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Skip Heitzig: Now we are in one of our favorite books. I know it’s one of your favorite books, right? Am I right? The Book of Joy. We did a series called Technicolor Joy based on this book of Philippians. So, we’re going to look at it the next several weeks, verse by verse. Tonight we have chapter one. No promises of how far we’ll get, but we’re just going to take it one step at a time and see how far we get. Wherever we stop, we stop. When time's up, next time we keep going until we’ve finished the book.

Now, Paul had visited Philippi on his second missionary journey. You know that Paul made three of those, and then his last journey was a journey to Rome, where he is kept in prison from which he writes this letter. On his second missionary journey, he comes to Philippi, but it was never his plan to go to Philippi. I love the saying that some of the Jewish sages have. They say we make plans and God laughs.

Paul had a plan set out for his second missionary journey. He wanted to go visit some of those cities and churches that he established: Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, the area of Phrygia, Galatia. He wanted to go back into those areas, see how the brethren were faring, encourage them, then expand a little more, go in different places. But he had never planned to go to Philippi.

In Acts chapter 16, we get the story that gives us the background to this letter. Paul had gone through the area of Phrygia and then into Galatia, but the text says the Holy Spirit did not permit them to go into Asia, that is ancient Asia Minor, where he wanted to go. He wanted to expand a little bit to the north and northeast and west. The Holy Spirit wouldn’t let him.

Then he went to Mysia and past Mysia down into Bithynia, but the Lord closed the door for Paul in that area. The Holy Spirit wouldn’t permit him to go any further. Now, let’s just imagine you were living during that time and you ran into Paul the Apostle and you recognized him and said, "This is the great Apostle Paul. He wrote 13 at least, maybe 14 of the New Testament Epistles." Of course, they were being written at the time, but you're kind of gob-smacked that you ran into Paul the Apostle.

If you were in seeing Paul, you were to say to him, "Excuse me, Paul, where are you going? What is God’s will for your life?" You might be surprised as Paul looked at you and said, "I don’t know. I have no idea what God’s will is for my life at this point." You’d be startled and you would say, "But wait a minute, you’re Paul the Apostle. You wrote so many books on how to know the will of God. Certainly, you know the will of God for your life."

He would say, "No, I don’t. Sometimes God says go, but this time God said no. And all I know is that God’s ‘no’ is as important as God’s ‘go.’ Sometimes He says go, but sometimes He says no, and he said no. Now I’m waiting for Him to say go, I just don’t know where." So, when he bypasses Mysia and he can’t get into Bithynia, he goes to a port town called Troas.

I’ve been to Troas. It was a long time coming. I’ve always wanted to go there and I’ve taken a few people on that trip to Troas because it was monumental. While he is at this little city of Troas, wondering what is God’s will for my life, "I’ve made these plans, God said no, He has forbidden me to go to these places." He goes to sleep that night and he has a vision of a man from Macedonia saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."

He gets up the next day and he concludes, rightly so, God wants us to go to Macedonia. His teammates go, "Well, how do you know?" "I had a vision last night." "Good enough, let’s go." They set sail and they went over, following the vision of the man from Macedonia and they go to the first principal city of Macedonia, and that is Philippi.

When he gets to Philippi, again, he had not planned to go there but he’s following the vision. No doubt he is expecting to see a man from Macedonia who said come over and help us. He’s looking around, he sees no one, but he knows there’s a prayer meeting down by the river where women, not men, women have gathered together for prayer.

This is noteworthy because in ancient Judaism, you could not form a synagogue in any town unless you had a minimum of 10 Jewish men. That was called a minyan. That little consortium of 10 men enabled you to build a synagogue. But there weren’t 10 Jewish men. There were a few women praying down by the riverside.

He goes down by the river and he talks and shares with them. There was one lady in Philippi by the name of Lydia. She was a seller of purple. She was a businesswoman. The Bible says God opened up her heart to receive the things spoken by Paul. So, it wasn’t a man that he saw. It was a woman who opened her heart and a few women down by the riverside that he spoke to. He’s probably still scratching his head going, "Where’s the guy in the vision?"

But as he is spending more time, more days in that city, there is one girl who keeps following Paul and the team around who is possessed, demon-possessed, possessed with a spirit of divination, Acts 16 says. Interestingly, this girl has the right message. She says of Paul and of his teammates, "These men proclaim to you the way of salvation. These are servants of the Most High God proclaiming to you the way of salvation."

I don't know if she said that in a weird way, maybe she had a nasal voice, or she said it in a mocking tone. Anyway, the Bible says Paul was annoyed with her because she kept showing up every day. "Here’s the servants of the Most High God, listen to the way of salvation." He just got annoyed, cast the demon out of her finally.

The people who owned this slave girl, who were making money from her fortune-telling, her divination, got so incensed. He brought charges against Paul and Silas and the rest of the group. Paul gets arrested and taken to jail in Philippi. Keep in mind, he didn't know where to go, he gets a vision "come to Macedonia, help us," didn't see a guy, sees a woman, gets arrested falsely, beat up, thrown in jail. Things are going from bad to worse.

But at midnight, Paul sings praises to God. As he's singing praises to God and the jailer, the Philippian jailer, is hearing this, at midnight after their singing, an earthquake happened to come through Philippi and break the chains of the prisoners and the prison doors also were shaken and opened.

The Philippian jailer pulls out a sword from his sheath. Paul hears the sound of the sword leaving the sheath. He knows the guy's about to off himself, kill himself. Paul says, "Do yourself no harm, we're here. We haven't left." The jailer runs in and says, "What must I do to be saved?"

Paul leads him to the Lord. The woman named Lydia is converted. Now the Philippian jailer is converted, and perhaps he saw the Philippian jailer in the vision, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." Don't know. But this guy gets saved and a church gets established in Philippi. Paul never planned to go there. The Holy Spirit forbade him to go a few different places. He ends up in Philippi. She gets converted, he gets converted. Time goes on, he leaves town.

Time goes by and the Philippians wonder what ever happened to Paul. What happened to Paul is that Paul gets arrested at the end of his third missionary journey. He is on the way back to Jerusalem. On the way back to Jerusalem, everybody’s warning him, "Don’t go. Don’t go to Jerusalem. They’re going to beat you up, they’re going to arrest you, they’ll probably kill you."

Paul says, "None of these things move me. I don’t even count my life dear to myself. I just want to finish my course with joy. I’m going to die sometime, maybe now." He goes back to Jerusalem, sure enough, false charges get brought against Paul by the Jews. The accusation is that he brought an Ephesian named Trophimus into the temple, which he did not, that he violated the barricade of Gentiles getting too close to the holy place.

Paul did not, but he was accused of that. He was arrested and then he was taken to Caesarea and placed in confinement for two years. He stood trial before a governor named Felix, a governor named Festus, and a king named King Herod Agrippa.

Guest (Female): You’re listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Every day, 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: He knows he’s getting the run-around. He knows that the trial is stacked against him. He knows it’s not fair, that it's law-fare being used against him just to get him to shut up. Finally, when they bring him for trial one day in Caesarea, because he was also a Roman citizen and had the right of appeal, he said, "I appeal my case to Caesar."

Agrippa said, "I find no charge against this man that is sustainable. I probably would have let him go, but he appealed to Caesar. That’s his right, so to Caesar he will go." After two years in Caesarea, he makes his way to Rome to stand trial before Caesar Nero. During that time in Rome, while he is incarcerated for two years in Rome under house arrest, being chained to the Praetorian guard, he writes this letter.

In fact, he writes four letters in the same cell: the Book of Ephesians or the letter to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. I have to say, at Paul’s expense, I’m awfully glad he got arrested and thrown in jail because without that experience, we probably wouldn’t have the letter to Ephesians or Philippians or Colossians or Philemon.

I know nobody plans to go to prison. That’s not in anybody’s career path. But by the will of God, it was God’s will for him to go to Philippi, to have happen what happened to start that church with Lydia, the Philippian jailer, and then later on to get arrested and writes this letter to the Philippian church.

Something about the book of Philippians that is very refreshing is the tone of the letter. What word appears a lot in this letter? Joy. It’s the epistle of joy. Isn’t it ironic that it’s written by a prisoner in prison? He doesn't know if he's going to live or die at his trial. He mentions that in chapter one, if we ever get to it.

And yet, not knowing if he's going to live or die as a prisoner incarcerated in shackles, 16 times in this letter he mentions joy, rejoicing. It’s the kind of letter that if you are bummed out, if you are struggling, if you feel incarcerated by your circumstances, and you keep in mind who wrote it and what the circumstances were that drove him to write it and you read this letter, you’ll be lifted up. You’ll be encouraged by it.

The letter is different from many of the other letters of Paul in that there’s no doctrinal correction. This letter is not a polemic. He’s not writing against false teachers or false doctrine like in the book of Galatians. That's very heavy against a legalism that has settled in. It is not a letter that corrects behavior like in 1 Corinthians.

It is a love letter to this group, a very affectionate tone and a very joyful tone. He’s expressing his personal affection. The only note of correction is really a mild correction we'll read in a few chapters, an argument between two gals in this church. You'll read about it. Their names are Euodia and Syntyche. Those are ancient ladies' names, and they were having a spat, they were having an argument, and Paul just kind of addresses that and says tell them to get along. Knock it off. Be of the same mind and the same spirit.

But that’s really the only negative thing that is written in this letter. But now we're in chapter one verse one, after that lengthy introduction. Thank you for indulging. Paul and Timothy. So, Timothy is with Paul there, also Epaphroditus is with Paul, and we believe Tychicus is with Paul in Rome, all with him while he is incarcerated in Rome under house arrest for two years. He has a little entourage, but he writes this: "Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and the deacons."

The author is Paul, principally Paul. It says Paul and Timothy, but it’s from the pen of Paul the Apostle. Now, it’s the letter of joy. 16 times joy is mentioned. Yet joy is not the emotion you would have associated with Paul the Apostle in his previous life. When he was Saul of Tarsus and you read about Saul of Tarsus, the word joy doesn't spring to your mind when you read about the biography of Saul of Tarsus. Legalistic does, angry does, violence does, but not joyful.

What changed, of course, is his conversion on the Damascus Road. He gets knocked off of his horse. You know the story. At that moment, joy began to grow in his heart because Jesus came into his heart. That seed of the gospel that brought salvation brought a sense of contentedness and joy and purpose in Paul’s life.

I love what E. Stanley Jones used to say. He said, "The day I met Jesus Christ, it was as though I swallowed sunshine." Great description of the joy that is part of the Christian life. Joy would not be something you would associate with Saul of Tarsus, but as Paul the Apostle, the way he viewed his life after that conversion, he was filled with joy.

Second name here is Timothy. Now, Timothy met Paul on Paul’s second missionary journey. Paul had met Timothy’s mother and grandmother on the first missionary journey. Timothy’s grandmother was named Lois, Timothy’s mom was named Eunice. They were Jewish gals. Timothy was the son of a mixed marriage. His dad was an unbelieving Greek.

But his mother and grandmother were Jewish ladies who raised him in Judaism, but they got converted during Paul’s first missionary journey. Probably in seeing him and being influenced by him, Timothy came to faith in Christ under the tutelage and the preaching of mom and grandma. Paul mentions that, the sincere faith that first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. That’s 2 Timothy chapter one.

So, when Paul swings through town again, Lystra and Derbe, he’s from Lystra, Timothy is, 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, bondslaves 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.

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. And when you fulfill those criteria, eventually you may be canonized a saint.

Well, you and I will probably never be recognized, elevated, nor 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. And when God called you and saved you, He dubbed you Mine, His. He owns you. And 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, that’s your spiritual address. "In Christ Jesus who are in Philippi." That’s your earthly address.

You and I, we 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.

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.

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