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Skip Heitzig: When Paul swings through town again, Lystra and Derbe, Timothy is from Lystra. He picks up Timothy to go with him on his missionary journey. So he is with Paul in Rome. Paul calls them both servants, douloi, bond slaves of Jesus Christ. That's how Paul viewed himself. To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons.

Remember, I told you that the first convert in Philippi was a woman, the second was the Philippian jailer. But since then, the church has grown to the extent that there are many people, all the saints, as well as leadership in place, bishops and deacons. So the church has experienced great growth. Again, they're wondering what happened to Paul, so Paul writes them a letter to fill them in on what he has been up to from this prison.

But notice the word "saints." I always like to bring this up because I grew up in a system where the only person called a saint was somebody who had been collectively esteemed by the Roman Catholic Church and under the title canonized a saint. You had to prove that you lived an exceptionally holy life, a certain amount of miracles had to be because of your life or because of your ministry, and it had to be attested to by several witnesses. If you can fulfill those criteria, eventually you may be canonized a saint.

Well, you and I will probably never be recognized, elevated, or canonized as such by that arm of Christendom. But don't worry, God has called you a saint. A saint according to the Bible is not a dead guy or a dead gal who is exceptional. A saint is every single believer. You're a saint.

Sometimes you don't feel like you're a saint. I get that. Many times you don't act like you're a saint. I get that. But you are a saint because saint just means called out ones, set apart ones. When God called you and saved you, he dubbed you mine, his. He owns you. Because you're his property, the designation for that is a saint. Saints are living people. They can be dead as well, but not because they're canonized, just because they're not living anymore. But you and I, we are saints.

So to all the saints, all the believers, notice something else. I know I'm going slow, but this is rich stuff. Notice that the believer always has two addresses. To all the saints in Christ, that's the first address, your spiritual address. In Christ Jesus who are in Philippi. That's your earthly address. You and I have dual citizenship. We are citizens of this earth; we are citizens of another realm, another kingdom.

We have a physical address in Albuquerque. We have a spiritual address in Christ Jesus. And we have an eventual address: heaven. We'll read in Philippians 3 it says, "for our citizenship is in heaven." Jesus said, "let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house, there are many mansions or abiding places, places to hang out. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you." There's a place in heaven in the New Jerusalem with your name on it. That's your eventual address. Until then, you have an earthly address, you have a spiritual address, and your eventual address is going to be there.

So dual citizenship, with the bishops and deacons. This is why I feel sorry for the unbeliever because the unbeliever has nothing to live for beyond this address. They're in Albuquerque, and then you die, and it gets worse. No hope. That's why I tell unbelievers who are just recalcitrant against the gospel, "I'm never going to believe, I'm not going to be what you're into and I have my own life." I say, then suck this world like an orange. Get everything you can out of it. Have the best possible time you can because it's the last good time you'll have. You have one address and your next address is not in heaven because you're not in Christ. You need to get in Christ to get in heaven.

So we've covered one verse. After that little introduction, he continues as typical of Paul in most of his letters: Grace to you and peace. The Siamese twins of the New Testament. Grace always precedes peace because you can't know the peace of God until you understand and experience the grace of God. So grace always comes first. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy.

Given what I just told you about Paul's experience in Philippi, does it strike you a little bit odd that he would say, "When I think of you and I think of my experience in Philippi, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you?" He goes to town, doesn't see the guy he's looking for, gets arrested, gets beaten up, gets thrown in jail. He's had a pretty bad experience there. A couple of converts happened, awesome, but really a bad situation.

You might expect a guy who had been beaten up in a town like this to say, "Every time I think of you, I get sick to my stomach. Every time I think of being in Philippi, ugh." But Paul has learned to view his past through a different lens, and you'll see that in these next few verses.

There's an old joke that every time Paul visited a new city, he would always ask, "Could you show me where the jail is, please? I'd like to know where I'm going to be spending the night." Because he often did spend his time in these prisons. He was arrested; he stirred up trouble because of the message he brought. But as I look back, seeing through the lens of love, seeing through the lens of the effect of the gospel, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy.

There's that word. Why? Here it is: for your fellowship or partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Paul was joyful because of what the gospel produced. The gospel produced salvation in the hearts of people, and because it produced salvation, each time somebody was saved, the family grew. The family grew. The gospel was furthered by his experience. So for your fellowship, partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, the first day I came to Philippi up until now. So Paul's joy was directly proportional to the growth of the family business.

The family of God has a business. We have a family business. Our business is the gospel. Our product is the gospel. And so Paul is viewing life through the lens of the gospel. If the gospel is hindered or if the gospel is furthered, if the gospel is furthered, joy. His joy is directly proportional to the growth of the gospel or the growth of the family business. God is in the rescue business. That's what salvation is. He's rescuing people from their past, from their sin, and from their future in hell. God rescues people. God gives them security.

I years ago had a friend who worked for the Billy Graham Association. He was a crusade director and he would travel all around the country getting ready for Dr. Graham coming into town and having crusades. It would be a year or so long kind of planning. So he was on airplanes a lot. Because he was on airplanes a lot, he always got upgraded. One day he was upgraded to first class and he looked over to the seat next to him and he noticed that somebody was sitting next to him that looked very familiar to him. And as he studied him, he thought, that's Tom Cruise, the actor.

So they engaged in a conversation, not much. Famous people don't always like to engage much in conversations like that; I understand why. I've been around a few of them and they just kind of want to be left alone. But this guy was nice about it. And so Tom said, "So what business are you in?" The man said, "I'm in the security business."

And then Tom perked up because famous people always have to have good security teams around them. He said, "Oh, really? Well, tell me about your firm and your business." So he started explaining to him and finally you could see it in his face as Tom Cruise, it dawned on him he's talking about eternal security. He's talking about Jesus here. He's giving me the gospel. But that's what fired Paul up is opportunities to expand the family business, the gospel of Jesus Christ to people.

Guest (Female): You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Everyday, friends like you help bring clear, verse-by-verse Bible teaching to people searching for truth in a world that often feels confused, divided, and uncertain. And this month, we want to thank you with a powerful resource designed for times like these. When you give, you'll receive City in Shambles, Pastor Skip's complete 18-message study through Nehemiah on CD, plus digital download. In these messages, you'll discover how God works in seasons of spiritual and cultural collapse, how prayer and obedience become the starting point for renewal, and how ordinary believers can respond with faith instead of fear. We'll send this resource as our thanks when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com/offer. Now, let's return to today's teaching.

Skip Heitzig: So I have joy when I think of you. I make every request with joy for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Being confident, one of the great verses of this book, being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Aren't you glad God finishes what he starts?

And I say that because I know that some of you feel like an unfinished project. And it's because you are. And I am. And all of our lives are unfinished and will be unfinished until we get to glory. That's when we're finished. That's when the punctuation gets put on our lives. I have in my life at my house several unfinished projects. I am so glad that my God is not like Skip Heitzig.

God has no unfinished projects. What he starts, he finishes. He's the author and the finisher of our faith. And so he begins and he will not—here's the truth of this verse—he will not stop working on you until Jesus comes back, the day of Christ. He's committed to changing and working, and so if you're wondering why I kind of feel I'm tormented a little bit, maybe so. Maybe God is like, I'm not letting you alone. I'm going to work on you. I'm going to shave off those rough edges. I'm in your life now. I'm after you. I want your holiness. I want your maturity.

So being confident of this very thing, he began a good work in you, will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. I've always said that when God saves you, he hangs a sign over your life that says under construction. And the sign is not coming off till you're in heaven. Then the sign comes off, you're in perfection, but until then you're under construction. Just as it is right for me to think this of you all—I get the idea that Paul was Southern because he uses y'all quite a bit—just as it is right for me to think of y'all because I have you both in my heart inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.

It's such a tender statement that he makes toward them. That's why I say this letter has a different tone. It's very tender. It shows the special relationship between the Philippians and Paul, the special place that they had in his heart. And though years had passed and he writes this letter from prison, he's fondly remembering them and thinking of them with love and with joy and with tenderness.

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more. First of all, it'd be pretty awesome to have Paul the apostle pray for you. Wouldn't it be awesome for Paul to show you his prayer list and have your name on it? What an honor. But Paul does this in almost all of his letters. He has a little section at the front where he says, "Here's my prayer request for you." And it's worth studying the prayers of the Bible. It's worth studying the prayers of Paul because Bible prayers and the prayers of the apostle Paul were right to the heart. They weren't extraneous, they weren't superfluous, they were heartfelt and they were to the heart for the most important stuff.

So he prays for them. First, he prays for their love, that their love might abound. Now he acknowledges they already have love. That's the fruit of the spirit. These are saved people. But he prays that their love would abound, that is, overflow still more and more. Now, do you remember what we read when we were in Romans chapter 5? I don't expect you to remember every verse we've covered, but I'll bring it to your mind, you'll go, oh, I know that verse. It says, "for the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts." Remember that verse? The love of God has been shed abroad or poured out in our hearts. And the idea is copiously poured out.

So the love of God has been poured out in our hearts and so he's praying that that love might abound more and more. Now follow my thinking. If the love of God is poured out into our hearts by God, into your heart, it means you have a capacity to love. You have a new capacity to love. You can never have the excuse, oh, I just don't love him anymore, I just don't love her anymore. You have an unlimited capacity to love. The love of God is poured out in our hearts.

So if the love of God is poured into you and God is unlimited in his love toward you, then you should also expect that the love of God should be able to be poured out of you. If it can be poured into you and God is unlimited in his love toward you, then you have a capacity to show unending love whether you think you can or not, whether you feel like it or not, you can. Paul acknowledges that and says, "I know you have love, but I hope it overflows, it abounds more and more."

But notice this: in knowledge and in all discernment. Now before I get to that, let me just share something with you that was a personal experience. I've told some of you about this, but it's been so long I need to remind those of you who didn't know this. But years ago, when Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq—anybody alive at that time? Okay, so when Saddam Hussein was in Iraq, I traveled there when he was the dictator. And I brought with me like 20,000 Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes that you had collected, that we had collected, that got processed through Operation Christmas Child.

And I took them from Jordan across the desert into Iraq. And we stopped at the borders. We brought these trucks with us, all these presents. It took a long time; it was hard to get there to give to the children during that very difficult time when we were at war with them. I met with the Minister of Religious Affairs and a few military generals. We had a meeting together and I was with a team; it wasn't just me. But they made a statement on public Iraqi television that is worth telling you about.

They said, "Up until now, because of your position in the West against us in Iraq, we've always believed that the West," he said "the Christian West, hated us. But by this gesture of giving gifts to our children, out of the blue, undeserved, a gift just poured into our country," he said "we now understand that you Christians love us." Now it was a decision to go there. It wasn't like, oh, I just have this feeling in my heart toward Iraq. It's like God commanded us, let's do this. Let's just show God's love and see what happens. And wow, it made a great impact as that ministry continues today.

So I pray, my first prayer is that your love would abound more and more, but, but in knowledge and discernment. Now here's how I want you to think about this. Think of love as a river flowing. All this water is flowing. If water flows without embankments and goes everywhere, it's called a flood. So think of the left, this is your left right, the left bank of the river as knowledge. That's the left bank: knowledge. The right bank: discernment.

So Paul says, "I want your love to flow and abound and gush out more and more within the confines of knowledge and discernment." You see, love is more than just emotion gushing out. Love, God's love, is responsible love. Now any parent knows this. When I was being raised, my parents would sometimes give me gifts and sometimes they would give me spanks. When they gave me gifts, I knew they loved me. When they spanked me, I thought they didn't love me. But did they? They did love me. They loved me so much they didn't want me to grow up like an idiot and irresponsibly. So they disciplined me.

So love is sometimes expressed in different ways, but it's still love. And so love to be responsible needs the bank of biblical knowledge and discernment, making a difference, distinguishing. So think of love being responsible. Jesus sometimes said, "blessed are you" to people. At other times he would say, "woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." But in both the cases, Jesus was incarnate love speaking. Filled with love. Different expression of love. Love can't just be willy-nilly flooding out emotionally; it has to be confined by knowledge and discernment. That brings balance.

Guest (Female): Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember: your generosity helps share God's Word with people around the world, offering biblical truth and hope in a time when many feel discouraged or overwhelmed. And this month, we'd love to thank you for your gift of $50 or more by sending you City in Shambles, Pastor Skip's complete 18-message study through Nehemiah on CD, plus digital download. These messages will encourage you to respond to brokenness with prayer, repentance, and courageous faith, and remind you that God still rebuilds what's been torn down. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Guest (Male): Ready to go deeper in your faith and discover your calling? The School of Ministry at Calvary Church in Albuquerque is designed to equip you with practical Bible teaching, hands-on ministry training, and real-world experience. Whether you're called to lead, serve, or grow, this is your next step. Classes are forming now. Visit calvarysom.org to learn more and apply today. That's calvarysom.org. The School of Ministry at Calvary Church. Your calling starts here.