He Who Began a Good Work Will Complete It | Philippians 1:1-19

Show Notes

Episode 842: 
In this episode, we read through Philippians chapter 1, discussing Paul’s love for the Philippian church, his resilience in suffering, and his remarkable ability to rejoice even while facing critics and hardship. We talk about gratitude as a powerful perspective shift and why focusing on the people God has placed around us helps us stay faithful when circumstances are hard. A practical, encouraging look at how God continues His work — even in chains.

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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, good morning and good evening. And oh, by the way, I just had some couple tell me, gee, where was it? It was? I think when I was in La City. Yes, it was in Mla City. There was a couple who walked out of that campus or Heritage Church campus, and they said, man, my husband and I listen to you every evening. We come home and we listen to you every evening. And I said, okay, I said, well, good evening, good evening, and they said and they said, yes, yes that's us. There you go. So it's hilarious. Well, good evening, Yes, good evening. Yes, we are the Bible guys. He's Jeff, I'm Chris, and we are. The Bible guys. Right. So we're about to jump into another there one of God's promises about God's future and purpose for our lives. But before I do, or before we do, we have a hot takes showdown. Oh hey, we did one of these a while ago. Well for Thanksgiving. No was it. We had to argue, we had we had to take a side. Well last week, yeah, oh it was Taco Bell was the best food restaurant. Yes, that's right, Yeah that was last week. So this one says, as we are in Christmas week, let's do a hot take showdown focusing on the holiday season. Pick aside, no middle grade. Okay, all right, all right, you want to go. So the first one is nobody actually likes fruitcake. We're just too polite to admit it. I am going to say, resoundingly true. But I don't think the motivation of not admitting it is politeness. That was gonna be my argument as well. Really, I was gonna say. The thing I disagree is we're not polied about it. I don't know anybody who's plaied about fruitcake, do you. I don't know anybody who's ever said, man, try no, man, I like fruitcake. I know people who make it. Yeah. Oh I had a friend in college who would eat all the fruitcake. Really oh yeah, wow, it was horrible. We were like, here, just have this, Darren, dude. I seriously don't think I've ever because I've tried. How many different types of fruitcakes have you tried? Oh? I gave up. I've probably had five. Oh, I've had way more than that. Ye, yeah, I bet you it's twenty. Oh, this will probably be a good one. Let's try it. Oh, well, this will probably be good. Let's try it. What's kind of like you look at fruitcake. You know you're not gonna like, Well, it's kind of like it's kind of like some of those recipes for chili or all chilies are so different, right, and yet it's all chili. So then you try some chilies and some chilies you don't like. I complained about fruitcake one time in church, and I had three different from stage, and I had three different women that you're bring me fruitcakes and go try mine. You're gonna love this. And you tried it and thought no way. Yeah, and those are the only three that you've tried in your life. Yeah, I've just so it really happened right in the lobby on one Sunday. I had two different ladies bring them to me in the service, you know, out in the lobby and give me two. I was walking around with two fruitcakes in my hand. Yeah. So I've had fruitcakes that was soft. I've had fruitcake that was completely dense, yeah, and all that stuff. Yeah, you get fruitcake. This big in a way is like a gold brick. Yeah, yes, yes, yea. So I would just definitely say this is true. Nobody likes fruitcare. Dude, I'm not even gonna argue with it. We're supposed to pick a side. I picked the same side you picked. Yes, And I don't think that people are polite. I just don't think that nobody talks about it because nobody cares. Right, We just we try not to make eye contact with anybody we know that's carrying a fruitcake. Yes, yeah, that's all avoided at all costs. That's right, all right. So number two, this one is people who leave their lights up until February are the true villains of winter. I'm going to get on my soapbox and say this is absolutely true. Now, wait a minute, there's only one caveat to this. You can you can be prevented of not taking your lights down if it's dangerous. And you know, there's icicles everywhere and you can't get up on the roof, but you cannot turn them on. So I'm guessing that what desire is meaning is they. Keep them on. Yeah, they're using them, they're. Using them, yes, right, because because I have. I have left my lights up until the spring because I had. To because you couldn't get them down. I couldn't get them down. I literally physically could not get them down. I think we're in a winter this year. This might be that way, I thought. I think I thought the same thing. Well, so you've been in my in my subdivision, nice houses and nice Ye, there's a there's a house right around the corner from my house that has lights built into the house and they use them every night, you mean, like Christmas type light So they have, Yeah, so they have there's there's like a little facia and the recess lights on the inside, and they go they change the colors based on the next holiday. So like at Saint Patrick's Daily term green, it's all green. Right in fourth of July it's red, white, and blue. Easter it was like Pastel's Thanksgiving it was oranges. In Halloween it was black and orange, and then they went to black and purple. You can see like black lights and purple lights. Yeah. So, so do you know that my good buddy Josh Eisenhart, he owns a business locally called let It Glow, and that. Is his sales pitch using you around. Yes, his sales pitch is by the ones that we can install, and he has them in his house and it's the same thing. Does he live around around the corner from my house? No, he doesn't live in your sub But the thing is, I always think that that's sort of. Like, I don't know, it's it because it's not common. Right, it really makes them stand out. Yeah, it's it's not common for someone festive to have Saint Patrick's Day green lights. It's not very common. So I Vantine's Day is going to be pink. We know that it's gonna be pink and white. Yeah, right, that's what they do. It's it's if you think about it, about every six weeks there's another holiday that does have like a color thing. Yes, yes, so that's what they do is but it's every night. As soon as Christmas is over, they're going to go into whatever the next one is. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's how it works. Wow. Well, I gotta tell you, I I think it makes sort of the the awesomeness of lights on a house. It sort of goes away. Yeah right, if that's if that's what you have, so, but but let it glow. His Company ninety eight percent of everything he does. Is just seasonal, just like Christmas. Right, But the two percent is I think it's a big ticket item because they're permanent lights and everything else, and you can trolling from your phone and all that. During the daytime when you drive by, you can't see them because they're recessed. Yes, right, so yeah, yeah, you can't see where the lights are. But at nighttime the house gloves. Are you saying? They're built into the house. I don't know how they did it, but yeah, they they have They have like eaves or they're just under the lip of the they're hidden. You can't see any of the lights. You just see the glow of the lights. Okay, so just maybe how the house is built. Yeah, I think I think it was probably built that way. Yeah. Yeah, and then they just found a way to put it under the lip of the Yeah. Okay, well, I gotta tell you, I think that that was a So. My wife and daughters love it, That's what I'm saying. They love They like that house of being lit up. Every they love they love lights. Yeah. Yeah, here's what I'm gonna say. I'm going to say anybody who puts Christmas lights up and then leaves them up until February and keeps using them and keeps using them. I would say, you. Are a villain. You are a villain of a true villain of winter. Yeah, I mean this is hardcore statement. Yeah, well true villain. I mean she used the word true villain. Yes, these are hard statements. But I'm going to go on record and say, yes, you are the true villain of winter. But you know what they did is they did the work and then they completed it by just leaving it up. You see what you're doing there, you see. Yeah, So they did the work and then they completed the work. The work, and then they left it right, they left it up, but it was just the way that they wanted it. You know, Jeff, that very much sounds like our verse for today. What he who began a good work and you show we'll complete it. He's faithful to complete He's faithful to complete it. Well, hey, let's see if we can find it. Yes, I know, let's just start reading in the first chapter of Philippians until we find that verse. What do you think. I think you're going to get to it pretty quick. In Philippians, chapter one, verse one, he says this is. This letter is from Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus. I'm writing to all of God's holy people in Philippi who belonged to Christ Jesus, including the church leaders and deacons. May God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners and spreading the good news about Christ from the time you first heard it until now, and I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. That sounds a lot like what we were just talking. That's like Christmas light Shore. Yeah. No, well it's not exactly that way, but yeah. So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the good News. God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus, I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing and knowledge and understanding, for I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation, the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ, for this will bring much golory and praise to God. And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything this happened to me here has helped us spread the good news. For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I'm in change because of Christ and because of my imprisonment. Most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God's message without fear. It's true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry, but others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I've been appointed to defend the good News. Those others do not have peer motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely intending to make my chains more painful to me. But that doesn't matter whether their motives are false or genuine. The message about Christ is being preached either way. So I rejoice and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that as you pray for me and the spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will lead to my deliverance. I love it. Yes, I think we're good. I've often wondered about those other preachers that preach about Christ with bad motives. So what what bad motives is he referring to? Just just like. Look at me, like he seems to have been playing that they're capitalizing on his fame. On Paul's fame, yeah, yeah. And then it seems like there's some that are actually even mocking his message. Not right, Oh, I think you've got both going. So some selfish ambition that's they're capitalizing on his fame, and then some not sincerely intending to make my chains, you know, not sincerely they're trying to make things worse for him. I think they're well. At first, when I read it, I thought maybe they were doing it for financial game, right, But then but it doesn't really indicate that. Yeah, Paul wasn't getting rich preaching. No, no, but but but these people might have. Yeah, right, let's take let's take a love offering for myself, right right, so so that that could be it, I guess, but he doesn't indicate that. So I always straight away from that thinking, uh, you know, because because he would. He off and we talk about motivations of money, you know. I was, I was going through. I was watching on YouTube. YouTube for me is almost only barbecue videos for me. That's so funny, either barbecue or music, right, Christian music that those are the two things I do a lot. So YouTube for me is not barbecued, but it's funny because it knows your algorithm. Yeah right, So, and Google just follows you everywhere, so they know everything about you. And so even though the only thing I watch on there is going to be barbecue videos or gospel music. They also you know. That I purposefully don't sign into Google, and I clear history, and I don't have the Google app, and I don't have the YouTube app. I refuse to get them. Oh yeah, yeah, so you go on YouTube you don't. Yes, yeah, And I never sign in for that reason, so it. It I can't staying well, I have a lot of subscriptions and things that they you know, so I use it anyways. It's interesting to me, how often did you hear about Rick Warren? Did you hear about Hillsong? Did you hear about Mark Driscoll? Did you hear how? And then if you click on it half a minute into it, you realize it's an AI script and they're putting in just junk photos and videos. It's just right, it's all just here's people just getting clicks. And if you look, it's one hundred thousand views, wow, or five hundred I just saw one the other five hundred thousand views bashing Rick Warren. But it was clearly if you know AI at all, you know it was fake voice. Right, somebody wrote a script and then had a fake voice read it. Because they're cowards and they're just making money off of salacious information about some other preacher. Right, So Paul's complaint here, it's the same today, two thousand years later. There's just jerks that decayed. Hey, when a guy's down, I'm gonna kick him. Whether the things you're saying are true or not. You're not rescuing the rest of us. You're making money through clicks, jerk, right, and and so, But Paul says Hey, I don't care, Thank God that the gospel is being preached, right, if that's what you're doing, whatever, man, And and so again, remember when we talked yesterday, talked about resiliency. Paul's like in prison. Right, and in this case it isn't house arrest. No, this is prison, prison with chains, yeah. Right, And even then he's like, man, good news. The whole palace guard knows about Jesus now, right, So talk about resiliency. There is something just to be said about being a person who doesn't get beat down by their circumstances but stands back says, Okay, the current circumstances I have right now, how do I make them better? And he's not trying to make them better for himself. He's trying to make the world better. He's trying to make life better. He's trying to make the life of these these prison guards better. He's trying to introduce him to Jesus and that kind thing. And there's just I'm just it's such an admirable trait. But anyways, now this isn't the prison where he where the gates open up and he flies out. So but you know, Paul has the uh uh. Oh wait a minute, Yeah, is it? Yeah, I don't know if it was this event the Philippian Yeah, but it was the Philippi and jailer, yeah, jail, right, So I don't know if it was this time, because he says it's him and Timothy riding, not him and Silas. Okay, so I think this is one of his favorite jails. Hey, do you remember remember on Andy Griffiths show that town Drunk would come in check himself into the jail. He goes over to, Hey, Andy, what was the guy's name of your guy's name? Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no drunk, town drunk whatever, he's a hey Andy, And they'd say, hey, Bob or whatever, you go, and he just opened up to sail and go and lay down on the bed. So yeah, but Paul was in prison multiple times in Philippie, now that I think about it. Yeah, so so so Paul, you know, uh, there's evidence of Paul. He's not writing from Philippi. He's writing from Rome to Philippi. Oh that's why. Yeah, that's. Okay. So so, uh my point is is Paul has a history of caring for his captors. Yeah, right, so you know he's talking about the the the palace guard. He's talking about the Philippi and jailer, right, I mean, he has interactions with those people. And by the way, in the case of the Philippi and jailer, they would have been charged. The jailer would have been in charge of. Hurting him, right, Yeah, I mean you know, because he because he was charged with putting him on the inner the center of the prison, right, and the center of the prison was like stocks and so and so here's Paul being super kind and and sharing the Gospel with everybody. Including those who mean him harm. And and again, even though I know that there's not evidence of that here in Rome, because this isn't his. This isn't his where he dies, right, is it? No? I don't think so, Okay, Yeah, because this was approximately sixty one ad as. Okay, so yeah, one of his favorite prisons in Rome. Yeah, he was in and out of jail there too. He was in out of jail there so anyway, But but Paul definitely has a history of caring for those and sharing the Gospel for those people who have done him wrong. So I'm gonna give a little nod to this. This will air before our Christmas services next week. Right, so look forward to if you come to a Heritage Christmas service, look forward to a video story by a good friend of mine who actually shares about caring for somebody who caused them harm as well. Right, So she grew up with a father who was not not a good father, and then she became a Christian and she went back to prison where he was. And making the best of a bad situation. Making the best of a bad situation. And guess what her motivation was, strictly to share the Gospel with him, just like Paul said. Right. So, another interesting fact is Philippi is the very first European Christian church. Oh isn't that neat? That is net? Yeah, yeah, so that's neat. Paul and Silas established this church on the first or on the second missionary journey that he takes, and that's what Acts sixteen or whatever. And this was the first church in Europe. So all the other people of European descent that have ever become Christians, this was the first. This was the seed church in all of Europe, which is kind of a neat thing. And so here he is, he's writing to them and thanking them. They send him a gift and while he's in prison, they care about him, and you can just at the beginning, you can just hear him gushing about how much he loves them. Every time I think of you, I thank God for you. Whenever I pray, I'm always praying for you. You guys are always on my mind. And it's like Paul just loves this church. And then this church is so very, very generous, and I love reading the Book of plipp Flippians is like a reset book for me if I'm kind of in a bad mood or if I'm in a kind of spiraling a little bit. This is one of those things. His resiliency, his delight in the people who love him. I was talking with my mom the other day, and so, did you know the average worship leader stays in a church ten months, The average youth pastor in a church stays eighteen months, The average senior pastor stays just under five years. And according to the research, and there's been a research on thousands of churches along these lines, the average senior pastor leaves his church because of five aggressive critics or a total of seven negative people. Wow, isn't that something? So if you have two hundred people in your church. The better course of action would be get rid of the seven people exactly. But what happens is our brains are hardwired for negative. Our brains are hardwired because to operate from fear, right, we magnify danger and we minimize positive things. So if I have ten people tell me they love me, and one person say I can't hardly stand you, the ten I love you don't feel as good to me as how bad the one I hate you? Right, they don't add up to counteract it. Right, right, And so because of that we tend to get very very discouraged over a few critics. And Paul his antidote to being discouraged by critics. Dudes in prison. He's got a few critics. Yeah, everything is conspiring against Paul. He's in chains, he's at this point, he's on his way to Rome. He's going to die. Well, he is in Rome. He's going to die eventually, right, what three years later? Doesn't he die in like sixty four or sixty eight? Sounds like sixty seven or eight. Yeah, but he was in Rome a long time, right, Once he got to Rome, he didn't leave Rome. He was just there and it was always heading towards his death. I think he knows it. And yet his antidote to being overwhelmed by critics is to constantly be thankful. He's constantly reminding. So when you are saying, thank you, dude, you're such a blessing to me. Every time I think of you, I pray for you, I thank God for you, all this stuff. If you're constantly writing thank you notes, you're constantly speaking, you're constantly sending texts and not expecting it back but just doing it. God, thank you for this person, and God, thank you for this person. God, thank you for this person. Then when you get that one critic, you have one hundred people that you know who love you, or twenty people who know who love you, it really softens the blow from the jerks, right, And so he has this. I think it's part of his resiliency, is the fact that he gratitude is one of the antidotes to, you know, critique. I think it is. So that's what's happening here, and bloods them with gratitude. Yeah, And gratitude really is just amazement on all the blessings that you're surrounded with and in this case people, Right. So he's he's like, God has given me so many good people. That's the gratitude part. But what it does is that it allows you to realize and it keeps you in proper perspective. So yeah, so what you're saying is is you're saying it's about an attitude shift, it's a perspective shift, and all it really is is a realization of truth. Right, a number of years ago, we had a young worship leader and I'm always encouraging you know this. I don't want a bunch of self inflicted wounds. I don't want to do it, but I want to always be pushing just a little bit. So there's a dance there. It's an art more than it is a science to push but not do dumb things that self inflict. And we've done plenty of dumb things and we just take the blows for those things. Well, we did one of those things where we kind of pushed a little bit and I had a young worship leader at the time that got a couple critiques and it was like wiping him out. But over the next several weeks we continue to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow, and so finally I had to sit him down, and I said, okay, so you got two negative emails and then one or two people complained to me face to face, and I said, and thousands of people keep coming back, thousands, right, I said, take the thousands and apologize to the two or three. Sorry, it wasn't your cup of tea. Right, that's what I have to do. Own it, say, hey, you know what, I pushed a little further than I should have pushed. I'll own that. I learned from it now. But man alive, don't get distracted by the four complainers. Recognize the fact that there's thousands of people sitting in the room that are thrilled to be here, right, and let's just be better from it. And that really changed his perspective. He went on and has done some good things. But I think that there's something to that that a lot of times are the people that are for us don't speak up as often as the people who are against us. And okay, that's okay. If we choose gratitude for those good people that are on our side, then we don't need them reaffirming. Right. They had sent Paul a gift, But then Paul writes back and is like man me, he's just gushing about how he knows that they love him, and gratitude changes everything. Yeah, well that's a great application, right for for those in the room or not in the room but listening to the podcast who perhaps they have a hard time because they focus on the one negative Nancy, or the one negative what's another end named nick negative Nick? Right, and and so yeah, don't focus on that one or two, but just yeah, let's let the truth overtake you about how much, how many great people got it surrounded you with. So that's a great place to end, and thanks for tuning in and hopefully we'll see you tomorrow on the Bible guys.