BBC Sermon Cast

The church is central to God’s mission on earth and is deep in His affections. The Father gave a people to His Son and He gave the Son to these people to become His temple, His brothers and sisters, His garden and His bride. The church was created from His “bleeding side,” as the hymn writer put it.

Ephesians clearly prioritises the importance of the church we would be silly to not do so as well. There are few subjects that deserve our attention as much as this one. If we love Christ, then we will love His church. And though, of course, charity begins at home, it is the whole church that I am particularly speaking of this evening.

Ephesians 4 presents us with an encouragement to a greater commitment to building relationships with other churches, to partner with one another for the growth of the church to the glory of God.

As Paul draws his letter to the Philippians to a close, he does so with a customary greeting. And yet, as with all of Scripture, that customary greeting contains timeless truths for Christians and Christian churches everywhere, who desire to exemplify what it means to have a true fellowship of the saints.

Jeremiah Burroughs wrote, “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.” In Philippians 4:10–20, Paul writes of Christian contentment and shows that, biblically, contentment leads to generosity.

In Psalm 144, David portrays the believer as a warrior, trained by the Lord for the warfare he faces. He shows us that the warrior who has God as his Lord has every reason to remember past mercies, to ask for present victory and to anticipate future bounty.

In Philippians 4:2–9, we finds words to fighting church members, whose unkindness was affecting the whole body. As Paul said elsewhere, a little leaven was beginning to leaven the whole lump (see Galatians 5:9; 1 Corinthians 5:6). Paul wrote this section of the letter to deal with the problem of disharmony—or, more specifically, to tell the Philippians how to deal with it.

Psalm 143 is the last of the penitential psalms. These are psalms in which you find a prominent theme of self-confessed guilt. Here, the psalmist cries for mercy, acknowledges his guilt, lifts his complaint to the Lord and asks Him to intervene.

The Puritans believed that godly marriages were foundational for the future life of families, churches, and nations. Therefore, they wrote prolifically on the subject of marriage, seeking to bring biblical reformation to this subject in a comprehensive way. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other previous Reformers had begun this task, but the Puritans took it much further, writing a number of detailed treatises on how to live as godly spouses. Out of the wealth of material available to us from the seventeenth century, Joel R. Beeke and James A. La Belle have gathered together insights from the past and summarised them in a contemporary form in order to encourage modern day coupled to glorify God in marriage.

Every believer wants to finish his or her race well, to fulfil the purposes for which God has saved him or her. How do we do that? What is essential in order for us to run well and finish the race so that we will be able to receive the promised reward? How do we press on in a way that is glorifying to God? Philippians 3:12–4:1 helps us to answer that question.

The doctrine of the second coming of Jesus Christ is, sadly, one of the most divisive and speculative in the church. The truth, properly understood, however, is actually one of great hope, as Paul shows in his first letter to the Thessalonians.

In Philippians 3:1–11, Paul writes about the gospel that saved him and produced in him true joy. He recalls his pre-conversion experience of striving for a works-based righteousness, and contrasts it with the joy-inspiring gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ. If you want to know how Paul could maintain his joy while in a Roman dungeon, even as he prepared to send away his two closest companions (2:19–30), this text gives us the answer.