PHILIPPIANS – 50th BOOK

PHILIPPIANS (Letter 50, Larry Crabb’s 66 Love Letters)

Give Me Everything, And You Will Lose Nothing

  • As C. S. Lewis put it, either we say to God, “Your will be done” or God will say to us “Your will be done”.
    Paul was happy in prison.
  • Sometimes we get so discouraged and frustrated, so empty and down, that we don’t give a rip whether we complete anything but our dreams or reveal anything other than our needs or delight anyone but ourselves.
  • The joy God offers grows in the soil of emptiness and brokenness.
  • It is empty and broken people who at the same time are thirsty and grateful.
  • Paul’s life was not easy. Shortly after he met God’s Son, he was shown how much he must suffer for our cause (Acts 9:16).
  • Paul was a man of sorrows (Philippians 2:27), and yet he sang in prison.
  • The pain of suffering in this world, the emptiness of unmet longings, caused Paul to anticipate life in the next world (Philippians 1:23).
  • Paul’s awareness that he had not yet become all that he longed to be (Philippians 3:12) produced a consuming gratitude for the grace of God’s Son, whom he came to see as his treasure, his fellow sufferer, his sufficient power, and his certain hope (Philippians 3:7-11).
  • Chapter 1: To live is Christ. In any circumstance we can complete, reveal, and delight God’s son by loving well. That is the joy we are wanting.
  • Chapter 2: The attitude that ruled in God’s Son can fill our mind and direct our will (Philippians 2:5-11). We can empty ourselves of demanding success and requiring and depending on good treatment from others.
  • Chapter 3: The desire to know God’s Son can trump all other desires. Like Paul, we can dump in the trash every past achievement and present satisfaction counting them as dog dung (Philippians 3:7-8) in comparison with the joy available in knowing God’s son.
  • Chapter 4: God’s power is sufficient to resurrect us from the death of a terror-driven, entitlement justified, self-protective style of relating to the life of grace-released, humility-empowered, self-giving style of relating (Philippians 4:13).
  • To be content does not mean to feel content but rather to know that in God’s Son we have everything we need to live in rhythm with His Spirit in any circumstance of life (Philippians 4:12-13).

PHILIPPIANS: From Ray Stedman

Click here for entire Bible Summary from Ray Stedman

The Message of Philippians

The subject or theme of this letter is Jesus Christ and his availability for coping with the problems of life.

We are instructed how to live victoriously and joyously in the midst of the normal difficulties of life.

  • For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. {Phil 1:21 RSV}. Paul’s circumstances had served to advance the gospel, and his imprisonment made it possible for the gospel to be spread in Rome as it never had before. So Paul didn’t know which to choose, whether to live this exciting life or to die and be with Him.
  • Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility consider others better than yourselves,{Phil 2:3 NIV} Our rights are less important than what God wants to accomplish in others.
  • I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings becoming like him in his death. {Phil 3:10} All the confidence he once got from all secondary sources he found to be of absolutely no value compared to that which Jesus Christ gives.
  • In Chapter 4 you see Christ not only as our motivator, but Christ our strength, our energizer. Not only does he move us to want the right things, but he makes it possible for us to do them; He supplies our strength as well as our desire.

PHILIPPIANS – David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: Despite persecution and problems, we can rejoice in the Lord always, not through selfish ambition, but through Him who strengthens us.

Key Verse: Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved… Rejoice in the Lord always, Again I will say, rejoice! Philippians 4:1,4

Key Action: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5