutes on this, because chapter four verse fifteen tells us that they were a church that put their money where their mouth was, and they were willing to give Paul support financially, materially. Moreover, he says, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I sent out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only. For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need. T. L. Moody was the, perhaps the greatest evangelist of the nineteenth century. He visited Glasgow and, um, ministered here with great effect. He was a man greatly owned by God and used by the Spirit of God to lead thousands to faith in Christ. But what's interesting about Moody is he had a great way of getting people to, to fund his ministry. He was just great at getting money out of people's wallets, and, um, he managed to raise enough funds to build this great big church in the middle of Chicago. And at some point in his life, there was a great fire which destroyed most of the city. And as the church was burning to the ground, what was Moody doing? He was going around the homes of businessmen he knew, Christian businessmen, and he's saying, we need to build another church. You need to give me some more money. Not vulgarly, of course, but he realized that ministry requires money, that buildings needed to be built and maintained, that staff needed to have, um, support to enable them to live, that missionaries needed, uh, fares to take them on airplanes to different parts of the world. And that is an entirely biblical principle. People sent Paul money to support him in his ministry. A group of women provided out of their means for our Lord as he traveled around J- Israel. It's interesting, isn't it, that the Lord could have made, um, a couple of bread and fish do for the entire year. And yet, in his wisdom, he chose to receive support from a band of women and others who wanted to contribute to the ministry of the Son of God while on earth. So Paul lays before us a biblical example that ministry requires money, and partnership involves giving and receiving. And Paul actually says in two Corinthians that partnership is evidenced, genuine partnership is evidenced by people's attitude to giving. He says to the Corinthian believers, I want you to give proof before the churches of your love. What is the proof of a church's love? Well, not all of it, of course, but one proof is that they are willing to contribute financially to the work of the gospel in their city. It's very challenging, isn't it? Very challenging in these lean times financially, with worldwide recession and increasing VAT and budget changes and so on. But it was very challenging in Philippi, because they weren't a very wealthy congregation. And in that same letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, out of their severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy overflowed, no, excuse me, out of a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and extreme poverty overflowed into a wealth of generosity. They had great joy in giving out of their poverty to the apostle, and when that gift was received, he responds with great joy for their partnership. Gospel partnership is real, and it is practical, and it generates joy for both parties involved. So the church was a remembering church, it was a praying church, it was a laboring church, and it was a giving church, and that is why Paul gives thanks for it. And it is very encouraging, isn't it, when we see that happening. I had the great privilege last week of being on a mission team in, uh, Glasgow. It's not often I, um, go on a mission team in my home city, but, um, we wanted to meet international students from different countries. And so we laid aside this one week, and we were looking for people to partner with us. So some people said, well, I'd like to pray for that, and they did. We gave them a prayer letter. Some people said, I want to join the team, and they came from different parts of the city to join the team. Some people said, I want to to labor in some way, and we had musicians who performed for us free of charge or at a special, eh, reduced rate. And some people gave us money in order to allow the whole thing to happen. And by God's grace, and thanks to his kindness, we met people from over forty six different nationalities, quite literally walking the streets of Glasgow. And we thank God for that ministry and that visible picture of gospel partnership. That is Paul's first reason for giving thanks to God, but there is a deeper reason. And in verse six, he says, I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. What he is saying is that their gospel partnership is the visible evidence of the invisible work of God in their lives. You may know the name of John Ross, a Scotsman from the Highlands who is known as the father of Korean Presbyterianism. Not very well known in Scotland, very well known in Korea. And he left the Highlands, uh, and traveled with his wife to China, uh, the end of the nineteenth century. And he was a very gifted linguist within five months, he was preaching sermons in Chinese, and he began to minister to the Chinese people in a region near the Korean border. But as he did, he realized that a lot of Koreans were coming and going, and so he began to learn the Korean language. And at that time, Korea was closed to Western missionaries, so he began to translate the New Testament into Korean, and the Korean believers would take it back into their country, or they would take it to their countrymen, eh, in the valleys of China. And what is quite remarkable was within a few short years, eh, churches began to appear in Korea, where John Ross himself had never traveled, and in all the different valleys, um, where he had never been. Hundreds and hundreds of people were coming to faith, and scores of churches. And John Ross one day took a trip hundreds of miles to see these churches, and, uh, he was quoted as saying, we didn't believe that the Gospel of Pentecost has such power. When he saw these thousands of Korean and Chinese people reading the Bibles, training others, funding missions among their own people, he was quite astonished because he knew it wasn't his doing. He translated the Bible, he prayed for it, but he knew that it was the power of God, the power of the Spirit of God working in the hearts and lives of the Chinese and Korean believers. And that's Paul's attitude. He says, when I hear of your partnership, that I am confident that God is continuing to work in you and through you, that the good work he began at your conversion when you were justified is being carried on in your sanctification and in your corporate life of ministry together. They must have needed to hear that in Philippi because their early days were very dramatic. And you probably know the story from Acts chapter sixteen. Paul had no intention of going there, and yet God gave him a vision of a man from Macedonia saying, come over and help us. And in obedience to that vision, he went. And when they arrived, they couldn't find any synagogue, so they went down to the river to pray, and, uh, they met Lydia, this lady businesswoman, and the Lord opened her heart, and she received the message, and she opened her home to the apostles. And as they continued their ministry in the town, they had a girl possessed by a demon, and they exorcised her very dramatically and very publicly. And then, of course, they were arrested, thrown into prison, and, uh, while in prison there was a great earthquake, and Paul was released with the jailer and his family coming to faith. Very dramatic, isn't it? Exorcisms and conversions by rivers and huge earthquakes and escapes from prison. But as time had passed, the church had obviously settled down to the day by day business of meeting together, praying together, laboring together, dealing with the the issues and difficulties that arise in any congregation. And maybe they were saying, well, has God left us? Is his power still at work among us? Is his spirit still moving in our midst, or have those glorious early days gone? And Paul says, no. Your faithful, prayerful, sacrificial gospel partnership is evidence that God is continuing the good work in you, which he began in a very dramatic fashion, and which continues to this day in the ministry of the church. Very encouraging, isn't it, to read these words? As a, as was mentioned, this is my first time, um, in Greenview. Uh, we just live up the road, so I've driven past many times. Um, but I was encouraged by the website. You see, I had a look at it, um, earlier today, and I was encouraged by the, the presentation of the apostolic gospel as soon as I logged on with scripture references, uh, that could be verified. I was encouraged by the history of the church. I believe it was eighteen seventy our fellowship first began to meet, not in this building, but elsewhere. So for over two, not quite two hundred years, for over one hundred and thirty years, therefore, Christ has been proclaimed through this fellowship. I was encouraged by the emphasis upon overseas mission, that in recent years people have gone to Zambia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Argentina. Medical aid has been sent, education has been developed, ministry has been done in other nations. And I was encouraged by the regular program of ministry and partnership, evangelism, prayer, music, kids, outreach, pastoral support. And I don't know this church very well, but from what I've seen, I would say with the Apostle Paul that I have great joy because of what I perceive as partnership in the gospel and evidence of the ongoing grace of God and the work of his spirit in the life of this congregation. So I think it is right that Paul encourages the Philippians, and I think it is right that sitting here tonight, you might be encouraged by a visiting preacher who hasn't met you, but from what he's seen, is indeed himself encouraged. Paul gives thanks joyfully for the evidence of God's grace in Philippi. But he moves on to his second point, and Paul is a very wise pastor, and having encouraged them, he now wants to challenge them. You see, it'd be easy for them to, uh, to look at this, to look at the report card and say, well, we've got ten out of ten from the Apostle Paul. We get the thumbs up from the great man himself, so we could maybe just, you know, sit back, take our foot off the gas, have a summer off, and, uh, not try so hard, uh, to labor for Christ. But he won't allow them to do that. In verse nine, he says, this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. There is no retirement for the Christian. We do not make it, eh, this side of glory. Sir Terry Leahy, I don't know if that's how you pronounce it, retired this week, or announced his retirement as the head of Tesco's. Um, he began as a fourteen-year-old shelf stacker. He went up to be the very top man, eh, of the largest superstore in the UK, biggest private employer in the UK. But this week he said, I'm going to stop because my work is largely complete. It might work in business, but it doesn't work in the Christian church. We never arrive. Paul says, I have not yet attained all this, nor already been made perfect. Paul's concern is not that they do quite well in their midterm assessment, but that they be made perfect in Christ, that they be presented pure and blameless before him on that last day. And having encouraged them initially, he now goes on to pray for them in his loving prayer for Christian growth. And what does he pray, therefore? He asks that their love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so they may be able to discern what is best, to be pure and blameless until the day of Christ Jesus, filled with the fruit of righteousness, to the praise and glory of God. So Paul prays that they grow in love. And, um, again, their early beginnings were very positive, weren't they? The first days of the Philippian church, Lydia opened her home and welcomed the apostles in. The Philippian jailer, as soon as he was converted, began to wash the wounds of the man he had just been imprisoning. But as time had developed, there seemed to be difficulties in the congregation. And I'm sure if you were, eh, willing, you could tell me about difficulties in this congregation, and I could tell you about difficulties in my own. And it seems that there was an attitude in Philippi that rather than selfless love for one another, there was a kind of selfishness creeping in, that instead of seeking the interests of others, everyone was seeking their own interest. And there was a party spirit, divisions, factions, dissensions. And Epaphroditus no doubt had to tell Paul about this. And so he writes to them and prays that their love may abound more and more, that they might return to that first love, and that first love might grow, firstly for God and consequently for one another. Paul longs for them in verse eight with the affection of Christ Jesus. He reminds them that Christ loves them and his desire that his disciples love each other as he himself loved them. But it's not a sort of blind and sentimental love. It's a love that's married to knowledge and depth of insight. He wants the Philippians to grow in their knowledge of God, of the character of God, of the saving purposes of God, that they might know him better, and that they might grow in their depth of insight, that is their discernment, so they might know how best to serve him and to walk with him. I'm a big fan of Pink Floyd, um, Helen, however, isn't. And after we got married, I learned that Helen is not a fan of Pink Floyd, and I learned, therefore, that playing it regularly and loudly is not the done thing, either in the car or in the house. When we grow in knowledge of someone, we are able to discern what is pleasing to them. And Paul says, I want you to grow in the knowledge of God, that you might get to know what are his likes and his dislikes, and that you might seek to walk in a manner which is worthy of him. Verse ten, that you may be able to discern, to differentiate what is best, and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ Jesus. His purpose is that people will grow in their holiness by making wise and godly decisions, asking the question, what is most pleasing to the Lord? What will help me to love and serve him more? What is best for my brothers and sisters in the church? And thereby to grow in maturity, that they may be pure internally and blameless externally in their lives until the day of Christ Jesus, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. You see, Paul has a broader perspective than just the day-to-day runnings of a church. Paul has his eyes on the day of Christ. Chapter six, he says, God will complete his good work on that day. And in chapter ten, he says, I long that you may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ. He knows that now they are sharing, they are partnering in the work of the gospel, but there will be a day where they partner, where they share in the glory which is to be revealed. And he wants them to be ready for that day, pure and blameless in their relations with one another and with the Lord who bought them. Well, that's very challenging, isn't it? Because it forces us to ask the question, well, what is my perspective? Do I, like the Apostle Paul, look beyond my present circumstances, be they good or bad, and do I fix my eyes on the day of Christ? Or am I too concerned with what happens on a Monday morning to think about these things? And it's very challenging, isn't it, because it forces us to ask the question, am I making progress in my faith? The Philippians could have taken it easy, they were doing very well, but, um, are we getting complacent? Don Carson, in his very helpful commentary, Basics for Believers, talks about three quid of Christianity. He says just enough Christianity to make us happy, but not enough to sort of disturb us. Are we settling for three quid of Christianity each and every week? Do we have the right perspective? Are we making progress? And of course, are we praying for one another? We say it an awful lot, don't we? At least I do. I'll pray for you. And more often than not, I'm afraid I forget. But when we say that, what are we going to pray for people? And Paul's prayers provide us with wonderful templates, wonderful examples of how Christians can be praying for people with whom they partner. Are we praying that the love of every other believer in, uh, this church is abounding more and more? Are we praying that they are growing in the knowledge of God, that their insight is deepening, and that they are ever more pure and blameless each and every day? Is that our prayer? Very challenging, isn't it? Paul prays giving thanks for the Philippians, thanks that God is at work in their midst, and their partnership in loving and praying and giving is visible evidence of his grace. And then he then prays for them, that individually and corporately they might grow in that same love, in discernment, and in holiness. Paul's prayer for partnership within the Christian church. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you, Lord, for your grace to each one of us. We thank you that you have begun a good work in our lives and in this church. We thank you, Lord, that you have sustained that work for over one hundred and thirty years, and pray that it might continue for the centuries to come. Lord, we thank you for this word from Paul. We ask that we might be encouraged when it is right to be encouraged, knowing that you are the God who gives endurance and encouragement. And Lord, we pray that we might also be ambitious for you, that we might seek to grow in our love and our knowledge and our discernment. We ask, Lord, that you will help us to be a prayerful people, to be a united people, to be a sacrificial people, Lord, willing to suffer for Christ and willing to give to him and to the extension of his kingdom. So we pray that as we go home and think and meditate on these words, that your spirit will just impress them upon our hearts and apply them into our individual circumstances, that in all things you might be glorified and your kingdom might be built in Glasgow. And so we thank you for this time together in Jesus' name. Amen.