When you were in elementary school, can you remember being taught how to write a letter to someone? The greeting has changed over the years, hasn’t it? There is the standard greeting: “Dear Tom. How are you?” Nowadays it’s becoming more casual and upbeat, such as, “Hi Tom. What’s with you?”, or “Hey, Tom. What’s new?” Then there are the business letters. Have you ever received a letter that begins with the words: “To Whom It May Concern”, or “Dear Sir or Madame?” Are those the letters you don’t read but immediately toss in the trash? After all these years, I still remember the four parts to a letter. There is the salutation, the body, the closing, and the signature. The apostle Paul is writing a letter to the church at Philippi and his letter begins with a salutation or a greeting. Today we are going to be taking a closer look at Paul’s salutation. There is a lot to be learned from these first two verses of Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi.
Notice that Paul begins his letter by saying, “Paul and Timothy.” Is Timothy a prisoner at Rome along with the apostle Paul? No, but Timothy was with Paul when Paul first came to Philippi, and he helped Paul start the church there. Timothy may also have been Paul’s amanuensis. How’s that for a word? The word literally means, “A servant from the hand.” In Paul’s day, this was a servant you would summon if you wanted your spoken words written down word for word. We might use the words “scribe”, “secretary,” or “stenographer” today. Timothy must have gladly offered to write down the words of Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi as Paul dictated those words to him. We also know, from Acts 19 and 20, that Timothy visited this church at least twice before Paul wrote this letter.
In verse 1, Paul refers to himself and Timothy as “bondservants of Jesus Christ.” Exodus 21:5-6 beautifully illustrates this relationship of a servant’s total and loving submission to his master. This is what it says: “But if the slave says, ‘I love my master, my wife and children; I will not go out as a free man,’ then his master shall bring him to God; then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him permanently.” The Greek word that is used here is the word doulos. A doulos is a slave for life. Paul is saying that Jesus Christ bought him and Timothy at an infinite price. They owe Him their absolute obedience and they are glad to do so . They count it an honor and a privilege to call themselves bondservants of Jesus Christ. Their lives are permanently surrendered to Christ and devoted to Christ for His use and His glory.
You may have heard the song: “He paid a debt He did not owe, I owe a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away.” You may not like the idea of being enslaved to anyone or anything. But the fact is, you are enslaved to someone or something. Bob Dylan wrote a song back in 1979. Can you remember that far back? Those memories may be a little fuzzy by now. I didn’t remember the song until I looked it up and listened to it. The song is entitled “Gotta Serve Somebody.” Here is the first stanza and the refrain:
You may be an ambassador to England or France.
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance..
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world.
You might be a socialite with a long string of pea
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed.
You’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Well, it may be the devil or it jay be the Lord,
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
There’s a lot of truth to that song, isn’t there? The question that you and I need to ask, ourselves is, “Who am I serving?”
II. THE ADDRESSEES (verse 1b)
After identifying himself and Timothy, the apostle Paul now identifies the recipients of his letter. He says: “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons.: He calls them saints. What is a saint? If the members of the church at Philippi are saints, does that mean we are saints also?
The well-known Bible teacher and seminary professor, Harry Ironside, was travelling by train from the west coast to Chicago and was seated next to a group of nuns. They liked him because of his kindness and his interesting insights on the Bible. One day, Dr. Ironside began a discussion by asking the nuns if they had ever seen a saint. None of them had. He then asked if they would like to see a saint. They all said, yes, they would like to see one. Then Ironside surprised them by saying, “I am a saint. I am Saint Harry.” He then took them to verses in the Bible, such as Philippians 1, to show that every Christian is a saint. The word “saint” means one who is “set apart” for God’s use. God is the one who has set us apart, right? And He did so the moment we gave our lives to Him. We are also told that the church in Philippi is organized. They have both elders and deacons.
III. THE GREETING (verse 2)
Then Paul gives his usual greeting in verse 2 when he says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Sometimes we tend to forget the greatness of God’s grace and the reasons for His grace. After the communists took control of mainland China in 1949, tens of thousands of refugees flooded into Hong Kong, bringing with them poverty, misery, and despair. A Christian man who worked there recalls feeling great pity for the little children in rags that he saw playing in the streets. He came to know and love a few of them very dearly, however, and what a difference that made! One child he had known for several years showed him her shoes. Both had holes in their soles, exposing her bare feet. Without hesitation, the man gave her new shoes and bought her a pretty new dress. “When I gave them to her,” he recalls, “she climbed on my knee and buried her head on my shoulder, her heart too full for words.” That man’s deed was grace in action, and it was grace motivated by love. So too, it was God’s great love for you and I that moved Him to meet our deepest need by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. God’s grace does not cease with salvation from sin’s penalty but continues throughout the believer’s life on this earth and for eternity.
Grace always brings benefits, and those benefits are reflected in the word “peace.” Now we have peace with God. Paul always associates those two words together: :grace” and “peace,” and the order is always the same. First grace and then peace. You’ve probably heard the saying, “Truth is more often caught than taught.” I’ve come up with a similar saying about grace, and it makes sense to me. “Grace is more understandable when it’s described than when it’s defined.” So, I’m going to share with you a couple of true stories that display grace that was motivated by love.
The first story was written by Jeffrey Zaslow about his father. “Years ago, my father coached a team of eight-year-olds. He had a few excellent players, and some who just couldn’t get the hang of the game [the game was baseball]. Dad’s team didn’t win once all season. But in the last inning of the last game, his team was only down by one run. There was a boy who had never been able to hit a ball – or catch it. With two outs, it was his turn to bat. He surprised the world and got a single! The next batter was the team slugger. Finally, Dad’s team might win a game. The slugger connected, and as the boy who hit the single ran to second base, he saw the ball coming toward him. Not so certain of baseball’s rules, he caught it. Final out! Dad’s team lost! Quickly, my father told his team to cheer. The boy beamed. It never occurred to him that he lost the game. All he knew was that he hit the ball and caught it – both for the first time. His parents later thanked my dad. Their child had never even gotten in a game before that season. We never told the boy exactly what happened. We didn’t want to ruin it for him. And till this day, I’m proud of what my father did that afternoon.”
The second story is longer so bear with me. A story is told about Fiorello LaGuardia who, when he was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of World War 2, was called, by adoring New Yorkers, ‘the Little Flower” because he was only five foot four and always wore a carnation in his lapel. He was a colorful character who used to ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever the New York newspapers were on strike, he would go on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.
Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the storekeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. “It’s a real bad neighborhood, you Honor,” the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people a lesson.” LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions – ten dollars or ten days in jail.” But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit, and furthermore, I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.” So, the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York policemen, each of whom had just contributed fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
Do those two illustrations give you a better understanding of grace in action? As I mentioned earlier, Paul began most of his letters with the words, “grace and peace.” Grace is always mentioned first, followed by peace. Do you think that little boy had a peaceful night’s sleep after hitting that ball for the first time and catching that ball for the first time? Do you think the coach and the boy’s teammates had a good night’s sleep after cheering for him? Do you think that grandmother and her family had a good night’s sleep after her debt was paid and their needs were met? Do you think mayor LaGuardia and the people in that courtroom had peace in their hearts after showing grace to that woman and her family? I think that even that storekeeper experienced what grace was like that night, and was glad he made a contribution.
The Lord Jesus was a man of grace and peace, wasn’t He? Look at all the lives that were changed because of His concern and His generosity. As believers in Him, we have been set apart by God to be instruments in His hands. Let’s ask God to use us as instruments of His grace and peace today and every day.