Not Just an Ordinary Hello

Paul is reminding the church then in Philippi that the news of Christ's commissioning, those words would still be ringing in their ear.

These carefully chosen words. Paul is reminding them and us that, look, according to the scoreboard, it might not look like we're really making much progress. I mean, at that moment, if you're keeping score, it would be, the world, 222 and the disciples, zero. It might not look like we are winning, but the truth is, we already have.

Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try, you just can't get ahead? The world tells you it's all about winning, yet true peace and lasting victory remain out of reach. In his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul reveals a startling secret.

The score was settled long ago. When Paul writes to this struggling church, his words aren't just a pep talk. They're a battle cry, a call to embrace the triumph already won by Jesus. He unveils the source of true grace, the foundation of unshakable peace and the power to live victoriously in a world obsessed with scoreboards.

Forget the world's scoreboard. Join Stephen Davy as he continues through the early verses of Philippians. You'll discover what it means to belong to the winning team, even when your circumstances say otherwise.

This message is called, Not Just an Ordinary Hello. We have trouble getting the right perspective on Paul's intention as he writes his letters to these first century churches. We assume that the church is on the scoreboard, that the disciples are experiencing one undefeated game after another, or maybe since Paul started this church in Philippi 10 years earlier, it's been since then 10 championship seasons, one after another. Nothing could be further from the truth. At this very moment, their leader, the apostle Paul, is under house arrest.

He'll be dead in 24 months. The wrong perspective brings us to treat this letter as if it's some kind of formula for happy-go-lucky Christians, who just log one victory after another. The truth is Paul is going to refer to the way we should think, perhaps even as we are taking a drubbing. This is the battle which effectively begins in our minds.

He'll talk more about how we think than how we feel. In fact, this letter is a spiritual call to arms. It's going to be a letter to challenge them to continue developing as a local church with an inner resolve to stand for the gospel of Jesus Christ in a culture that will always field the biggest athletes and the strongest fan base and boast the more expensive programs and have the deepest pockets. The score on earth will never appear to be in favor of the Christians, which is why Paul will write these kinds of words. A little later on in the letter to the Philippian church, he'll say, I want you to be children of God without blemish.

In other words, don't cheat in the game, even though you're taking a beating. Be children of God, he writes, without blemish in the midst of this crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as light. Philippians 2.15, you see what he's doing even in these opening lines is setting the record straight for the believer no matter what the scoreboard might read. Now if you'll turn back to his letter, we arrive at the last line of his opening greeting or salutation which is loaded with implication and encouragement too. You need to know, it would be helpful perhaps to know that Paul is following and yet just ever so slightly turning the cultural norm for beginning a letter. In Paul's day, they signed their name at the beginning. So if you look at the letter, it begins with simply his name, Paul and his co-laborer Timothy. Now according to the custom of the day, you would follow your name up by saying something about yourself. So here he says, Paul and Timothy, slaves of Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus. That alone would have gotten their attention.

This is a different way to look at the game of life, so to speak. Next, in typical first century letters, the author would identify the people or person to whom he's writing. Notice Paul does the same thing, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi including the elders and deacons. And then Paul would use the typical word of his day, verse two, with a greeting, grace to you. The verb form of this word is translated greetings.

It's another way of saying hello. Over the years, archeologists have excavated truckloads of papyri from the Near East as well as letters written by officials in the Roman Empire. And literally thousands of them include the same word, the same idea, the same formula, who's writing, to whom they're writing, maybe a few comments about themselves to whom they're writing, and then hello, greetings. In fact, the Roman Emperor Claudius writing a few years after this letter was written uses the same letter opening formula when he writes to the city of Alexandria. He begins with his name. Here's how the letter opens.

Tiberius, Claudius, Caesar, Augustus, Germanicus, Imperator, Potipax, Maximus. He'll never fit that on a driver's license. Of course, he probably didn't need it. In fact, I couldn't help but read that and think, you remember how your mother, if she was like my mother, would refer to you when you were in trouble? You get the whole name. Stephen Dwayne Davy.

Think about this poor mother. Tiberius, Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, Germanicus. By the time she got to the end of it, she forgot why she was angry, which is I needed more names. Just who is he? He would write in his letter, after all those names, he wrote this, holder of the tribunician power consul designate. In other words, I'm the guy with the power of the Roman Empire behind me. And Paul says I'm a slave. Finally, he identifies a recipient to the city of Alexandria, and then just like the apostle Paul, he adds the word greetings. Just your typical hello.

But here's a critical difference. Paul isn't interested in writing just a typical hello. So instead of using the popular verb form, which is translated greetings, or I send you greetings, Paul uses the noun form of the same word so that it is charis, translated grace.

He doesn't write the usual hello to you. He writes instead grace to you. See, he's going to transform the typical gentile greeting, and he's going to freight it.

He's going to load it down with gospel meaning. This is more than an opening cliche with the apostle. You see grace, as you may know it, is defined as unmerited favor from God, and at the very outset of the letter, he wants to remind them that they are recipients of the unmerited favor of God. In fact, you read his letters, and you discover that grace is the origin of our salvation. For by grace, you have been what?

Saved, Ephesians 2-8. Grace is the source of our spiritual growth. For by the grace of God, I am what I am, he wrote to the Corinthians. Grace is the basis for our service, Ephesians 3-8, where Paul writes, I was made a minister of the gospel by the grace of God, me the least of all the saints. However, I received this grace wherein I minister. It's also the source of this never exhausted, never failing strength for his grace will always be sufficient for you. 2 Corinthians 12-9. Sam Gordon writes in his commentary, grace gives us what we do not deserve and what we could never pay back.

It stoops to where we are. I love the way he defines it then. He says this, grace is everything for nothing to those who don't deserve anything.

It's good, isn't it? Grace is everything for nothing to those who don't deserve anything. Paul got it. He wants the Philippians at the very outset of this letter to be reminded.

He's not just saying hello. He's reminding them that they belong to Christ. They belong to each other. They are serving together because of the grace of God. Let me just remind you that you are as it were the recipients of grace no matter what the scoreboard reads. There is one man's particular testimony you've more than likely heard.

I've certainly shared bits and pieces of it who would become indivisibly linked with the word's grace, amazing grace. John Newton. He was raised in a Christian home in England during his early years, but he was orphaned at the age of six and lived with non-believing relatives who took great pleasure in mocking Christianity, persecuting this little boy for following the faith of primarily his mother. At last he was old enough in his early teens to escape the horrible conditions of his foster home and he ran away. He made it to the British Navy Yard and became an apprentice, an apprentice seaman in the British Navy. He served in the Navy for some time, but his now growing rebellion, his hatred for God, his wicked lifestyle just kind of caught up with him, his drunkenness got him into trouble again and again, so he ran. He deserted the British Navy. He escaped with a slave trader heading to Africa. In his own biographical notations he made it clear why he ran away to Africa. He wrote, I went so that I could sin my fill. He eventually joined a Portuguese slave trader and was promised great riches in this horrible enterprise, but he ended up being treated almost as cruelly himself.

He was forced to work on this man's plantation and eat his food he wrote, quote, from the dusty floor like a dog, end quote. So he ran away again. He made it to the coast where he lit a signal fire. A ship was nearby heading home to England.

Picked him up. The captain of the ship was disappointed at first that Newton didn't have any ivory in his possession to sell him, but because he knew something of navigation, he was made a ship's mate. It didn't last long thanks to Newton's drunken behavior. He broke into the ship's supply of rum and distributed it to the entire crew. They all got drunk. He fell overboard and nearly drowned. They pulled him back. Toward the end of that voyage near Scotland, Newton's ship encountered heavy winds. It was blown off course. It began to take on water. Newton was sent down into the hold to man those manual pumps and he was terrified.

This was the worst place to be among all the crew. He was down there alone and he worked those pumps literally for several days without sleeping. As he worked, he came under deep conviction of where his life was going and his hopelessness before God. He remembered the gospel that he had heard as a little boy. In fact, he says he recalled memory verses that he had been taught as a little boy. Down there below deck he cried out to God and was transformed by the grace of God.

He would eventually enter the ministry and become a powerful pastor teacher in England, well known because of his testimony that exemplified the grace of God, but more than anything because of a poem he composed to serve as an illustration for his New Year's sermon, January 3, 1977. Amazing grace. You want to say it with me?

How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found was blind, but now I see. The truth is we are all indivisibly linked to the grace of God. All of us who have been redeemed were lost and spiritually blind.

We were found by Christ and we found in him our spiritual sight. Now Paul does something else here. He not only opens with a variation of the typical Gentile greeting, he also opens with the typical Jewish greeting. He's going to combine the two because he's writing to a mixed church.

Grace to you and peace. Now again this concept of shalom, he uses a Greek term but the concept here would be a concept the Roman Empire was proud of. You talk about peace, you talk about the Roman Empire.

They thought they'd invented it. From 30 B.C. to 250 A.D. the Romans would boast that its emperors were the saviors of the world, the descendants of the gods, and that they had brought peace to earth.

In fact, just six years before Paul writes this letter to the Philippians, the Roman statesmen by the name of Seneca coined this Latin term Pax Romana, the peace of Rome or Rome's peace. We came up with it. We distribute it.

We own it. But the emperor's peace, if you study the empire, came at a steep price for those who supposedly enjoyed it. Political oppression, religious crackdowns, suffocating taxation, widespread slavery was all a part of Rome's version of peace. And people paid dearly for it.

But here's the gospel. The peace that comes from Jesus Christ was paid for by Jesus Christ. He's the one who paid the price.

He's the one who died. His grace pays for our peace. You see, the order of terms in this text is not coincidental. First grace from God, then peace with God, which is another way of subtly reminding the Philippians that people cannot experience it. They can't experience lasting peace until they have experienced saving grace.

Grace first, then it's fruit, peace. You don't pay for it. You don't earn it. You don't merit it.

You don't do enough good to deserve it. He took care of it. James Montgomery Boice wrote that it was no coincidence that the first words Jesus Christ delivered to his disciples after he arose from the grave and met the disciples in that upper room were the words, peace be with you. The word Jesus used is a derivative of the word, in fact, it would bring to the minds of every citizen of Rome reading this letter. An event in history and the lyrics of this particular word were as famous to that world then as the lyrics of amazing grace are famous to us today. It backs back to this famous battle called the Battle of Marathon where Greece crushed Persia. The end of that victorious battle, Pheidippides, the champion runner, threw down his shield and he raced toward Athens to deliver the good news of victory and he burst through the gates of the Acropolis where all the citizens had gathered in anticipation and mixed with fear and he shouted this same word Jesus said, peace.

It has the nuance of rejoicing in the fact that peace has been won by means of victory. So here the disciples are huddled in that upper room. John records that they'd even locked the door. They're terrified of the Jewish leadership.

They don't want to be taken next and they're also fearful of the Romans. They expect to hear the padding of Roman sandals on the stairs coming up toward that upper room because they had dared to break the Roman seal on the tomb which was the prevailing rumor. The resurrected Jesus suddenly appears in the middle of that locked room which is a wonderful thought to consider as Weresby pointed out that in your greatest failure and despair you cannot lock Jesus out. Without the door ever opening he suddenly appears and delivers this famous phrase effectively saying, men you can start rejoicing now because I've won the victory and peace is yours.

Look at verse 2 again. Grace to you and peace from where? From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Beloved, grace and peace can only come to those who know God as their Father. Do you know God as your Father? How do you come to know God as your Father? The Apostle John will tell us, but as many as received him, that is Christ, to them he gives the right, the privilege to become children of God. He becomes children.

He becomes your Father. So these gifts of grace and peace come to those who can call God their Father. Notice also, these gifts come to those who call Jesus Christ their Lord. Now I think in this context, given the fact that the emperor claimed to be both Lord, Kurios, and Savior, Soter, those were titles of the emperor. Everybody called him Lord and Savior. He was the one that brought peace to earth. Does that sound in any way familiar to the gospel?

I think then in this context Paul is suggesting nothing less than treason. We're going to take that name the emperor claims and we're going to attach it to Jesus Christ. He is your master.

He ultimately is your emperor. He is your Lord. And when you know God as your Father and Jesus Christ as your master, grace and peace are his gifts to you. In fact the construction here emphasizes the equality and oneness between God the Father and Jesus Christ. God the Father shares his essential divinity with the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is equally divine, equally eternal, equal in essence with the Father, without a beginning.

He did not begin when God had sexual relations with Mary, taught by Mormonism and other cults throughout the centuries. Jesus Christ as God the Son had no beginning, equally eternal, in essence, equal with God the Father, subordinate in function. He comes to do the will of the Father, the Spirit, equally God, subordinate in function. He comes to glorify the Son, yet equally divine without beginning or end. If you cannot call Jesus Christ then your Lord, your divine master, you will never be able to find grace and peace.

You will condemn yourself to search and never find. In fact in this letter Paul will perhaps more gloriously than in any other letter explain the equality of Jesus Christ with his Father. One thing's for sure, Paul is making clear in these opening lines there is no Christianity without Jesus Christ's deity. And deity does not have a beginning.

See this is a lot more than just saying hello. One of the more tragic stories that emerges from the world of football and sports is and was the death of Junior Seau. Junior Seau was the well-known, passionate, intense, emotional, skillful leader of the San Diego Chargers.

Many of you are old enough to have watched him play. In his 13 year career before he retired he made the Pro Bowl 12 of his 13 years. He was selected as NFL's 1990s all decade team. It was just one award after another.

In fact his career was one victory after another. But on May 2nd, 2012 at the age of 43 he took his own life. In an interview with Sports Illustrated his former teammate and friend Rodney Harrison sort of transparently opened up surprisingly revealing that in Seau's last days he said he was looking for peace. Harrison said, Seau would tell me that the only time he really felt at peace was when he was with his children or in the surf.

He would tell me, when I'm on those waves I have no worries, no problems, I just forget about everything. Junior Seau, Harrison said with a touch of sadness, was always searching for peace. I find it interesting that when Jesus Christ appeared in that upper room and announced this word, peace, peace be with you, he quickly went on to add, as the father has sent me, I also now send you. In other words grace and peace aren't something we're supposed to sit on. The gospel of grace and peace isn't supposed to stay in here.

It's not supposed to remain indoors. We take it out there. Jesus effectively said, I'm delivering the news to you that we have won the eternal victory.

Now you go take that news out there. Don't stay here behind closed doors. Paul is reminding the church then in Philippi that the news of Christ's commissioning, those words would still be ringing in their ears. These carefully chosen words. Paul is reminding them and us that look, according to the scoreboard it might not look like we're really making much progress. It might not look like we are winning, but the truth is we already have.

The people around you that seem to be winning only seem to be. They are in reality, if you could pull back the curtain on their hearts, they're questioning their eternal destiny. They are despairing.

They are thirsting. Nothing lasts. They're guilty and beaten. They need to hear the victorious news of genuine grace and lasting peace.

We cannot manufacture it. We receive it from God. We receive it and we need to hear how to receive it.

They can have it. These incredible gifts of grace and peace when God becomes their father and Jesus Christ becomes their master. I hope this encouragement from God's word was exactly what you needed to hear today.

You've been listening to Wisdom for the Heart. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. Stephen is the president of Wisdom International and the pastor of the Shepherd's Church in Cary, North Carolina. You might want to go deeper into your study through the book of Philippians and we have a resource that can help you. Stephen has a book called Philippians in his Wisdom Commentary Series.

This is a great resource for any pastor or teacher who's teaching through Philippians or any student of the Bible who wants to learn and study more about this wonderful book. This resource is our featured resource during this series and we'd love to get it into your hands. If you're a member of the group we call Friends of Wisdom, you've already received an email with information about this offer. All you need to do is click on the link you received and it'll take you right to it.

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