Sermon Tone Analysis

*Philippians Introduction.*

*Intro*: I want to give a little history lesson this morning.

Not that I am at all qualified – I never did history at school.

I had this innate laziness that said, “Why write a great long essay when you can write short equation?”

So I was strictly science and maths.

There’s too much rote learning in history; dates, and kings and all that – far easier to learn a principle and apply it.

It wasn’t till much later on that I developed an interest in history.

You see, I came to see that a big proportion of the Bible is history.

God revealed His ways and His nature in His dealings with people in their lives – in history – not in abstract principles of theology.

In the Bible we do not have a systematic theology but the dealings of God in the reality of people’s lives.

The Old Testament is a record of the history of God’s people Israel.

The Gospels are a history of the life of Jesus on earth; Acts is a history of the church.

If God speaks so consistently through history, don’t you think it rather unusual that we pay relatively little attention to church history?

Has God stopped speaking through what He is doing in people’s lives?

So this morning I am going to look at a little church history *[P]* – history of the early church.

*Early church history:*  Now history is all about dates and I don’t have much of a liking for dates, unless they are in scones.

But around A.D. 30-33 Jesus died and rose again and for a period of 40 days was seen by many witnesses to be alive.

Then He ascended to heaven and told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received the Gift of the Father.

Ten days later was the feast of weeks and at that time, when Jews from all the surrounding nations were gathered in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit came down on the believers, they spoke in tongues – the Church was born.

Now Jesus had told His disciples just before He ascended: [*Acts 1:8* /You// will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth/.]

And that is exactly what happened – the Holy Spirit came upon them and they received power – then the trouble started.

You follow the history of the church and it is a story of one trouble after another.

Persecution arose immediately and intensified to such an extent that most believers were forced to leave.

But as they were scattered they took the Gospel with them and the church spread.

And here is something that we see time and again: *difficulty is not disaster*!

*[P]* God uses it to accomplish His purposes *[P]*.

First it spread from Jerusalem up into Samaria *[P,P]* where Philip saw many respond – we are talking 2-3 years after the Resurrection.

The Samaritans had distant connection with the people of Israel.

But soon the Gospel spread even to the heathen Gentiles!

Up into Syria, a church was established in Antioch *[P]* – and Greeks believed.

The church was spreading just as Jesus had said – and it was through difficulty, through persecution.

Now from this church in Antioch the Holy Spirit sent out a couple of men, one of them a former persecutor of the Church – who we know of as Paul.

Now it is some 15 years since the Resurrection.

They took the Gospel further, first to Cyprus and then into Asia Minor, *[P]* what we know of today as Turkey, to the areas of Phrygia and Galatia.

Their consistent method was first to preach the Gospel in the local synagogue and when the Jews rejected the message they would turn to the Gentiles.

Everywhere they went people believed and churches were established.

Then they returned to the fellowship that sent them out.

Some time later, 17 years after the Resurrection in about A.D.50, Paul decided to encourage and strengthen these infant churches, he wanted to see how they were getting on.

So he, now with a man called Silas, returned to the churches that they had established – but Paul was always keen to press on *[P]* to share the Good News with those that had never heard.

So they pressed on westwards into Asia *[P]* but the Holy Spirit forbade them to speak there *[P]*.

I want to read the account so you realize what the Scripture says – this was not things going wrong: [*Acts 16:5-8* /So// the churches were being strengthened in the faith, and were increasing in number daily.

They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them; and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas./]

It was God Himself who was preventing them!

So they were not allowed to speak in Asia, so they turned in the opposite direction, north-east, to Bithynia *[P]*.

But again the Holy Spirit did not allow them to go there *[P]*.

Now imagine we are at the missionary prayer meeting – the church is expanding everywhere and suddenly there is a halt.

We would be praying for God to open the door, to allow those who are without the Gospel to hear.

But we would be praying contrary to God’s will!

It was the Spirit of God who stopped them.

*[P]* Just because things seemed to be going wrong didn’t mean that they were!

God was in control of circumstances and using them to direct His servants.

The only direction left to go was to the north-west – and they came to Troas, where they could go no further *[P]*, they were at the coast.

You know?

God’s work and vision is always way bigger than what we conceive.

The disciples were focused on Jerusalem but it was way bigger than that – God sent the Gospel out into Judea and Samaria.

Paul had a bigger concept, he wanted the Gospel to go to the Gentiles – but even his concept was too small.

He was thinking of the East.

The Jews are Semitic people, intrinsically they belong to the East.

And there was a big difference between East and West.

The West had taken over, the Greeks and then the Romans had invaded – but they occupied the land, the people were still Eastern in approach, in mindset – they did not embrace the Western culture – it did not sit easily with them and that is why the occupiers had such a tough time of it.

They never became Greek.

The East was much earthier, tied to the land, concrete and practical.

The West was intellectual, metaphysical, abstract, philosophical.

You know?

We are Western people.

There is a barrier between East and West.

The West was cultured, but it was debased, idolatrous to the core with a pantheon of gods – the East in comparison was unsophisticated and backward – but real!

God was no abstraction and metaphysical philosophy – your religion was your life, not some mental concept.

You look at the East today, be it Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, animism – the religion may be false but it is an integral part of their lives, not just something they do on Sunday.

Paul was not contemplating going further West – that was Europe, Greece, Rome – the West.

But God’s plans were greater!

[*Acts 16:9-12* /A// vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the Gospel to them.

So putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to Neapolis; and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were staying in this city for some days/.].

Paul had come to the end of his ideas, God stymied them; now God speaks directly, brings revelation and a direction that Paul had never contemplated.

To Macedonia!

*[P]* That is in Europe!

We all know of Alexander the Great who conquered the world, spreading Greek culture and language wherever he went – but Alexander wasn’t from Greece – ask Angelina, he was a Macedonian!

In fact Philippi was named after his father, Philip.

Here is the heart of Greek thought and ideals, of the West!

*[P]*.

To Philippi.

The Gospel had come to Europe, eventually to us – we are indebted to the fact that Paul heeded the Macedonian call.

*History of Philippian church:* They came to Philippi – read what it said: a “/leading city/”.

This was a key centre in Macedonia; furthermore it was a Roman colony.

It was on the Egnatian Way *[P]* – a major Roman road, the main east-west route from Rome, connecting the Aegean and the Adriatic seas.

Romans built well – built in 146 B.C., over 200 years old when Paul travelled it; now, over 2,000 years later it is still there!

If Greek was the prevailing culture and philosophy, the ruling power was Rome – and Philippi was a Roman colony.

This was as thoroughly west as you could get, apart from perhaps Rome itself.

Here was the combination of Greecian and Roman – western thought (Greece) and western might (Rome), philosophy and rule, mind and might.

Where was God in this place?! Well, almost absent from the residents of the city.

There was this man in the vision calling them, but worship of the true God was almost absent.

In those days Jews travelled widely in the Roman world, doing business everywhere.

And where they lived they established their own places of worship, the synagogues.

Paul’s practice, as we have seen, was to first preach in the synagogue but read what happens in Philippi: *[P]* [*Acts 16:13*/ And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled./]

For a synagogue to meet you need a minyan, at least 10 males over the age of 14.

How come Paul didn’t go to the synagogue as he always did?

There wasn’t a minyan.

There were those who worshipped God, but not in a synagogue, they met for prayer, not for teaching and the study of Scriptures; not men but a group of women, not in a synagogue but by a river.

Philippi was a sizeable city yet there were not even 10 יְהוָה worshipping males in it.