God is the Promise Keeper
By Pastor Jim May
Philippians 1:1-2, "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ."
Tonight I want to speak to you from Paul’s letter to the Philippian Church that he founded under the direction of the Holy Ghost. Paul’s words to the born again Christians are meant to be an encouragement to the Church. Like Paul in the founding of this church, God led me to be a part of the founding of Victory Temple Church from the moment of its inception. From the birth of a new work for the Kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit has led us, provided for us and blessed us so greatly. As always, there are changes that happen along the way. Nearly all of the original members of the church have gone now. The reasons for the change in the congregation are varied and quite simple. Some people were led, and some chose on their own, to move on somewhere else. Several of the members have gone home to be with the Lord, and I consider it a great privilege and honor to have been some small part of their lives since God gave me the chance to help them prepare for eternity.
Through the process of time and circumstances, God has drawn all of us together in the place and today we have a larger church, and a group of people coming here who make up a great church. The Holy Spirit is here and he gives us a tremendous Spirit of Unity and Fellowship. The Church is doing great and all of you are great. Oh I know that we are never going to be perfect but I could not ask for easier people to minister to. I feel humbled by your trust; honored by your attendance and I appreciate every one of you who call this “Your Church”.
When the Holy Ghost led you to become a part of this church, He placed you under the leadership of this church; under myself as Pastor, Bro. Larry and Asst. Pastor; the worship leaders and the teachers. This is the place, for this time in your life, that God has intended for you to be rooted and grounded, allowing your spiritual roots to grow deep into the fertile ground of His Word and that your faith should grow into a mighty tree and shine forth in this dark world, giving glory to God for the life that you live.
You are a part of God’s chosen generation; a royal priesthood; a holy nation and a peculiar people; and he has called you of darkness and into His marvelous light, so that your life can be a praise unto the Lord, the Father of Lights.
So as Paul said to his church in Philippi, let me begin by saying, this is a message from myself and from the Lord Jesus Christ to all of the servants of the Lord; to all of you who are called to be saints who are at Victory Temple, with the teachers and all of the leaders – Grace be unto you, and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
You are called saints because you have been made holy through the blood of Jesus Christ. You were chosen to be “IN HIM” before the world began and you have been made a new creation, created in Jesus, by the power of the Holy Ghost to do good works through Christ.
It’s a wonderful thing to know that the Great God of Heaven, Creator of all things, Omnipotent, All-knowing and Omnipresent; the Lord of the Universe, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, knows you by name. He called you – each one of you, one-by-one – into his kingdom. He loved you first, before you knew him, even before you were born, and God took a very special interest in you. You have been adopted; even better, you have been given a great gift of being engrafted into the very bloodline of Almighty God. You are a son, or a daughter of God, and you have the right to cry “Abba Father, My Father”. You are “born again”. Just think of it this way: You were born of natural parents in this world, but the person that you were in the flesh is now dead to the flesh. You have been “reincarnated” if you want to call it that, into a whole new family with a whole new identity. You are no longer just a child of your parents in this world, siblings of your natural brothers or sisters; but you are now in a whole new family, with new brothers and sisters, who have likewise been born again into the greatest, most awesome family in the universe – The Family Of God!
Your new life, and your new family, will never change. You’ll never have to say goodbye to one single member of this family. Even though there may come a time when we are absent in the flesh, yet we are ever alive in the Spirit and will all come be together forever. Those who have laid the old body of flesh down and moved into their Heavenly home are just waiting across the river. One day soon, we will all be together forever. They have not died, but rather moved away temporarily. Right now we are separated by a veil, but they are alive, not sleeping in a tomb, but walking around and enjoying the wonders of that Heavenly City.
What Jesus has purchased with his own precious blood, and what the Holy Spirit has placed in your heart and what the Father in Heaven has determined for you is forever sealed. Your name has been written in the Lambs Book of Life and God promises that the work that has begun will be completed without fail through the power of God.
Philippians 1:3, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,"
When I think of all that God has done for us by saving us, redeeming us, sealing us and adopting us, then drawing us together into one body here at our church I cannot help but Thank God for his great mercy. My God is alive, he is Love and he is my all in all.
Philippians 1:4, "Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy,"
No matter what position we hold, we have a great duty – and that is to pray for one another. One of the greatest joys that we claim is that we know that our pastors, teachers and every brother and sister in the church is praying for us. Just to know that we can call upon one another, we can trust one another and we count on one another in times of sickness, need or trouble is such a wonderful blessing. No matter how strong we are, there are times when we feel weak and need that support. When we are discouraged, very few people outside of the church will care enough to help you through.
You don’t find that kind of love, compassion, caring and concern on the job, and many times, not even in your own natural family. But you can find that in the church. Jesus told us that there one be great earmark; one great sign that we are his children. That sign is that we have love one for another, and it’s a love that this world can’t understand.
Philippians 1:5, "For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now;"
I thank God for the good fellowship we have here. There is no doubt in my mind that all of you are here to support the spread of the gospel through our church. Your generosity in giving of tithes and offerings and of your time and energy do not go unnoticed. Some of you work hard at keeping the church clean and ready for the services. Others help to clean up after we have our dinners together. Others do things that no one else knows about. I want you to know that even if there should be a time when no one notices, God does. He will reward your faithfulness and he will exalt you in due time.
I thank God that one day, through a string of seemingly unrelated circumstances in life, God brought each of us to a place where we could hear the preaching of the gospel. God, in his providence, sent it your way, and mine, and through the Holy Spirit, helped us to understand the message and to receive it with joy and gladness. Since that day we have broken bread together, prayed together, experienced both pain and joy together, while God molded us into one body. I thank God that I believe every one of you is going to make it to Heaven one day soon. I know that you are going to persevere and make it all the way. I know that you are going to hold on to the hand of the Lord and allow the Holy Spirit to lead you all the way to Glory Land.
Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"
This work is not the preaching of the Gospel among us, nor the continuation of this church for there will come a day when the preaching of the gospel will cease, and this church will be empty. It’s not in the giving of your time and offerings. This “good work” is the work of Grace, or the working of your faith in God.
God began a work in you the moment the light came into your soul by the Spirit of God. When we were made to see our lost condition and need of a Savior, just as the first thing that God spoke into existence in the Creation was light, so was the first thing that He gave to us was light; at that moment, the work began. We gained the fear and reverence for God that we didn’t have before. Then the Love of God shone forth and we experienced that love as He drew us closer to him.
That great love is the beginning of wisdom. We began to place our faith in Christ, but this isn’t a finished work yet. We are changed little by little, from day to day, until one we will come into the fullness of Christ and be all that we can be in him.
There are a few bumper stickers around that remind us that we aren’t quite there yet. One says, “I’m not Perfect, Just Forgiven”, another says, “I’m an Old Chunk of Coal, Buy God is Going to Make Me a Diamond Someday”.
What God has begun in us, he will finish. We’ll cross that Finish Line, either by way of the grave, or through the Rapture of the Church, and then that work will be complete. You can put your confidence and trust in Jesus Christ who never changes and cannot fail.
Philippians 1:7, "Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace."
I am glad that I can think of you and be confident of the completion of the work of the gospel in you. It is a great comfort to me to know that our labor is not in vain. Though we long to be with the Lord, yet we all face life together. We are all prisoners of love, bound to serve the Lord and to preach the gospel wherever we go. And we all partake of the blessings and fruits of our labor together as we watch the church grow and our brothers and sisters in the Lord continue to mature in the things of God.
Philippians 1:8, "For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ."
God know my heart. He knows the love I have for this church and for His people. God knows how often I think of you. Sometimes I don’t know what to say, or what to do, but I still think of you and ask God to bless you. You are more of a family than anyone else and I long to see you blessed in the Lord and to stay close to the heart of Jesus.
Philippians 1:9, "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;"
Philippians 1:10, "That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;"
As you spend time in the Word of God and you spend time with the Lord in prayer, you can’t help but love the Word and Love Jesus more and more. As your love grows and you learn more of the Word, then you are better prepared to judge all things. Because of the wisdom given to you by the Holy Spirit and the illumination of your mind and heart after the things of God, you soon begin to discern what is spiritually right and what is not.
Many of the things that you once accepted as normal are no longer acceptable at all, and those things of the spiritual and eternal nature become the most important things in your life and the focus of all your efforts. What the world considers as good are not good at all when examined by the Word of God. We learn to try everything, question everything and not accept every little wind of doctrine. The value of all godly things becomes more and more evident and our whole life changes to please God and live a sanctified life. You become far more concerned about offending Jesus than offending man.
Philippians 1:11, "Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God."
This is where works comes into play. Your good works, works of righteousness, are called fruit fit for the Kingdom of God. Every good work that you do will spring up from the seeds of righteousness that planted in your heart by the Grace of God and by Holy Spirit. Then the washing of the Word, like water on a plant begins to make the seed grow until we are changed through the Word of God. The seed grows in direct proportion to the commitment that we have to change to be like Jesus, but we all have the same opportunity. Therefore the fruits of your life will only be limited by your personal level of faith and commitment.
2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
Isaiah 28:10, "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:"
In all of this process we are guided by the Holy Spirit. By the grace of God we are all going to make it through to become victorious. God has placed us all together so that we can encourage one another, exhort one another and we can all grow together. What a wonderful privilege we have to called a part of this church and a part of the Body of Christ.
Therefore I thank God every time I think of you, all of you; each of you. I thank God that we are here and I pray that God will keep us together and help us to maintain the spirit of unity and peace that is in our midst.
I am persuaded that we will all make it home someday. When that day comes, all of the work, all of the prayers, all of the hours of sitting and listening to the Word coming from this pulpit; all of the worship and praise will be worth it all.
God has promised us in Ephesians 4:13 that we can and will live in the, "unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God”, and that we will one day measure up to be a “perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:"
In the meantime let me remind you once more of what is said in Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"
That’s God’s promise to each of us and I believe God is the Ultimate Promise Keeper. Amen
