Sermon Central
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To Live: Deliverance Series
Contributed by Mark Nichols on Aug 5, 2009 (message contributor)
Summary: Paul has joy even when life is hard because he focuses on Deliverance! Either your difficult times will come to an end, or you will, but it’s a win/win situation...because Paul knows Christ!
TEXT: Philippians 1:12-30
TITLE: To LIVE: Deliverance
SERIES: To Live
TOPIC: Salvation
OCCASION: Burnside Christian Church, June 28, 2009
PROP.: in order to receive deliverance, you must wait for the Lord…but continue to read His word, continue with your mission, understand God’s plans are perfect.
INTRODUCTION: Good morning! Turn to the book of Philippians with me. We are studying the entire book of Philippians…all four chapters. It will take us a total of 10 weeks.
I’ve asked you to do two things while we are studying this book together.
1. Bring your Bible and a Pen. Hold up your Bible and pen today!
2. Read through the book of Philippians
If you’re new with us, we are on week 3 of a message series called: To Live.
I want you to take ownership of this book. Read it as though Paul is writing this letter with your name at the top of it! I want you to become familiar with this book.
And what we’re doing is we are going through the book of Philippians verse by verse and learning what Paul tells us on how we are to live!
So here are the big ideas we’ve learned so far:
Week 1 - To Live - Grace & Peace
What we learned in week one is that Paul is a slave of Jesus Christ. And because Paul is a slave of Jesus Christ there are two things that he has that he wants us to have: GRACE & PEACE! How do you get God’s grace? How do experience a peace in life that only Jesus can give? Become a slave of Jesus Christ!
Week 2 - To Live - Grow. Last week we learned that God is working in your life…RIGHT NOW! God is working because He wants you to grow! He wants to shape you and mould you into the person He desires you to be. And God is causing you to grow by using bad times in your life…all the stuff that you are going through and living through right now, God is using that to shape you into the person he wants you to be! But God is also causing you to grow using good times too.
But not only does God wants us to mature and grow, PAUL wants us to grow! Paul wants our love for God and one another to abound more and more. To grow!
So that brings us up to today. We’re going to read Philippians chapter 1 starting in verse 12.
Now before we actually get into the text, I need to answer a big question that we haven’t addressed yet!
I’ve told you that Paul is the one writing this letter. I’ve told you that he is writing this letter from a prison in Rome. But I haven’t told you: WHY Paul is in prison. What did he do? Did he murder someone? Did he steal something?
No. He is in prison because Paul claims with all of his heart that Jesus Christ is Lord. That’s why he’s in prison. Bottom line, he’s in prison because He says and believes that Jesus Christ is Lord.
That’s what got him arrested in the first place. Paul used to be a Pharisee. A die hard law follower. But then Paul met Jesus as he was on his way to Damascus and now Paul is a die hard JESUS follower!
And Paul was in Jerusalem to do some worship in the temple. And while he was there worshiping God, some of his fellow Jewish people saw Paul and they started to raise a ruckus, and there was a riot that broke out and they end up arresting Paul. All because the Jewish people proclaim that Paul is a blasphemer because Paul believes that Jesus Christ is lord.
So Paul is arrested, ends up in Caesarea, and while Paul was in Caesarea, he stands trial before Felix and Festus…and while he is on trial, because Paul was a Roman Citizen, Paul requests that his case be heard in Rome. So Paul appeals to Caesar to come to Rome and so Paul gets to plead his case in court in Rome.
But here’s the problem. You know what the people of Rome believe? They don’t believe that Jesus Christ is lord. They believe that Caesar is lord. And you see that around the whole Roman empire at that point. They believe that Caesar is Lord. So Paul is going to have to stand trial and Paul is going to have to state his claim that Jesus is Lord.
So back in Paul’s home country, he is considered a blasphemer of God. And here in Rome, Paul is going to be considered a traitor. Both crimes punishable by death. And why?
BECAUSE PAUL BELIEVES WITH ALL HIS HEART, THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD! WOW! What do you believe about Jesus Christ?
