A Deep Love and a Wide Focus: Embracing Every Believer

Today, we're talking about having a deep love and a wide focus.

A deep love and a wide focus. At the last here in the book of Philippians,

Paul comes to the final greetings that he's going to extend from him and the

believers in Rome, actually, to the believers where?

Y'all got to pass this test. Where are these believers?

Philippi, right? This is a warm expression of his affection,

by the way, for the saints in both locations. And the first greeting we see

here this morning that we read earlier from Paul to the Philippians,

look at verse 21 of Ephesians, I mean of Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Philippians 4 verse 21, what does he say there? Greet every saint in who?

Philippians 4:21

Christ Jesus. Paul means to express his love for all the believers in Philippi.

When he writes greet every saint, he means far more than merely saying hello

on his behalf, right? The idea here in Scripture conveyed is to communicate

the warmth of his affection for the Philippians.

He means to extend to them his fervent love for them.

And as this letter is read, Paul wants them to know his deep love for these

brothers and sisters in Christ.

This greeting is extended to every saint.

And that word every stresses there.

Every saint in Christ Jesus stresses that each individual believer in the church,

because if he had just used the word all, it would have emphasized basically

the church corporately, right, as one large group. I love you all, right?

But by saying every here, as Paul did, he's underscoring just how much he individually

loves every member in this church.

Wow. I mean, we discussed this earlier, but saint, that hagios in Greek,

is one who has been genuinely regenerated by the Holy Spirit and is set apart

from a life of sin unto God to live in holiness. That's what a saint is.

And that is what the word saint means, right? Every saint enjoys a fixed,

permanent position in who?

In Christ, every Christian has a vital union with Christ.

Without exception, every believer enjoys communion and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Paul here, he serves as a pattern for our Christian lives.

We should be open-hearted, right, toward one another, showing the love of God

to others with whom we share fellowship. Amen?

Even if we're shy, we got any shy people here today?

Now, I got to ask y'all, how many of y'all, now those that know me,

some of you don't, you don't really know, but how many of you think that I'm shy? Raise your hand.

But I want y'all to know something. I really am shy at nature.

Right. Some of y'all are laughing, okay? But I really am. In fact,

I mean, even in high school years, I was shy.

I think it was my senior year before I really kind of broke out of the shell, so to speak.

But I still kind of have that shy nature. But even if we're shy,

even if we're introverted and tend to withdraw to ourselves at times,

we got to be directed by the Holy Spirit into the lives of other people.

But I want you all to see that today, to greet and embrace them in Christ.

Equally, if we're independent by nature, how many of we got some independent souls out there?

I mean, it's like, I got it. I got this, right? I don't need you, right?

Or don't tend to need other people, or so we think, right?

But even if you're independent by nature, we got to seek others to love.

We must extend warm expressions of the love of God to other believers.

And any coldness on the part of a saint was virtually unknown to first century Christianity.

It should be the same in our churches today. Amen.

I mean, we must be affectionate towards one another if we are to advance the

gospel. How many of you believe that? Amen.

I would say it this way. An affectionate Christianity is an effective Christianity.

I mean, the love of God flowing from us to other believers and then back around, right?

And here we see, we come to not only this deep love and wide focus,

but now we see greetings from Rome.

Greetings from Rome on this next slide. Paul extends a second greeting in verse 21.

Y'all go ahead and advance the slide there. Verse 21, he talks about this,

the brethren who are with me greet you.

The brethren who are with me greet you. And that serves to underscore how important

greeting other Christians is.

Though a prisoner in Rome, y'all think about where Paul is again.

He's in a Roman cell. He's under house arrest.

Paul was allowed to receive visitors into the house where he was detained, by the way.

And as these people came to Paul, they brought reports of the churches.

Paul would actually write his four, get this, four prison epistles at this time.

Anybody know what they were too?

Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.

And these letters would be taken back to churches or an individual expressing

greetings from those who were around him.

And Paul was sending this greeting. I want y'all to see this today as we wrap

up this book with Timothy, who was in prison with him. We learned about that back in chapter 2.

Epaphroditus was also there visiting in chapter 2, verses 25 through 30.

But Paul's affectionate love

for the Philippians undoubtedly had a stimulating effect upon these men.

Other passages indicate that, here's a good name for you, Tychicus,

that could be your next child's name, right?

Who was the bearer of the letters of Ephesians and Colossians.

He talks about in Colossians chapter four was with Paul.

Philemon may well have been there also.

Onesimus, the runaway slave, if you remember, who was the subject of Paul's letter to Philemon,

was also there, Colossians 4 verse nine tells us, as was Aristarchus,

another longtime companion of the gospel, and Mark, who wrote the gospel of Mark.

So in addition, Paul was joined by a man actually there, we learn in Colossians 4, named Jesus.

There was a dude there named Jesus as well, and Luke, who wrote the gospel of Luke.

And there's as many as eight people, y'all, who were with the apostle in his imprisonment.

Whether they are all there at one time, we don't know for sure,

but Paul expresses greeting from those who are with him here.

So get this, there is a solidarity in each of their hearts.

Toward the Philippians, towards these other believers back in Philippi.

They want to be included in this greeting. They don't want to be left out.

And as Paul writes this final greeting with his own hand, by the way,

we can imagine that he is looking around the room and these other men are affirming, they're nodding.

And they're like, they're nodding their heads in agreement. There may even be

some emotion in their voices as they salute the Philippians.

They want them to know how much they love them. This is a house,

if you will, of towering theology.

Of these men of God. And at the very same time, guess what? It's a circle of

tender love in who? In Christ.

It's because of the overflow of their positive fellowship with one another that

they make this expression of love, y'all, to this far distant church that is

so close to their hearts.

Anybody remember how far away the church is approximately?

Huh? Well, that's a good guess, about 800 miles.

And as Paul writes his third greeting, the circle is expanded from Paul to the

eight men who are around him, like I said, to believers who are in Rome.

Y'all see the circle getting bigger? They too express their greeting through this letter of Paul's.

Look at what he says in verse 22, chapter 4, 22 of Philippians.

All the saints greet you.

The reference is to the believers in Rome, some of whom have had personal contact

with him in his house arrest.

Think about this, y'all. Remember I told y'all Paul wanted to go to Rome to

preach the gospel and he just hadn't been able to do it.

He hadn't been able to get there. How did God get him there?

Arrested in prison, right? Now he's preaching the gospel, just not like he thought, right?

But he's there. And many of the people he's contacted have come to faith in

Christ, had contact with.

Paul speaking on their behalf, you know, he communicates their greetings.

And what a wonderful unity of Christ's love.

What a wonderful unity of Christian love and fellowship this is right here that we see.

See, because today, think about it. Who are all of these saints in Rome?

In Romans 16, we can note who some of them are.

What's amazing is the fact that as Paul wrote Romans, he had never been to Rome.

It would be the one thing, it would be one thing if he knew all these names

after having been there, but he's not traveled there at the time he wrote the

letter to the saints in Rome.

And that testifies how much Paul was attuned to individual people.

Paul had never met the people in Romans 16, but it was as though he had lived

and pastored in Rome itself as well.

I hope you're beginning to see this love, this close-knit fellowship.

Paul wrote the letter to the Romans some three to four years before he wrote

the letter to the Philippians.

Its recipients were people in Rome who had already converted to Christ even

before Paul later arrived in his imprisonment, right?

And this is an indication, again, church, of how in touch Paul was with individual

churches in Europe and Asia, Asia Minor.

Paul not only kept up with the

problems of those churches, but with the individual people within them.

Y'all, you're talking about love. You're talking about fellowship, right?

He devoted an entire chapter in his most theological treaties,

the Book of Romans, to cataloging the names, just the names of these people

and extending greetings to them. That's how much he thought of them.

And three to four years later, Paul arrived in Rome as a what?

Prisoner, right? And likely he would have met those he had written to and named.

It's reasonable actually to assume that those names mentioned in Romans chapter

Romans 16 · chapter mention

16 are included among these saints right now that we're looking at here at the

end of Philippians who are expressing their love to the believers in Philippi.

Well, that leads us to this next slide. The king's people in the emperor's house.

A fourth and final greeting. Let's look at this as we come to an end today.

Philippians chapter 4, verse 22 again.

Philippians 4:22

He says, especially those of whose household?

Caesar's household. This is a highly unlikely church group of people who have converted to Christ.

Those who serve, get it, do you see it? In Caesar's household,

even in the inner recesses of the Roman Empire here, the word of God is continuing to advance.

Y'all, that's a good reminder to us. When we get discouraged at times and we

don't think, hey, is God, is his word getting out there?

Are people hearing it? I mean, is his word making a difference? Yes, God is working.

He is working. Even when we can't always see every avenue.

These were men and women who served Caesar, get this today, don't lose this,

in the royal palace in Rome.

And that represented a significant number of people, by the way,

that extended beyond Caesar's own family. guess what else?

It included slaves, cooks, food tasters.

That sounds like a good job, food taster, right?

Musicians, custodians, builders, stablemen, accountants, soldiers,

guards, judges, messengers, and heralds.

It was a large contingent that found themselves in close proximity to Caesar.

They served his needs. They kept up with his business, in other words.

Many of those workers had come to faith in Jesus Christ. Amen. Hallelujah.

God's spirit, his Holy Spirit's moving, making an impact.

Paul led some, actually some of the praetorian guards assigned to guard him

in this imprisonment to Christ.

They in turn carried the gospel back into the palace.

Wow. The impact that God has made through all these believers' lives,

including Paul's, There's no doubt intended, this is no doubt intended to be

an encouragement to the church in Philippi.

There are the saints in Caesar's household who send their greetings.

That shows the power, y'all, of the gospel to reach into the Roman Empire,

even into Caesar's own palace.

This explosive power, dynamite, right?

The explosive power is still inherent in the gospel even today.

I want to know that there is power in the gospel.

I'm telling you, these new believers in Caesar's household, guess what they

are? They're trophies of God's saving grace.

Nobody's too far gone, y'all. God can reach out and he can save you.

He can forgive you of your sin. He can restore you into the right relationship with him.

I want you to know, even the loftiest of kings, even those who we think sometimes,

man, there's no hope for that person, right? Or we think God specializes in those people.

Let me just tell you, he wants to show them off as trophies of his grace, trophies of his grace.

And so they're in Caesar's household, and yet they're a part of a much larger

household now, aren't they? The household of faith.

How many of you are thankful to be a part of the household of faith?

I'm just telling you, they serve in Caesar's palace, but yet they have access

to a much greater throne above.

They're in Rome, but they have brothers and sisters in Christ all over, y'all, the known world.

No doubt they've heard about the Philippians through their contact with Paul,

and they must have urged Paul to communicate to the Philippians their greetings to.

They're in this together with the rest of the body of Christ.

This is what we're to take from verses 21 and 22.

These verses, y'all, are not incidental, but they remind us that whoever and

wherever we are, Whoever we're with, wherever we are, if we are in Christ, guess what?

We are in the family of God together. Amen?

You may travel anywhere in this world. How many of you travel a lot?

Anybody, we have any travelers, whether it's with job or just for fun?

You may travel all over this world, far away from your earthly family,

but you're never far from your heavenly family.

This is the bond that we're talking about here. And I just got to close with

this part. This is all of grace. This is our last line, all of grace.

Paul concludes his letter with this request to God on their behalf.

Look quickly at verse 23.

What does he say? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Wow. Paul's now come full circle, hadn't he?

He began this letter by wishing the Philippians grace in chapter 1,

verse 2, and he concludes it the same way, doesn't he? Grace.

Karis, in Greek, is unmerited, undeserved favor in the lives of God's people.

It's the wellspring, Eastwood, and the heartbeat of Christian life.

The believers in Philippi had already received saving grace at the time of their regeneration,

but Paul here, he nevertheless desires that they know more of this sanctifying

grace in their Christian walk day to day, which is going to enable them,

enable us too, to live in a manner that glorifies who?

God Almighty, and to do it with joy.

See, this work of preserving, saving grace here will continue into eternity,

y'all, into their future glorification.

Paul wants them to experience it more fully in their spirits in this life as well.

Think about it for a moment. this marvelous, joy-filled, Christian-exalting,

Christ-exalting, I should say, letter now ends as it began with an emphasis upon what?

The grace of God being even more fully bestowed upon his people.

You see, from the new birth church to the new heavens and the new earth,

The Christian life, I want y'all to know today, is entirely one of grace.

Start to finish, Eastwood, it's all grace.

Rejoice, amen? Rejoice in the grace of God today.

Be thankful about what God has done for you. Be thankful of how he has saved

your soul, how he has set you free from death and hell, how he has delivered you.

Be thankful for what God has done in your life. love one another as Paul challenges

here and as he expresses here.

Remember, affectionate Christianity is an effective Christianity.

We all need that love. We all need encouragement.

We all need to be thankful. We all need to have gratitude for God's saving grace,

but also for the people that he's placed in our lives. Amen.

For the blessings that he's bestowed to us, because none of us are worthy of it, undeserving.

But God is good, and he is good all the time, as we like to say. Amen.

I want to just invite you for a moment. With heads bowed and eyes closed,

I want you to stand just for a moment.

And I want you to think about what's been shared today. We talked a lot about

an affectionate Christianity as we close out the book of Philippians.

We talked a little bit about how we ought to love each other,

have that kind of love, that affectionate love in Christ.

And today, as God's Spirit moves in this place, I want to ask you just simply,

not prolonging the time, but just simply asking, do you know this grace today?

Do you know the forgiveness of your sin?

I promise you today, if you don't know the Lord, He has extended His grace and mercy to you.

You just got to humble yourself at the foot of His cross and say,

Lord, I'm a sinner in need of a Savior.

Lord, please forgive me. Lord, I trust in what You've done for me on the cross.

Lord, I trust in your sacrifice for my sin.

Lord, I trust in you alone to accomplish my salvation.

And you know, it didn't stay there on the cross. He died and he rose again to

secure our salvation. He defeated death, hell, and the grave.

When you believe in your heart, confess with your mouth that God is raising

from the grave as well, right?

And I promise you, when you do that, when you just simply let your heart be

open to God to say, Lord, forgive me, a sinner.

Change my life, Lord. I promise you, God is going to meet you where you are.

He's going to do a new thing in you. He's going to make you a brand new creation.

If that's some of you today, I encourage you, even right where you are today,

to surrender to the Holy Spirit today.

Surrender to his wooing of your heart.

Repent of your sin. That just means you turn away from him. You turn to God.

Cast all your cares on him. Ask for his forgiveness. Ask for his cleansing.

I promise you God is there to forgive you. And there may be some here today

that are thinking about all this affectionate Christianity.

Maybe today you just need to

pray, Lord, help me. Lord, help me to be an instrument of your love, Lord.

Help me to be affectionate towards other believers, letting them know that I

love them, that I care for them the way Paul did these believers in Philippi.

Just whatever God has for you, you pray, Lord, do what you want to do in my heart.

Father God, even now, I pray as you move in our midst, Lord,

that God will surrender to what you have for us. In Jesus' name.