Philippians 1:1-11 (ESV)
1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
This section of text is the beginning of a letter Paul wrote while in prison to a group of believers in Philippi. He is writing to them to encourage them in their faith and to thank them for their support of him. N. T. Wright, in his book Paul for Everyone, notes that he’s writing to this church to thank them for sending him money. He also notes that, at that time, prisoners were not given food while in prison. It was up to friends and family of prisoners to provide food for them. That is part of why Paul writes to them with such love and joy. It was not a small thing for the Philippian Christians to get the money to him while he was imprisoned in Ephesus, given their location in Northern Greece.
To add to that point, I think the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:6, when He describes the difference between the sheep and the goats, illustrates the seriousness of the situation for prisoners during Paul’s time. He says, “I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Then He tells those who did not visit the sick or imprisoned to depart from Him. These words of Jesus become more understandable when we realize that by not visiting someone while they were sick or in prison meant those people could die from lack of food and care. So, Paul is very thankful to these fellow Christians who, all the way from Philippi, are taking care of him while he’s in prison.
Like last week’s sermon, this week’s text also contains a verse that many people find hard to understand. Verse six says, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Reading this verse in context one more time, it says, starting in verse 3 and continuing through verse 6, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Some translations, like the NASB, say, “He who began a good work among you will complete it.” That small change makes a huge difference in understanding this verse. By switching the preposition from ‘in’ to ‘among,’ it makes it seem like the work God is doing is a collective work among the believers instead of an individual work within each believer. This verse is a good example of why, when studying the Bible, it is good to read multiple translations, and also to consult a Greek or Hebrew text to see what wording is most accurate. In this instance, I think the NASB has translated it incorrectly, and it is more accurate to say, “He who began a good work in you.”
Paul is saying that he is confident that God will be faithful to complete the work He started in these Christians. God will finish His work in them and “will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” That means that God will keep working until either a Christian dies or Jesus returns, whichever’s first, but God will complete His work, for God finishes what He starts. He is a finisher. He does not get distracted and lose interest. He does not abandon a project and switch gears. He is faithful. He sees things through to the end. I think it’s important to really make note of this, for so many people do not finish what they start. I’ve read online from multiple sources that only 3% of people who begin writing a novel finish it. That means 97% of people do not finish. Equally staggering statistics are out there, too, telling about how only 70% of people finish college. God, being not like people, always finishes His work. He can be counted on. And in the life of believers, God is faithful to finish the work He begins, and He does this through the power of the Holy Spirit, working within these believers.
In Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers, he explains, “The ground of St. Paul’s confidence in their perseverance is the belief that it was God’s grace which began the good work in them, and that, not being resisted (as was obvious by their enthusiasm for good), He would complete what He had begun. In his view, God’s grace is the beginning and the end; man’s co-operation lies in the intermediate process linking both together.”
That means that God does not do this all on His own, neither do these believers do this on their own. Verse 5 tells us this is a cooperative effort. It says, “because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” The NASB clarifies by saying, “in view of your participation in the gospel.” This means that this work that God is doing is a joint effort of cooperation with the Holy Spirit on the believer’s part.
Ellicott’s Commentary noted that this co-operation is made still plainer in Philippians 2:12-13 which says, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
We also see this cooperation mentioned in other places in Scripture. Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” We are to imitate Jesus. God cannot make us do this without us being willing. We must make an effort. The rest of Ephesians 5 gives specific ways to be like Jesus. One example is Ephesians 5:18, which says, “do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” That is our choice. We must choose to live according to God’s ways. It is definitely cooperative on our part whether or not we try to live like Jesus did.
Also, in Philippians 2:3-5, we are instructed to be so filled with the Spirit of God that we have the mind of Christ and behave like He modeled for us — living unselfishly and humbly. It says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”
And also Romans 12:2, which says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” That speaks to responsibility on the believer’s part. We must do the things that will renew our mind. We must not be conformed to this world and follow the path the world takes. None of that is passive on our end.
All of those verses are showing us how we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in participating in the gospel. God does not leave us alone to make the right choices and follow Him. Philippians is telling us that God is at work in us to urge us to follow Him. Paul doesn’t mention the Holy Spirit in this chapter, but he does mention Him in Philippians 2:1. He says, “participation in the Spirit.” We know from that verse and from many other verses in Scripture that it is the Holy Spirit Who completes this work inside of us. God starts this work within each believer once a person is born again. Our goal as believers is to let the Holy Spirit fill us so fully that He transforms us more and more each day into better reflections of the God who dwells inside us. The good news is, God promises to do this exact thing if we allow Him to do this. He will be faithful in doing this work inside of us, molding us more and more into His image. This is why Paul has confidence in these believers. He knows that God will be faithful, and he has confidence that these believers will not fall away and abandon their faith. He is confident that they will continue to follow God’s leading. We, too, can trust that as we follow Him and respond in faith to His word, He will be faithful to transform us more and more into His image, and this work will be complete in us, when either we die or Jesus comes back.
We see in the rest of the verses exactly how God, through the Holy Spirit, is going to accomplish His task of completing this work. But first, what is the work He wants to complete? The work that is being alluded to rather cryptically in verse 6 is simply a work of grace. These next verses tell us. Verse 7 says, “It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” All believers are partakers of grace, and God will continue working this grace in us until He has completed this work of grace. In order to understand this, we must first define grace. I’ve stated this definition before, but that is because I think it’s a good one. Grace is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. In other words, grace is all that He gives to us through Jesus’ death on the cross: forgiveness, mercy, love, and as verse 11 states, all of the “fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.”
So Paul is telling these believers that he is confident that God is going to complete this work of grace inside of each of them. And then Paul describes what that work entails. In verse 8-11, he writes, “For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
We see in those four verses that God wants the believers to grow in three different ways. The first prayer for them is that their “love may abound more and more.” When we first come to faith in God, we realize all that Christ has done for us by dying on the cross. Ephesians 2:8 tells us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” God has freely given us salvation. He has forgiven and redeemed us by grace. We do not deserve this gift. That realization of learning that God loves us so much that He would die for us causes us to love Him in return. Our response to this gift of grace should be a response of gratitude and love.
This church in Philippi had already responded to this grace by showing Paul such great love by supporting him while in prison. Paul is praying that the believers’ love for God will grow even stronger. And not only their love for God, but their love for one another. As we grow in grace, we will grow in love. Having received this gift of grace from God, we then are to extend grace to others around us as well by loving people the way that God has loved us. This is the foundational work that God, by His Holy Spirit, is working to complete within each of us believers. As we read in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Second, Paul prays that the believers will grow in knowledge and discernment. I can see why some scholars think Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, for so much of what Hebrews discusses echoes this same idea. In Hebrews 5:12-14 it says, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
This growth in knowledge and discernment is not simply so they can be smarter, it serves a purpose. It is so they “may approve what is excellent.” It is so they can discern between good and evil. We, too, in order to know what is ‘evil,’ must know what is ‘good’ according to God’s standard. We have to study God’s word and find out what His Word says so we can make the right choices and live according to God’s moral standard. Then we can “approve what is excellent.” By approving what is excellent, we can determine what is not excellent and what we should avoid, which helps us to be “pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” For once we know and discern what is excellent, then we must act accordingly. As we grow in grace, we will be increasingly transformed to reflect more of the character and likeness of Christ Jesus. By the working of the Holy Spirit within us, He molds us to be more sensitive to sin, renewing our minds so we will recognize evil and avoid it. Ephesians 4:17-24 tells us, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
This leads us to the third thing that Paul prays for the believers: that they will be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” This final prayer petition is the key to how this good work which God is faithful to complete in us comes about. N. T. Wright says that Paul “prays that they may be filled to overflowing with the fruit of right living. The word for ‘right living’ is another of Paul’s big words. It’s often translated ‘righteousness’, though that’s not always a helpful word. It sometimes means God’s own faithfulness, and sometimes the status of ‘membership in God’s family’ […] Here it emphasizes more the behavior which results from God’s faithfulness and the status of being forgiven family members.”
God is working inside of us to fill us with the fruit of righteousness. God is building up inside of us the results of the cumulative acts of right living we do. As we grow in grace, we will produce love, knowledge and discernment, and the fruit of righteousness. Will we do this perfectly? Will we truly “be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness” as Paul states? Not on our own. That is why Paul adds the most important phrase at the end. He says, “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
We will be pure and blameless only through the righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. Going back to what I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, we can’t accomplish this task on our own. We will fail, for we cannot be perfect, but Jesus offers us forgiveness and cleansing.
At the same time, we cannot be passive. We are wrong if we think we can live the way the world lives; selfish and unloving, embracing sin and evil because God’s grace will cover us without our repentance. We must participate in this grace He freely offers us. But if we cooperate, then He indeed will be faithful to complete this work He has started. Romans 6:20-24 explains, “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Before we became believers, we were not slaves of righteousness; we were slaves to sin. Once we are born again, we begin to grow the fruit of righteousness. The fruit of sin is death. The fruit of righteousness is eternal life. When we live according to God’s leading, following His Word, cooperating with the Holy Spirit, then the fruit of that right living leads us to sanctification, as Paul says in that passage. Sanctification is a big word that simply means “making holy.” So, the fruit of right living makes us holy. Paul is telling the Philippians that God will be faithful to complete this work of transformative grace inside them, making them holy. This is the work of grace: forgiveness and freedom from sin, the ability to live righteously, and eternal life with God.
All of this is the reason we rejoice and give thanks to God. For He deserves all the glory and praise, for it is He who completes this work inside of us. He is able to present us blameless when Christ returns. All we have to do is cooperate with the Holy Spirit. As 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 proclaims, “thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.”
Prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank You for guiding us by Your Holy Spirit. Thank You for leading us along the path of righteousness. Help us to follow You so we can grow the fruit of right living. Thank You for forgiving us when we make mistakes. Please change us more and more to better reflect the love of Jesus inside us, and it is in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
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