Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.
On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. Now, we all know who Paul was. He was formerly Saul of Tarsus, who made it his life's mission to stamp out this new heresy called Christianity. He was doing this out of a love for God, though it was a misguided love.
By the way, Paul's example reminds us that it's possible to be sincere, but to be sincerely wrong. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Do you long to experience outrageous joy in your life?
Is it really possible to rejoice in the Lord despite difficult people and circumstances? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress opens to the book of Philippians to discover how we can experience lasting joy in any and every situation. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. We're only one month into a new year, and most of us have faced a couple of unwanted surprises.
But I've got some good news for you. When something falls into your path that you never expected, when tragedy strikes, or when life delivers disappointment, God isn't shocked. He isn't seated in Heavens wringing His hands and saying, oh no, what are we going to do now?
Of course not. God knows exactly what's happening to you and the reasons why. And most importantly, He's standing right beside you, prepared to help you walk through whatever circumstances come your way.
In fact, He's prepared to give you joy in the journey. Well, that's not only the theme of Paul's letter to the Philippians, it's also the focus of our new series. It's a study I'm calling Living Above Your Circumstances. In addition to these daily messages on radio, I've written a book on this topic as well. And it's my thank you gift when you give a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory. My book is titled Outrageous Joy. In this book, you and I will embark on a journey of discovery. In the process, I'll help you identify three keys for living a worry-free life, and I'll help you discover the secrets for feeling genuine contentment, the kind that helps you defeat the enemy of jealousy.
Now, let's get started with the new series. We're in the book of Philippians chapter 1, and I've titled this first message Living Above Your Circumstances. I was in Chicago getting ready to appear on a national television show to talk about the subject of my latest book on how to overcome failure in life.
At least that was the stated topic. But the events of that morning changed everything. That morning, the shootings at Virginia Tech occurred, and suddenly nobody was interested in talking about my book. They wanted to talk about why God would allow such a tragedy to take place. And I spent that evening in Chicago fielding one call after another call.
One call I particularly remembered was an irate caller who said, Dr. Jeffress, I want to know one thing. Where was your God when those students were murdered? And without appearing flippant, I said God was exactly in the same place He was 2,000 years ago when His own son was brutally murdered.
And that's why He, above all people, can empathize with the pain of those parents. Nevertheless, those events and others like them have caused me to ask the question, what would it take in my life to cause me to give up on God? What would it take for me to lose my confidence in the Creator?
Have you ever thought about that? What would it take for you to give up on God? The death of a child? Termination from a job? The infidelity of your mate?
A bad report from your doctor? What would it take to give up on God? Are you able to retain your faith, your joy in life, in spite of insurmountable losses, difficult people, adverse circumstances? Jesus Christ was no Pollyanna.
He had His share of troubles in life. And yet as He faced the most difficult hour of His existence, as He approached Calvary, Hebrews 12 to says, He did so with joy. Not some superficial giddiness, but that calm assurance that God was in control of His life. And by the way, as our inheritance, Christ has left that same joy for us to experience. Remember what He said in John 15, 11? He said, these things I have spoken to you that my joy might be in you and that your joy may be made full. Is that joy in you?
And if not, how can you regain that joy in spite of what is swirling around you? Well, Paul answers that question in the book that we're going to begin studying today. If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to the book or really the letter more accurately to the Philippian Christians.
And today we're beginning a brand new series I've entitled Living Above Your Circumstances. In these four short chapters, the apostle Paul is going to mention the word joy or rejoicing no less than 19 times. Now remember where Paul was when he wrote these words. As my old professor Howard Hendrick says, Paul was not on the French Riviera sipping a pina colada, okay? He's not a Baptist so he can say that. No, Paul was in prison facing what could have been his own execution.
And yet he talks about rejoicing, rejoicing, rejoicing over and over again. And he tells us how to do exactly that in these four chapters. Now, today we're going to gain an overview of this book of Philippians. The book of Philippians is a letter. Now, when we write a letter, we start out with the salutation, dear whomever, and then we've got the body of our letter. And then maybe three pages over, we sign the letter. And if you receive a letter, if you want to know who sent it to you, you have to flip through the pages and find who the sender was.
Well, the Greeks had a much more efficient way for writing letters. They put all that stuff at the beginning. And that's what Paul does at the beginning of this letter. First of all, he identifies himself, the sender. Look at verse 1 of chapter 1. Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus. Now, we all know who Paul was.
He was formerly Saul of Tarsus, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, the Jew of the Jews who made it his life's mission to stamp out this new heresy called Christianity. Now, it's very important to understand the reason Paul spent his life torturing and killing men, women, and children was not because Paul was some sadist who enjoyed inflicting pain. No, Paul sincerely loved God. He was doing this out of a love for God, though it was a misguided love. And by the way, Paul's example reminds us that it's possible to be sincere, but to be sincerely wrong. Paul was sincere in his love for God, but he was sincerely wrong.
And we know what happened on that road to Damascus. As he was making his way to the synagogue there to persecute more Christians, the Lord Jesus appeared to him. As we read in Acts 26, not only did Jesus save Paul, but he also gave him that life purpose. He said, I have called you to be a light to the Gentiles. And Paul spent the rest of his life proclaiming the gospel to as many people as possible.
Now, that is Paul. That is Saul who wrote this letter. And he wrote it, and notice that the subjects of the letter, to all of the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi. Now, when we read that word saints, we think of somebody like Mother Teresa or some special super spiritual Christian that the church has recognized. But that word saint in the Greek text simply means to be set apart. In the New Testament, a saint is anybody God has set apart for a special purpose.
And guess what? If you're a Christian, you've been set apart for a special purpose. Paul said, you are not your own.
You have been bought with a price. God has a unique purpose for your life. Beyond saving you, he's got a special calling on your life. And so in that sense, every Christian is a saint. Now, I know some people have a hard time believing that, so I want you to look at the person next to you. And I want you to introduce yourself as saint and then give your first name.
Would you do that? Say, hi, I'm saint. I want you to do that. Now, I'll tell you what I've noticed. Some of you had difficulty doing that.
And for some of you, it was way too easy, okay? But that's what the Bible says. We're all saints. We've all been set apart. Well, Paul's writing this letter to the Christians who are in Philippi.
Those are the subjects of this letter. Now, what was Paul's relationship to the church at Philippi? Well, in obedience to that heavenly vision to go spread the gospel, Paul made three missionary journeys. And it was on his second missionary journey that he first encountered these people in Philippi. So I want you to hold your place here and I want you to turn back to Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16, and this is the account of Paul's second missionary journey. And you know, by this time, Paul and Silas had been joined by Dr. Luke who wrote this journal and by Timothy. And remember it says in verse 8 that they came down to the seaport town of Troas and they were trying to decide where to go from there.
They could go back into Asia Minor, but the door was shut there. And they were trying to decide what to do when remember that heavenly vision came to Paul, the man from Macedonia, and he appeared and he said, Paul, come over here. And Paul thought, you know, that might be a good idea. That might be a sign from God. And see, he obeyed the heavenly vision and he went across the Aegean Sea for two days and landed in Neopolis and made his way up to Philippi. By the way, let me stop here and say a word about signs and visions. It's important to know that supernatural signs are not usually the best way to determine God's will for your life. But in the New Testament, any time God did give a supernatural sign to give direction, it was always in reference to the spreading of the gospel. And so it makes sense that God gave a sign to Paul that related to the building of his kingdom. And he said, I want you to come over here to Macedonia, which is Greece today.
It's the first time that the gospel made it to Europe. And so Paul landed in Neopolis. You can go there today.
We did. Great place to visit. And then he went the 10 miles up the Ignatian Way to this town of Philippi, a Roman colony in the middle of Greece. And it was there that Paul had three significant encounters that would forever mark his life. Look at verse 13. It says that on the Sabbath day, we, that's Luke writing, all of us went outside to a gate to the riverside where we were supposing would be a place of prayer.
Now this is so interesting to me. Here is Paul, the great apostle, and yet Paul felt the need when the Sabbath came to be in a place of worship. By the way, he was following the example of Jesus.
If it's true for them, how much truer is that for us? You cannot grow as a Christian without being in worship regularly. We need the encouragement, the nourishment that comes from one another in worship. And so Paul said, it's the Sabbath. We need to be in a place of worship. The only problem was there weren't enough Jews in Philippi to constitute a synagogue.
And it only took 10 males to do it. So there weren't very many Jews there. So they went out to a riverside and they found this place of worship. And there were some women who had gathered around.
And look at verse 14. Here's the first person he came in contact with, a woman named Lydia. And a certain woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, she was a seller of purple fabrics. Now purple was very expensive in those days. To have purple, you had to extract it from the throat of shellfish. In fact, you could only get one drop of purple dye out of an entire shellfish. You can imagine how long it took to make a purple garment.
It was very, very expensive. She was a wealthy woman. But more importantly, verse 14 says, she was a worshiper of God and was listening to Paul.
Now I want you to think about this. Paul encounters this woman named Lydia. He realizes that she's a religious woman. She's worshipping God. Paul could have easily said, well you worship God, I worship God. I come to God through Jesus Christ, you come to God in your own way, but it doesn't matter. We all worship the same God and we're going to the same place. But he doesn't do that, does he? Instead, he feels compelled to share the gospel with her.
Listen to this. Loving God, desiring to know God, is a requirement to be saved. You've got to want to know God before you can be saved. It's a requirement for being saved, but it's not sufficient for being saved. Just because a person loves God and wants to know God, that is not enough to save the person. There is only one way to God and it's through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And apart from a personal faith in Christ, no one can be saved. And that's exactly what happened. But you know an interesting thing is, whenever a person sincerely loves God, God will always send them more light so that they can hear about Jesus.
It always happens that way. Remember in Acts chapter 8 what happened? Here's that Ethiopian eunuch driving along in the chariot. He's reading the book of Isaiah, makes no sense to him. He wants to know God, so what does God do? He supernaturally raptures Philip out of one location, sets him down right by that chariot so that he can explain to the eunuch the gospel. And the man is saved and then baptized. And now you've got this woman named Lydia. She's in this tiny town of Philippi. And yet she wants to know God, so what does God do?
Think about it. He takes the greatest apostle of all time, the apostle Paul, reroutes him away from going into Asia Minor, sends him all across the Aegean Sea to this tiny town so that he can hear the gospel, she can hear the gospel message. Now that's how much our God loves people. He loves people so much that He's willing to go to any lengths necessary to give us the opportunity to be saved. And so He sends Paul.
And notice what happened? She's listening to Paul, verse 14 says, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. Folks, don't ever think that you can just wake up one day and say, you know what, I think I'll choose to be saved today.
Doesn't happen that way. None of us can be saved unless God does a work in our heart. God is the one who has to open our heart so that we can believe. And the Bible says God opened her heart so that she could receive the gospel and Paul was faithful to share it and that's how it worked.
It was a partnership. God opening her heart, man sharing the gospel and because of that, Lydia was saved. By the way, if right now, those of you here or watching on television or listening on radio, if you have an understanding that you are a sinner, that you have failed God, and that Jesus is the only way for you to be saved, you didn't come to that understanding on your own. It means that God has opened your heart. He has given you the ability to believe. But just because you have that ability right now doesn't mean you'll always have it. If you've got that ability to trust in Christ as your Savior, make that decision now.
Just because your heart is soft and tender now doesn't mean it will always be. Lydia responded to the light that God gave her. She was saved. And then look at verse 15, and when she and her household had been baptized.
Notice the order. She believed and then she was baptized. That is the pattern you find throughout the book of Acts and the New Testament. People believed first and then they were baptized. Never once do you find an instance of somebody who was baptized first and then later on believed. Baptism. Baptism is a sign of our salvation.
It's the result of our salvation. And she believed and was baptized. And then verse 15, she invites the apostle into her home and thus begins the church at Philippi. Don't you find it interesting that the first convert in Philippi, the first convert in all of Europe, was a woman?
I think we need to say something here. It's time we quit treating women as second-class citizens in the kingdom of God. The Bible never does that. In fact, people who say, oh, the Bible denigrates women, they don't even know what the Bible says. Because if you really understood the culture in which the Bible was written, you would know it's the Greeks and the Romans who put women down. It was Jesus and the New Testament writers who said, yes, we are equal before God. Men and women are equal in their standing before God.
Some of you are starting to get nervous, I can tell. Let's go ahead and agree. Okay, there are some things women can't do in the church. Women can't be deacons and they can't be pastors just like men can't have babies.
So let's agree that we're not going to do that. But instead of concentrating, and you know Baptists are really so bad about this. Instead of always concentrating on the two things that women can't do in the church, shouldn't we be talking about all the things that women can do in the church?
All of the great opportunities for service. Think about Lydia. It was because of her faithfulness that this businesswoman, yes, she was a businesswoman, gave encouragement to the starting of the church at Philippi. She wasn't an overseer. She wasn't a deacon there. Nevertheless, God used her in a powerful way. That was Lydia. Now the second encounter Paul had was with a demon-possessed girl.
Now this is most interesting. Look at verse 16, and it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain slave girl having a spirit of divination, the ability to tell the future, met us who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune telling. And following after Paul, she kept crying out saying, these men are bondservants of the Most High God who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation. Now here's a woman who was demon-possessed. People ask me all the time, Robert, can Christians be demon-possessed? What does that word possessed mean?
What does it mean? It means to own something, does it? If you possess it, you own it. Now if you're a Christian, Ephesians 1 says you are owned, sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. If you are a Christian, God owns you.
And guess what? God is stingy, He doesn't share His possessions with anybody. So if you're a Christian, you can't be demon-owned, demon-possessed, but you can be demon-influenced. And that is any area of your life not open to God's control is open to demonic control. Well this woman was possessed by a demon.
But what's interesting is verse 18, she continued doing this for many days saying, these men are the servants of the Most High God. That demon was actually telling the truth. By the way, did you know demons are more orthodox in their beliefs than many Christians are? Demons believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They believe He died on the cross for the salvation of the world.
They believe He rose from the dead on the third day. They believe it more than you do, or I do, because they witnessed it firsthand. If intellectual knowledge could save you, then every demon ever created would be saved.
No, it's not enough to believe it intellectually. We have to believe it and accept it in our heart. That not only Christ died for the sins of the world, He died for my sins. Well these demons, they were telling the truth. And they were saying, this guy Paul is a servant of the Most High God, but you know what Paul said, I don't need an endorsement from a demon-possessed girl. In fact, in verse 18, he said he got annoyed at it. And so he turned to the girl and he said to the spirit, verse 18, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
And it came out at that very moment. By the way, any time anybody in the New Testament really had the gift of exorcism, whether it were Jesus, the apostles, or Paul, they didn't have to go through these three hours of theatrics for exorcism that you see on Christian television today. I'm not throwing off of one Christian network because I said that. But you never see that in the New Testament. None of this three hour, oh demon come out, come out, come out, get out the garlic necklaces, let's roll in the ground and do all of this stuff to get rid of demons. Let's talk in Latin for a while, maybe that does it to the demons.
You never see any of that. If anybody really had the gift of exorcism, all it took was one sentence, demons come out. Or in Jesus' case a word, come out. And the demon was gone.
Somebody really has the gift of exorcism or not. Well Paul had it. So the demon came out. The woman was elated.
Paul was elated. Everybody was excited, except the men who owned her and were making money from her fortune telling. They were all upset and so they got a riot together. Verse 22 says, the crowd rose up. They started beating Paul and Silas, inflicting many blows upon them. And then verse 24 says, having received such a command, they threw them into the inner prison.
Verse 24, and fastened their feet in the stocks. We're just getting started in what I think will prove to become one of your favorite books of the Bible. Paul's letter to the Philippians gives us a reason to feel joy, no matter what circumstances come our way. Please be listening again tomorrow when our study in this book continues.
And then let me remind you that I've written a book on this topic. It's called Outrageous Joy, Living Above Your Circumstances. Look, nothing comes into our lives that takes our Heavenly Father by surprise.
He's never shocked or dismayed by something that's happened to you. Instead, He's standing by your side, ready to help you endure your trials and to do so with a smile. But sometimes we allow our circumstances to cloud our vision. Hard stuff has a way of ruining our mood.
None of us needs to live this way. Joy is a choice we make every single day. And I want to introduce you to the path that leads to satisfaction in life. When you give a generous gift today, be sure to request a copy of my book, Outrageous Joy. It's also my privilege to include a companion resource along with the book. The Standing on the Promises of God scripture card features five of my favorite verses of encouragement from the book of Philippians. Use it as a bookmark or place it on your desk at work to remind yourself daily of your inheritance of joy as a child of the King.
David, let's repeat those details again, and I'll look forward to hearing from you today. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'll send you a copy of Dr. Jeffress' book, Outrageous Joy.
It's designed to help you live out the principles we're learning in our current study. Give a gift and request the book when you call 866-999-2965 or online go to ptv.org. Now, when you give $75 or more, you'll receive the book as well as our current teaching series called Living Above Your Circumstances on both audio and video discs. Again, call 866-999-2965 or online go to ptv.org. You could write to us if you'd like, PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
Again, that's PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you back next time for part two of the introduction to our new series, Living Above Your Circumstances. That's coming up Tuesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Picture yourself relaxing aboard a luxury cruise ship as you sail the Mediterranean Sea on the Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise. This 11-day journey will take you to unforgettable destinations in Italy, Turkey, and Greece.
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