Not ‘Sex in the City,’ but God in the city.
AUGUST 5, 2024
Steve Brown:
Not “Sex in the City,’ but God in the city. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.
Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. I’m Matthew, executive producer of the program. Our host is Steve Brown. He’s an author and seminary professor who teaches that God’s amazing grace is the key to a life of radical freedom, infectious joy, and surprising faithfulness to Christ.
Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hope you guys had a great week-end, and I hope your pastor’s sermon was as good as my pastor’s sermon. We’re starting a new study today. I have spent over the last many, many weeks telling you everything I know about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Having done that, and with nothing more to say on that particular subject, we’re turning to a book of the Bible, and it’s one of my favorite, it’s the Book of Philippians. Before we do that, let’s pray and then we’ll study. Father, we come into your presence aware of the high and holy privilege you have given. We didn’t earn, that you have given to us by invitation, allowing us to come into the throne room of the universe. Father, when we come here, we feel little. When we come here, we feel sinful. When we come here, we feel a little bit scared. Until your welcome becomes the definition of our reason for being here. When you said welcome child, you said it all and we praise you and thank you for it. Father, you know everybody who’s listening to this broadcast and you know the hard places and the soft places. And we know that you’re sovereign over both. Father, meet us at the point of our need and remind us that it was you. And Father, as always, we pray for the one who teaches on this broadcast, forgive him his sins because there are many. We would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. One of my favorite things in the entire world is to read the Bible and then to tell people what I have found. That hasn’t always been true. I’ve told you the story and I’m not going to go into the details. But I graduated from a graduate school of theology where not much was believed. I knew about social ethics. I knew about pastoral psychology. I knew about counseling, but I didn’t know what the Bible had to say. And at a point in my ministry when everything was falling apart, I decided I needed authority, and I decided given that that’s what had been the authority for 2, 000 years, it wouldn’t be a bad decision to make the Bible my authority. And frankly, I had no idea what it said. So, I started in the Gospel of John, and I stayed one verse ahead of that congregation. And you know what happened? God happened. And so, I love teaching the Bible. I remember, and when I start talking like this, all kinds of memories come rushing in. I can remember doing counseling with couples whose marriages were in trouble. And do you know my success rate? Zero. They all got divorces. And I thought, you know, I’m doing something wrong here. And a Lutheran pastor friend of mine, and I remember the day when we were sitting on a wall before a meeting in front of his church. And I was talking to him about the lack of success in my marital counseling. And he said, what are you telling them? And I told him what I was telling them. And he said, I can’t believe this. He said, you need some help. And he opened his little New Testament, began to show me what the Scripture said about marriage. And I started making that central in my counseling and everything turned around because God created us and he’s given us stuff, truth about his creation that would be us. But at any rate, I became a Bible teacher and over the years that’s where I’ve lived. Sometimes with fear, sometimes with doubts, though not many, but all the time staying in Scripture. And if I was convinced that Scripture said something, I was going to teach it no matter what. So, I still am that. I like doing subjects, but I really like going line upon line and precept upon precept from books of the Bible. So, we’re going to be studying the Book of Philippians. So, let’s do some basic pedagogical questions that concern this book. First, who or what is Philippi? Philippi was the leading city of Macedonia and it was situated on the east west highway between Rome and Asia. Philippi took its name from Philip of Macedon, who captured the city in 360 B.C. You should be impressed with my knowledge, I looked all of this up. Philip incidentally was the father of Alexander the Great. While the provincial capitol of Macedonia was Thessalonica, perhaps the most important city of the province was Philippi. It was, many had said, a Rome in miniature. In 168 B.C., when Rome conquered the Persians, it was granted the same rights and privileges of any Roman city, which was a rare and great privilege for a provincial municipality. In 42 B.C., there was a battle, just so you know, between the armies loyal to Julius Caesar who by then was dead, and Emperor Augustus against Brutus and Cassius. Did you read Julius Caesar by Shakespeare when you were in high school or college? I did, and I don’t remember anything about it, except one quote I memorized that Julius Caesar said about Cassius. He said.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much.
Well, Philippi was the center of gold mining, trade and there were numerous springs which made it a tourist city also. And so, it should be no surprise that God was doing something important in a city like Philippi. And as we go through this book, we’re going to see some exciting things happening in Philippi. Sex in the City is the name of a television program, but God in the City is far more important. What’s the Biblical significance of Philippi? Well, Philippi was the first church established in Europe. You can read about what happened in the 16th chapter of Acts. Paul was led to Macedonia because of a vision, and shortly thereafter he met Lydia, who was a dynamite lady, a professional woman, Asian, and later Paul healed a girl possessed of a spirit in Philippi, who had been making a lot of money for her owners. That understandably didn’t sit well with the owners. Paul ended up in prison where he met the third significant person, a Philippian jailer who received Christ and his household was baptized. That was the beginning of this little church in Philippi, and by the time Paul left he was a hero in the city. Paul, according to the record in Acts, visited this church three times. The first I just described in Acts 16, that was on the second missionary journey. Second and third visits found in Acts 20, he visited the church after being in Ephesus on the third missionary journey, and then his way back from Syria, he came again. But maybe the most important thing, and we’ll look at some other questions concerning this book, is that if Paul had his church membership letter anywhere, it was in the church at Philippi. We’re going to see as we go along how these wonderful people in Philippi stood by Paul when he went through really tough time. I have friends in prison. And I want you to know, they are glad that I’m their friends, more so than my being their friend when they weren’t in prison. That’s because of Jesus. And it’s also true of the apostle Paul. He loved the people in the church in Philippi. He loved them deeply and profoundly, but when he got into trouble and he was in prison, they stood with him, and they stood strongly. You can’t spend money for friends like that. You think about that. Amen.
Matthew Porter:
Thanks Steve. Today, we kicked off our new series on the Book of Philippians. Very exciting. And listen, as we’re starting this thing, what a great time to share Key Life with a friend, right? Just direct them to keylife.org day two is tomorrow. Hope to see you then. Well, your friend might also enjoy our talk radio show. If you don’t know, it’s called Steve Brown Etc. and on a recent episode, we spoke with one of our favorite guests, Preston Sprinkle. His latest book concerns the first century church and what it can teach us about politics today, about how we can create real change and influence. We put that whole show on a CD that we would love to send your way for free. Would that be okay? Well, then call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. To mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for your free copy of the CD featuring Preston Sprinkle. And before you go, if you value the work of Key Life would you join us in that work through your financial support? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope, or simply text Key Life to 28950 and then follow the instructions. And of course, as always, if you can’t give right now, or maybe you’re just not called to, all good, seriously. But if you think about it, please do pray for us, would you? Always appreciated. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.