You must be one of the old timers,
if you can remember that.
And one preacher said to one old lady,
aged 92, very rich old dear, said, why
do you think God has permitted you to
reach the age of 92?
No hesitation, she said.
To test the patience of my relatives.
A lot of truth in that.
Well, I'm beginning to think I'm getting old.
I thought when I first came to Park
of the Palms I was going to feel
very, very young and go in swimming every
day and play every game that was playable,
you know.
But I haven't got that far yet.
But you never know, we might get round
to something like that before we go.
Delighted to be with you.
And we trust and pray that God will
bless his word to our hearts this morning.
And we'll read the first few verses of
Philippians.
Philippians chapter one.
And then tonight we'll read Philippians chapter two.
Half of it.
Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ,
to all the saints in Christ Jesus which
are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons,
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, as the margin says
you have me in your heart, inasmuch as
both in my bonds and in the defense
and confirmation of the gospel, you all are
partakers with me of grace.
For God is my record, how greatly I
long after you all in the compassions of
Jesus Christ.
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, you may sense them, that you
may be sincere and without offense till the
day of Christ, being filled with the fruits
of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto
the glory and praise of God.
But I would you should understand, brethren, things
which happened unto me have fallen out rather
unto the fervorance of the gospel.
And you will recall that that is where
we started on Sunday evening, this series on
the main themes of the prison epistles.
The things that have happened unto me have
turned out rather for the fervorance of the
gospel.
And by this time when the Apostle Paul
was writing to the Philippians, he had really
come to see that God was overruling in
everything with his providential care and planning everything
to bring blessing not only to himself but
to others of Caesar's guards and courtiers.
And he was doing a great work for
God in many ways in prison and not
least in those ways was in writing letters
to the Christians he knew and others that
he was hearing about from time to time
as he was chained there to a Roman
soldier in his own higher room in prison
in Rome.
Now there were many reasons for the Apostle
writing this letter to the Philippians and it
will be interesting for us to see some
of those reasons before we proceed further.
First of all this was a love letter.
He loved the Philippian Christians dearly and they
loved him just as much.
As a matter of fact my crude outline
for the first chapter is as follows and
I think you'll find that these three headings
sum up the whole chapter.
I admit they're pretty crude.
The first is this you have me in
your heart secondly I have you in my
heart and thirdly Christ is in both our
hearts or to put it this way Paul
in the heart of the Philippians the Philippians
in the heart of Paul and Christ in
the hearts of both.
That sums up the whole chapter I think
you will find.
Now he loved them dearly because he led
quite a number of them to Christ.
They were his sons and daughters in the
Lord.
He went to Philippi He'd been there three
occasions but he went to Philippi first of
all in answer to the Macedonian call.
You remember the Apostle Paul in Acts 16
it is recorded was travelling with his team
through Asia Minor through Turkey as it is
now and they said to go into Bithynia
another area and the Holy Spirit said no
not Bithynia so they didn't go there and
then somebody suggested they should go further into
the centre or the northern parts of Asia
Minor and the Holy Spirit said no not
there either so they didn't go there and
they didn't go anywhere they waited to know
where they should go and if you're quite
sure that God is telling you not to
do this and not to do that or
not to go here or not to go
there the only thing to do is to
do nothing and go nowhere until he makes
it plain which shows to God that you
are willing to do his will as it
is revealed to you and that's very scriptural
because it says he that willeth to do
his will shall know and of course the
first the first essential for guidance from God
is a surrendered will God will never waste
his time if I can say that reverently
in telling people where to go or what
to do if he knows and of course
he always does know because of his omniscience
that they will do something else so the
rule is he that willeth to do his
will shall know well now then these people
were apparently willing to do God's will and
that night they did know because a man
from Macedonia in a vision stood over Paul
by night and said come over into Macedonia
and help us so in the morning he
got the boys together in the team and
said come on gentlemen I think we'll go
into Asia after all or perhaps to Bithynia
did he?
not on your life he was always obedient
to the heavenly vision not only to the
first one but to all the heavenly visions
he said I will speak of the abundance
of visions and revelations of the Lord why
did he get so many?
why was he guided so directly?
because he was always obedient to the heavenly
vision he that willeth to do his will
shall know of the doctrine and so it
was they journeyed the very next morning by
a straight course they didn't go all round
the reek into Wellington as we say in
England by a straight course they came to
the port the first port in Europe in
Macedonia in Europe and then they went from
there to the first city which wasn't far
away only a few miles and that was
Philippi now I'm very very pleased as a
European that the Apostle Paul obeyed implicitly the
call of God the Macedonian call to go
to Macedonia and to the first city in
Europe Philippi thank God the gospel had now
come to Europe for the first time because
Paul obeyed the call you remember he met
Libya and some women there there was a
Jewish colony there in Philippi but there was
no synagogue and some of the women went
down to the riverside to have a meeting
together from time to time and Paul found
them there in a meeting and he joined
them and he expounded to them the scriptures
preached unto them Jesus and Libya opened her
heart to the Lord and so I had
presumed in some of the others and before
long there was a girl in the city
with a spirit of divination an evil spirit
and she was eventually converted then they were
put in jail you remember and the Philippian
jailer and his wife and family were converted
and baptized and this was the beginning of
the church at Philippi and these are the
Christians to whom he is writing from Rome
in prison at this time the epistle of
Paul the Apostle to the Philippians now he
loved the Philippians dearly they had been constantly
in touch with him more about that in
a moment or two not only was it
a love letter he expresses his love for
them and his desire to see them in
so many ways but it is a letter
of warning warning about Judaizers and false perfectionism
as well and the third chapter is mostly
taken up with a series of warnings there
were some people who had come out of
Judaism and accepted Christ and then gone back
into Judaism and they tried to make the
Christians do the same they wanted to enslave
them with the bondage of the law and
the Apostle Paul explained that Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth not that the believer is lawless
now indeed the believer is under the law
to Christ but we are no longer under
the Mosaic law and some of these Judaizers
wanted to bring the Christians back to perform
many of the deeds of the law and
bring them into bondage and in another epistle
which is all about this Galatians the Apostle
says stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made you free it is the
glorious thing to be at liberty in Christ
as long as you don't turn that liberty
into license as we read of some that
did in Matthew 21 in the parable of
the householder with his vineyard you remember he
did everything he could to get a good
crop about five or six things he did
I'm not going into it now to get
a good crop and then he gave to
his servants liberty and he went into a
far country but he wanted fruit and he
wanted wine to gladden his heart and he
didn't get either because they turned the liberty
he had given to them into license you
remember and they stoned and slew the servants
and the son of the householder it's a
dreadful thing and always brings judgment as it
did in the parable when we turn liberty
into license but liberty in Christ from the
bondage of the law is a blessed thing
we are not under law under that law
but we are under grace but being under
grace means that we are under law to
Christ to submit ourselves to do his will
to believe in him and to love one
another with a pure heart fervently in a
very practical and down to earth way and
when I say that I'm thinking of John's
first epistle and chapter three his commandments are
one that we believe on Christ that is
in a continuous sense trusting Jesus not once
for all but day by day to meet
our every spiritual need and then love our
brethren to show that we love Jesus love
our brethren in a very practical down to
earth way not only were there warnings about
Judaizers in chapter three but about false perfectionism
you know there's a lot of false perfectionism
abroad in the country in the world today
there are a lot of holiness movements which
are unscriptural you know and I would think
extreme in my view and we have seen
some tragic and known some tragic cases of
believers who have felt that they've had an
experience of the Holy Spirit and have been
delivered from the old nature and that their
old nature has been crucified and finished with
forever inexperience and then after some time after
some time they have sinned and had to
confess that they had sinned and then they
conclude that they've never been saved at all
and some of them have had to go
to institutions because of mental disorders simply because
of extreme holiness teaching but because some people
take this to extreme we must remember that
the scriptures are full of exhortations to believers
to be perfect in the sense of spiritually
mature not absolute perfectionism not the eradication of
the old nature but to grow in Christ
to spiritual maturity and that's the meaning of
the word perfect generally of course there are
seven meanings in the Greek the Greek word
that is used and translated perfect and free
in particular but the most important one which
gives us the real sense of the word
is spiritual maturity so he warns here in
chapter three against those who would seek for
perfectionism in the things of God and then
of course he makes a plea for unity
in this letter there was not much seriously
wrong as there perhaps was in the church
at Canossi to whom he wrote we'll probably
look at them tomorrow but there was a
little bit of disorder in that there was
slight disunity and he uses the word all
and together quite a lot in this letter
because he is making a plea for unity
and at the end of chapter one and
the first part of chapter two he shows
the way to unity and this is what
we should be discussing tomorrow in particular there
were two or tonight I mean in particular
there were two ladies in the meeting at
Philippi Euodia and Sintica you read of them
in chapter four and verse three two and
three who were not getting on too well
together they were having a little argument about
something or other there was a bit of
disunity there and he exhorts them to be
of the same mind in the Lord very
gracious exhortation mind you it must have been
a terrible shock for them when one of
the elder brethren stood up on one Lord's
day first day of the week and said
brethren and sisters we have today got some
very very good news for you we're going
to read out a letter a wonderful letter
and do you know who it's from?
it's from the great apostle our dear beloved
brother Paul he's in prison at Rome he's
dictated a letter for us he's chained to
a soldier he's not able to meet us
again we all love him dearly now we're
going to read out a letter from Paul
and everybody was rejoicing you know as they
heard about this letter and how he was
praying for them and thanking God for them
and sent his love to them and all
this you know and it do them such
a lot of good and there was Euodia
and Sintica sitting on the halfway down somewhere
listening to it, enjoying it you know and
then the brother reads out and he says
and I beseech you oh dear Sintica that
they be of the same mind in the
Lord my word what a shock what a
shock very very humiliating but I suppose they
deserved it in a way because there's no
doubt at all about it the grace of
Christ is sufficient for us to mend any
little any disagreement we have between ourselves and
to overcome that sort of thing if the
grace of Christ doesn't work in a Christian
organization and church well where does it work
anyway the Lord Jesus said to the Apostle
Paul my grace is sufficient for you sufficient
to overcome this trouble in your body and
the grace of Christ is sufficient to overcome
any trouble in our soul it's the almighty
grace the all sufficient grace of the almighty
Son of God I was in Wisconsin in
Milwaukee a few months ago in the meeting
there and I was thinking of the time
when Moody was in Milwaukee his meetings were
a bit bigger than mine and somebody said
to him at the end of one of
his meetings Mr. Moody have you got the
grace to die at the stake and he
said to she he said to her he
said no ma'am he said I haven't
got the grace to die at the stake
so she said well Mr. Moody don't you
wish you had the grace to die at
the stake and he said no ma'am
I don't wish for it all I want
is grace to live in Milwaukee and conduct
a mission and that's what he was doing
at the time so when the need arises
when there's a little bit of something between
us a little misunderstanding maybe a little trial
overcomes us a little personal disaster a little
domestic problem then I'm quite sure taking these
things to the Lord we shall prove that
the grace of the Lord is sufficient for
us James says he giveth more grace so
the grace is there to have and John
by the same spirit says in Christ is
grace upon grace grace for all our need
but Paul by the same spirit says in
Romans chapter 5 and verse 17 those Christians
who receive abundance of grace who receive it
in its abundance shall reign in life by
one Jesus Christ they will overcome and reign
and be victorious if they receive the grace
of Christ that there is there to have
grace upon grace grace following grace grace for
all our need in Christ I have in
the past 22 years been setting examinations for
my students at Moreland and at the end
of every half year and the end of
every year we bring them into the lecture
room and examination room and we set them
down there and we just announce the few
rules no talking and you cannot finish until
you've been writing for two hours and then
you have another half an hour after that
if you want it two and a half
hours examination and you have to answer six
out of the nine questions on the sheet
and so we go on and I say
now I'm going to bring you three or
four sheets of paper each and the sheet
with the examination questions on now I said
I'm going to leave the paper here on
the front and I'm not going to sit
here invigilating all the time I should come
in from time to time but I'm going
to trust you though of course there never
will be in a Bible college any cheating
any looking over or anything like that but
you'll find there's plenty of paper here there's
paper upon paper paper upon paper paper after
paper paper for all you need and that's
exactly what it means in John 1 in
him is grace there's grace upon grace loads
of grace bags of grace grace upon grace
and grace for all our needs so the
apostle makes a plea for unity here all
the way through the letter it is underlying
the exhortations and especially when he comes to
the two ladies Herodias and Syntyche the apostle
also fourthly gives news of his own circumstances
there in prison and how he's getting on
and he's telling them that he is sending
Timothy to them and you know Timothy I
think we shall probably find this evening Timothy
was a great young fellow and had grown
to spiritual maturity had become an elder in
the church he had a burden for the
blessing of others he had the mind of
Christ and he tells them he's sending Timothy
and also he was sending Epaphroditus back to
them he'd been ill taken ill on the
way as we shall see tonight again I
trust and he was sending Epaphroditus back again
to them after he had recovered from his
illness and sixthly and this is one of
our important points this morning he was acknowledging
their fellowship with him in the gospel through
the months and years and especially acknowledging this
last gift that had come to him from
the church at Philippi through this noble young
man Epaphroditus who was chosen by the church
for this special service for the Lord and
in chapter 4 and verse 10 he says
I rejoice greatly that now at the last
your care of me has flourished again wherein
ye were also careful but you didn't have
the opportunity but now Epaphroditus was willing to
make a long journey hundreds of miles by
foot you sent the gift through him and
in verse 14 he says you've done well
that you did communicate with my affliction when
he says affliction I think he means the
fact that he was in prison and in
need at this time and those few verses
there have the same, it is in verse
17 not that I desire a gift I
desire fruit that may abound to your account
because it is a good thing for you
to be good stewards of the manifold grace
of God and for you to give to
the Lord's servants not only me, to any
of the Lord's servants in that way especially
when they are in special need he says
I have all and abound because he said
I am now full having received of Epaphroditus
the things that were sent from you an
odor of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable
while pleasing to God so he said what
you gave to me was really a gift
to God it was a sacrifice to God
it was acceptable to God now no Christian
makes any sacrifice to God to atone for
his sins because of the once for all
sacrifice of Christ this is emphasized in the
first half of Hebrews chapter 10 his sacrifice
was sufficient never to be remembered once and
for all but Christians are called upon to
make present day sacrifices to God not to
atone for their sins but because their sins
are atoned for out of love and gratitude
what about that one in Hebrews 12 I
beseech you brethren by the mercy of God
present your body a living sacrifice wholly acceptable
unto God which is your reasonable service the
sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart
O God thou wilt not despise I will
offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and
call upon the name of the Lord and
then Hebrews 13 with such sacrifices God is
well pleased do good and communicate that doesn't
mean writing letters although it might include that
but it really means communicating what you have
to others of the Lord's people who are
in need do good to all men especially
to those who are of the household of
faith and so you see there are many
present day sacrifices and a good steward of
God is very acceptable not only to the
people that he helps in the Lord's work
but also acceptable to God for with this
God is well pleased so the apostle Paul
is here acknowledging this gift you will notice
in this connection that one of the key
words of this epistle is the word fellowship
it is and fellowship in the gospel the
gospel is used seven times and fellowship is
used several times too the idea of fellowship
is underlying it too for instance you get
fellowship in the gospel in chapter 1 and
verse 5 and you get the fervorance of
the gospel in chapter 1 and verse 12
and you get the defense of the gospel
in chapter 1 and verse 17 and you
got the faith of the gospel in chapter
1 and verse 27 and so you could
go on there are other instances of that
when he talks about the fellowship of the
gospel in chapter 1 and verse 5 you
will notice he said from the first day
until now well we all know what their
fellowship in the gospel was now that was
their gift to the apostle Paul in prison
but what was their fellowship in the gospel
with him the first day do you know
what that was now of course if I
was in the lecture room I'd wait for
you to answer that and I'd let you
have your guesses but as we're in the
service we can't do that thing we must
be terribly formal you know how formal and
correct I am especially when I have to
sing a duet with a dear brother it
becomes very informal then but what was their
fellowship with him in the gospel the first
day it was hospitality because you see Lydia
not only opened her heart to the Lord
but she opened her home to the Lord's
servant now of course that's one reason why
we like coming to Park of the Palms
the hospitality the Christian hospitality is very good
here and wherever I shall go throughout the
United States and in Britain and other parts
I should tell them about your your glowing
hospitality and it's a great blessing to God's
people this hospitality I know you have a
lot of fellowship with one another and this
thing is of God keep it up it'll
be a blessing to you and a blessing
to others through you he never forgot hospitality
did the apostle Paul this is what she
said to him Lydia to Paul if you
have judged me faithful Paul you come with
your team into my home and accept my
Christian hospitality and he did and he never
forgot it and he put it in this
letter and it's been here recorded for hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of years and God never forgets it when
we have fellowship in the gospel in hospitality
so remember your home is the Lord's home
for the Lord's servant don't dream or think
that I'm begging for any more hospitality we
have an abundance here at Park of the
Palm and you're certainly feeding us too well
and I was convicted about it yesterday and
I've got to slim much more but what
I'm trying to say is make sure like
Lydia that not only your heart is open
to the Lord but your home is open
to the Lord's servant give your home to
God go in today together with your wife
or your husband kneel on the carpet if
you've never done it before say oh God
we give this carpet and this sideboard and
this dining suite and the whole lot of
home to you to use for your holy
service use it as you will the door
is open for you to come in and
be the head of this house and for
your servants to come in as well when
the good man of the house in Luke
22 opened the door of his home for
the master to come in and occupy that
big upper room do you know who came
in with him all those who were with
the Lord as he opened the door to
the Lord he opened the door incidentally and
purposefully to those who were the Lord's as
well so that was the fellowship in the
gospel on the first day hospitality and you
know it has a very important place to
play in the service of Christ indeed an
elder as well as a deacon in the
local church should be given to hospitality one
of the conditions you see how important this
is to the Lord of course you could
go on and extend the idea your car
of course is the Lord's car it isn't
yours is it you don't keep it for
yourself do you you've given it to God
haven't you you use it for his service
don't you well that's the idea every Christian
should be like this your telephone you don't
just use your telephone for yourself do you
you've given it to the Lord to use
in his service and every power and gift
that you possess inwardly as well as outwardly
you give it to the Lord because you
are the Lord he bought you and he
bought all that you've got with you and
you're all his altogether and therefore I beseech
you brethren and sisters by the mercy of
God present your bodies a living sacrifice holy,
acceptable unto God which is your spiritual mode
of worship and it is your reasonable service
but I think the first translation I gave
is perhaps the more correct one well now
the actual theme in this letter is seen
in the key verse in chapter 1 and
verse 21 for to me to live is
Christ he was talking about the possibility of
him dying and of course eventually you know
he did die in prison and he lost
his life as a martyr and of course
he went into the presence of the Lord
he wasn't afraid of anything like that but
of course it was on his mind from
time to time as if had I been
spared from this prison he says I'm coming
to you Philippians again I want to be
a blessing to you but he says if
I die well it's alright with me that's
gain for me absent from the body present
with the Lord never be afraid of going
to glory beloved heaven's a wonderful place get
taken up with the Saviour and with glory
and you'll never be afraid of passing out
to the great beyond as we call it
because it's the presence the immediate presence of
the Saviour absent from the body present with
the Lord so in this respect the apostle
says for to me to if I've got
to live if I'm going to live then
to me to live is Christ notice he
did not say to me to live is
to do the service of Christ something better
than that he didn't say to me to
live is to have the help of Christ
something better than that he didn't say to
me to live is to know the power
of Christ something better than that he didn't
say to me to live is to have
the victory of Christ something better than that
he says to me to live is Christ
and that's what I was saying last night
or trying to say in my faltering way
last night that the Christian life is Christ
not to have the help of Christ not
particularly to know the guidance of Christ but
Christ himself living his own life through me
says the apostle to the praise and glory
of his own holy name to me to
live is Christ and to die is death
so the theme is Christ is all whether
by life or by death but of course
we mustn't finish this morning without mentioning that
one of the most prominent themes in this
epistle is the theme of joy the word
joy and rejoicing is mentioned many times I
used to know how many I think I've
forgotten but by this time this is written
twelve months after the letter to the Ephesians
you know and by this time he was
really not languishing in prison but rejoicing in
the will of the Lord and even if
he had to face death he was still
rejoicing not in his circumstances as I've seen
the other day but rejoicing in the Lord
and it's a great thing to joy in
the Lord he gives an exhortation about joy
he gives his experience about joy and he
gives his expectation of it as well in
Isaiah 61 the prophet says that he gives,
God gives the oil of joy for mourning
the garment of praise for the spirit of
heaviness and all those who are walking with
the Lord in the light with God and
resting in his perfect will even if it
means prison they find his joy because you
see God is no man's debtor mourning turns
to joy heaviness turns to praise with the
person in the heart of the person who
is accepting the circumstances of life as from
the hand of God my own son Ian
taught me a lesson in this some years
ago he was there in northern France in
a city teaching in a school he was
the only Christian in the city he was
the only Christian in that part of northern
France he couldn't find any more ever such
a long way away and he hadn't got
a car to move around on and so
he had to on a Sunday he had
a morning meeting on his own on the
beach he used to walk up and down
the beach talking to the Lord and then
Sunday evening he had another meeting on his
own with the Lord on the beach and
he was there for months and months and
months with no Christian fellowship and he was
rejoicing in the Lord he was accepting all
these new and perhaps trying experiences as from
the Lord and he wrote us most wonderful
letters in that trying time he had because
his joy was not in his circumstances but
in the Lord and the Lord's presence that
was made known to him do you remember
I was telling you the other day that
in Nehemiah's time God made the people rejoice
with great joy so his exhortation is rejoice
in the Lord now my daughter writing to
me from Glasgow the other day put a
verse of scripture at the bottom of her
letter Habakkuk 3 and verse 18 and it
was because she is very hard up having
just got married spent all her money and
right at the beginning you know they find
it difficult to make ends meet but of
course she is not concerned she is very
very happy and this is the proof of
it though the fig tree shall not blossom
and there shall be no herbs in the
store and this that and the other yet
will I rejoice in the Lord and joy
in the God of my salvation well now
the apostle not only exhorts people to rejoice
in the Lord in chapter 3 and verse
1 and again in chapter 4 and verse
4 but he gives his own experience of
it talking about rejoicing in the Lord there
is a beautiful hymn I don't know whether
it is in this book and if it
is I am not sure whether we know
the tune to it by A.
B.
Simpson Dr. A.
B.
Simpson once it was the blessing now it
is the Lord in this materialistic age I
am quite sure it is important for us
to get away from things to the Lord
himself and be taken up with him and
rejoice in him the apostle speaks of his
experiences of joy in the prayers he made
in chapter 1 and verse 4 in every
prayer of mine for you all making requests
with joy are you joyful in your petitioning
at the throne of grace are you happy
before the Lord you are more likely to
get answers to your prayers if you rejoice
in the Lord when you are asking him
for something and if one of my children
came to me very, very mournfully and miserably
and moaning and groaning and asked me for
sixpence I wouldn't give it to them you
see but if they came bouncing in and
rejoicing and thanking me for what I gave
them last week and how they have been
getting on and expressing real joy in our
fellowship together Dad it is nice to be
with you again what about sixpence he said
shilling for you and he said I make
my requests with joy get happy in the
presence of the Lord and be joyful before
the throne of grace not only in the
prayers he made but in his preaching to
others in chapter 1 and verse 18 I
therein do rejoice yea and will rejoice that
the preaching of others not to others the
preaching of others was going forward while he
was in prison and he found a lot
of joy in that although even some of
them were not doing it correctly insincerely Christ
was preached and this was the burden of
his heart and this made him rejoice before
the Lord and the third his experience third
experience of joy was in the Philippians themselves
chapter 1 and verse 4 shows us an
illustration of this therefore my dearly beloved and
long for my joy and my crown so
stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved
you see how he loved them they were
his joy now and they were his crown
then at the judgment seat of Christ he
was hoping to get the sole winners crown
and reward for leading the Philippians to the
Lord Jesus and finally in speaking about joy
he gives his expectation of it in their
unity in chapter 2 and verse 2 he
says your unity spells my joy fulfill me
my joy that you might be like minded
in their blamelessness in chapter 2 and verse
15 that you may be blameless and harmless
the sons of God that I may rejoice
in the day of Christ that I have
not laboured in vain so as they developed
into blamelessness and spiritual maturity this again would
bring great joy to him and thirdly in
his expectation of it in their witness chapter
2 and verse 16 holding forth the word
of life that I might rejoice in that
always so the joy of the Lord is
your strength and the disciples were filled with
joy and with the Holy Ghost and here
is the Apostle Paul in prison in Rome
writing a letter to the friends he loves
and he is really overflowing with joy not
in his circumstances but in his wonderful Saviour
and he was exhorting them to do the
same may the Lord bless to us his
word let us pray we praise thee for
gathering us together into thy presence this morning
our Father thank you for leading us by
thy Holy Spirit and we pray that thy
Holy Spirit shall always lead us in the
line of thy will so that whatever the
circumstance our joy might be in the Lord
and that we shall find our satisfying portion
in him the Lord is the portion of
my soul therefore hope thou in him Lord
Jesus we turn to thee and ask that
thou would make thyself so real to us
that when we pray we shall rejoice before
thee and when we seek thy guidance we
shall rejoice to go thy way and do
thy will that when we are called upon
to suffer and have a time of testing
we shall similarly be found rejoicing in thee
even while the difficulties still abound knowing that
thou wilt bring us through except of our
thanks for fellowship together around thy word and
for the memory of our dear departed brother
Paul who was so very human and yet
so spiritually mature being able to say for
to me to live is and as we
close we ask that Christ shall be manifest
in our mortal flesh and magnified in our
bodies whether it be by life or by
death for his name's sake Amen