Philippians - Lesson 18

I. Protocols & Partnerships (4:10-13)

In this lesson, we're going to look at the remaining verses of Philippians, starting in chapter 4, verse 10, and going to the end. In this section, Paul is primarily talking to them about their financial gift. In order to understand what Paul is doing in his thank-you portion of this letter, we have to recall the traditions or the customs of gift-giving and financial support that were prevalent in Paul's day. We have to read this passage in its historical context. I have to say much mischief is wrought when we pluck this passage from its 1st century context. Each culture has different ways of thinking about the exchange of money, giving money as gifts, as loans, as grants.

So let's pay attention first to the protocols that were present in Paul's day and how he both follows them and also nuances them in light of the gospel message. The other thing we want to keep in mind in reading this section on their financial gift and Paul's receiving of it is that throughout this whole letter, we have noted the warm tone that Paul has towards the Philippians. Paul clearly thinks very highly of the Philippians, and that doesn't change when we get to these last verses, so we want to make sure that we keep that in mind. And finally, then, what we should note is that although Paul is speaking in this passage directly about money and finances. For Paul, all things, including money, serve the gospel message. Giving money, giving of one's time, giving anything should be done in service to the gospel by those whose lives have been reshaped by being in Christ.

In the 1st century, Seneca, who is a philosopher, a Stoic philosopher, wrote this about giving: "It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so." What he was saying here is that it is incumbent upon the recipient of a gift to thank the giver. But Seneca also says, irrespective of whether I get thanks, it is my responsibility as someone who has resources to give them. And he laments that in giving out these gifts, he sometimes—or he says, actually, "a great many"—I don't know who he's giving these gifts to, but he's not always happy with their response. They tend not to be as grateful to Seneca as what he imagined them to be, should be. So Seneca is reflecting the sentiments of his day: the necessity for giving praise back to the gift-giver, and the gift-giver giving without at least stating the necessity of praise. It's kind of that, you know, you can't really say, "I expect a thank-you card," because that would seem arrogant. On the other hand, you are expecting a thank-you card. And that's kind of the unspoken—those customs of the day. And that's what Seneca is getting at. Paul and the Philippians lived by these rules; I mean, that was their culture's rules. So we're going to explore how Paul engages, and I think reshapes in some cases, these rules.

Overall, what Paul, in reshaping these rules, his goal is to strengthen the relationship he has with the Philippians and the partnership that they have shared. And we'll hear more about that partnership. We saw it in the opening chapter, and we'll learn more about it in this chapter. Paul, when he responds to them, he is communicating his set of priorities. We're going to see this as we move through these ten verses. His priorities include their unity. His priorities include the Philippians standing firm in the face of suffering and persecution. That's what's important for Paul. And so this financial gift that Epaphroditus brings, that's an expression of their steadfastness and standing firm with Paul in ministry. It's a testimony to their hope that God will meet the needs of his people. This financial gift is an act of worship.

Well, commentators have asked why it is, given the social customs of the day and the friendliness and warmth of the letter, that we don't hear the full expression of thanksgiving for their financial gift until the end of the letter. Why did Paul decide to frame things that way? Well, I think it reflects first Paul's conviction that their friendship, their partnership, their koinonia in the gospel, and their spiritual growth was much more important to focus on, and it far exceeds any financial arrangements that they have. In fact, it's an aspect of their spiritual growth rather than being the centerpiece of their spiritual growth. I think also we see here Paul's decision that he wants his final words about the gift, receiving it with joy, to be those that ring joyously in the Philippians' ears as they close the letter.

When we look at verses 10 through 20, I suggest that from a structural standpoint, it serves as what we might call an inclusio with the beginning of Paul's letter, verses 3 through 11 in chapter 1. Both the beginning and the end here are stressing key themes and also vocabulary for the letter as a whole. So, for example, in chapter 1, verse 5, and also here in 4:15, we have the phrase "the beginning of the gospel." We also have this unique phrase, "share with me," a prefix and then the noun koinonia, both in chapter 1, verse 7, and chapter 4, verse 14. And then we also see in verses 10 through 20 here in chapter 4 key vocabulary that we've already touched on throughout the letter, like the verb "to think," or sometimes it's translated "to have this attitude." And the refrain of rejoicing, which we've seen throughout the letter, also resounds here. And the theme of sacrifice, which we saw in chapter 2, we see here in chapter 4.

So let's dive in now to the individual verses. Paul says, "I rejoiced greatly that at last you renewed your concern for me." Paul rejoices not simply at their gift—"I'm so glad I got your check"—no, but rather that this gift confirms to Paul their partnership in the gospel. I rejoice because you renewed your concern, right? And then he also indicates you were indeed concerned, but you just didn't have an opportunity to show it. He uses a verb that we've seen throughout the letter meaning "to think." Here he uses it as "concern"—this idea of thinking in a way that expresses an interest in the other. Paul expresses here that they renewed their concern for Paul, and he uses a particular verb here to describe that that we don't find anywhere else in the New Testament. But it has the idea of blooming, like their renewed concern is like the plant that grows up again and the flower blooms, which I think is a beautiful word picture and once again gets to the warm tone and friendship, partnership that Paul experiences with the Philippians.

What we'll find in this next verse, when Paul says, "I'm not saying all this because I have a need," is that Paul will both thank them and then qualify, thank them and then qualify. And he does this not because he's reluctant to thank them, but because he's negotiating and modifying the social context of gift-giving. That's why we spent a little bit of time earlier in the lesson talking about the social customs of gift-giving. So Paul will recognize that's what they all have to deal with, and he's saying, "Okay, given that this is how we tend to think of gift-giving and financial partnership, here's what it looks like as we think about it in light of Christ."

And then in verse 11, Paul says, "I'm not saying this because I have need, I've learned to be content in whatever circumstance." And I think how we want to understand Paul's qualification here, we're helped by a passage that is part of writings that are in the Apocrypha, which is a group of Jewish writings that were written from, I don't know, 300 BC on up through our period. They are not in the Protestant Old Testament, but they are expressions of Jewish attitudes at this time. I don't consider them Scripture, but they are evidence or material from which we can get a sense of how Jews were thinking about God at this time. And in one in particular, called Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, we read of this language of extolling God's blessing and his blessing being allowed to flourish, pulling on that same language we saw in verse 10, "renewed your concern" is bloomed. And this passage in Sirach continues, "Do not say, 'What do I need, and what further benefit can be mine?' Do not say, 'I have enough, and what harm can come to me now?'" And I wonder if Paul is suggesting a similar sentiment here.

He's not saying in verse 11, then, "I'm not saying this because I'm in need," as though he wants to try to have enough so that he's independent. Instead, what he's trying to paint here is a picture for the Philippians of what true contentment is like. And it's not based on, as Sirach is also criticizing, it's not based on the amount of physical things you have or the physical space and relative level of comfort that you enjoy. When Paul says, "I've learned to be content in whatever circumstances," that idea of contentment was a cultural value; it's part of the Stoic thought that was so prevalent in Paul's day. But Paul does not use this term, "contentment," in the way that like a Seneca would, because Paul knows what it's like to be humiliated. He knows what it means to be humbled. That's not an ideal for the Stoics at all. And Paul is also not saying here that he's indifferent to circumstances, because he says he rejoices and he enjoys plenty. We just take a look at verse 12, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty, whether I'm well fed or whether I'm hungry." That's not a Stoic attitude. A Stoic attitude says, "I'm indifferent to everything." But Paul embraces his hunger, his full stomach, his rough living, and the hospitality that he receives in nice homes. He is content in whatever the circumstances, and this contentment is rooted in Christ-sufficiency rather than self-sufficiency. The Stoic argues for self-sufficiency; for Paul, it's all about Christ. So contentment is living in Christ, who is our sure hope.

Contentment is language that Paul uses in other of his letters. Paul will say to the Corinthians that God will bless them so that they have what they need, or in the letter to Timothy, the first letter, we read, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." This challenges the prevailing attitude of the broader culture, which says, "Be self-sufficient," content meaning nothing really bothers me. Should also add that Paul does not see contentment as synonymous with happiness or with success, with positive circumstances. As we see in the next verse here, in verse 12, there's deprivation that Paul experienced, right? There's limited means that Paul experienced, but those do not affect his contentment, because his contentment is rooted in that which does not change, namely the love of Christ. I think this section here, verses 11 and 12, and we'll see also 13, are a continuing challenge throughout the generations of the church. There is a draw that we see from Stoicism that I would suggest in one form or another has continued these 2,000 years, and it is a tendency to want to be self-sufficient. Sometimes it's painted as individualism: "Be yourself, do you, do you, do you," as though you don't need others. Sometimes it's expressed in a desire for control: having enough wealth, maybe manipulating family members so that you are in a comfortable situation and having things under control. Self-sufficiency is praised in cultures in the West; I think it makes it hard, then, to live into the contentment that Paul promises us here in Philippians.

This final section here to finish his thought here in verse 13, "I can do all things through him who gives me strength." I have a story to tell you here as we get into this text. One family member, this is years ago, received a door-to-door salesman—you know, back in the day they were a little more common—and that person noticed maybe a Bible in the background or something, I don't know, and said, "You know, I'm a Christian, too, and my favorite verse is, 'I can do all things.'" And like, there was a period right there. And that to me is such a perfect example of how our culture's focus on self-sufficiency so infuses our reading of the text that we actually can't even see the whole verse: "through him who gives me strength." So Paul says here, "I can do all things, I can do all this through him who gives me strength," and both the verb here and also the participle carry the meaning of being strong. But notice where the strength comes from: it's not at all from Paul. The strength that makes him strong comes through Christ. Actually, the Greek does not—just has the pronoun; it doesn't identify whether it's God or whether it's Christ, but given that Paul's overall argument is about Christ-sufficiency, not self-sufficiency, most argue that Paul has in mind here the strength of Christ that strengthens him. Some translations have "I can do all things," but he doesn't mean, you know, "I can fly like Superman," right? I mean, it's not all things; it's those things that Paul has just talked about. I can continue my ministry whether I have a full belly or whether I'm in want, whether I'm sleeping rough or whether I'm sleeping in a home. I can do all this—those things that I've just listed to you in verses 11 and 12, all these things I can do, not on my own strength, but on the strength that God provides, that Christ gives me. I rest in that strength.

You think a little bit more about this sufficiency, and I'm drawn to 2 Corinthians chapter 12, where God, in answering Paul's plea to have what Paul calls "a thorn in my side"—you know, a thorn that we don't know what the thorn is, but it's in some way Paul feels inhibiting his ministry, and so he pleads with God to remove it, and God's response is that his grace is sufficient. And it's a similar word that's used here to wording that we find in our passage. So Paul, in receiving this answer to his prayer, which was a bit of a surprise because he wasn't actually praying to receive that word—he was praying that the thorn would go, but this was a better answer—and Paul recognizes that he was relying on his own strength or wanted his own strength to be magnified and thus have the thorn removed, right? And Paul realized that what God was saying is that when you reckon yourself as weak, then my own power is magnified. And this is weakness here, this is frailty, this is finitude—the recognition that we're creatures and God is the Creator. To do the work of God requires the strength of God, and so Paul says, "I'm going to boast or be glad, rejoice all the more in my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." This is in verse 9 of chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians. That idea of power is similar to the language that we find here in Philippians chapter 4, verse 13. And let me just note, Paul's not talking about sin here; he's talking about weakness. He's talking about what all of us experience as mortals. It's just part of our mortal existence relative to who God is, immortal with divine strength.

II. Reshaping the Gift (4:14-20)

So Paul has thanked them partially, and now in verse 14, he's going to thank them again more fully. He says, "It's good that you share in my troubles." And Paul, in verses 14, 15, and 16, gives a bit of a history here. I'm glad he does because we wouldn't have known this. The Philippians know it, but sometimes it's good to hear a reminder. And Paul is reminiscing here of all that they've meant to him, the partnership that stretches back to the very first time he visited them. There's a warmth there, and I hope we all have friends that we can say these sorts of things to—fellow believers who have been with us for years or decades through what we might call thick and thin. The troubles, Paul says, "You Philippians, when I left you and I continued on at Thessalonica and Berea and others, you supported me, you shared with me, you were in partnership with me even when I was just next door in Thessalonica. You sent me aid several times." So he's reminding and rejoicing with them, reminiscing at their affection and partnership. I think this gift that Epaphroditus brought kind of invited Paul to reflect back, and I think that's a good model for us. It helps us continue to be in a mindset of rejoicing when we remember how God has provided in the past.

So Paul is commending the Philippians' steadfast partnership, and then he gets into what can sound to our ears like a qualification again in verses 17 through 20, so let's take a look at those. He argues again, or he states again, "I don't desire your gifts; what I desire is that they are credited to your account." So now Paul is going to be more explicit in what he's been hinting at up till now, which is the actual bag of money that Epaphroditus brought to Paul and set on the table is reshaped in Paul's narrative to be a sacrifice to God as worshiped by the Philippians in their mutual love, Paul and the Philippians' love of Christ and service to the church. So Paul reframes, redefines, and by doing so, elevates the Philippians' gift. This is not commerce, even though there is the language of everyday commerce that Paul uses in here, but he's not limiting these words to kind of transactions. This is not a transaction; this is an act of worship.

So look at 17 and 18. He's qualifying this gift that they give to him as gifts given to Christ. And it's interesting, the term that he uses here for the word "gift" that we translate "gift," we also find in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 8, and that's part of an Old Testament quotation. And it describes, using this word, gifts that are given by Christ, "When Christ ascended on high, he took many captives and he gave gifts to the people." And so Paul can, in other contexts, shape a gift that to the human eye looks like a financial contribution and frame it in light of worship for Christ. Paul also here in verse 17 talks about this act of partnership, the specific act of partnership that is represented in Epaphroditus' gift, bringing the gift. Paul shapes it by using the term "fruit." One translation is, "What I desire is that more be credited to your account," and that "more be credited" is actually the term "fruit." Another translation says it this way, "But I seek the fruit that increases to your credit." What they're trying to get at in the English translations here is this reframing of Paul of their gift by using language that is part of the sacrificial system that the Jewish community would be very familiar with: bringing your firstfruits to the altar, that is the first part of your harvest, bringing that to God. So speaking of fruit here, using that language as a signal to the Philippians that we're not talking transaction here, we're talking in worship language.

And Paul, he goes back and forth—this is interesting. He uses "fruit" in 17, and then in 18, "I've received full payment," which can sound like he's writing out a receipt. But Paul doesn't stop at that; he'll go on. "Yes, I've received it all. I can't even write you a receipt, but here's how I'm actually thinking about it: it's a fragrant offering, it's an acceptable sacrifice." So Paul is both acknowledging the gift in financial terms, but then also talking about the gift as an act of worship. This is so important to understand because, at the end, Paul is able then to say, because you didn't give the gift to me—in the end of the day, it's not to me, it's to God—it is God then who receives your act of worship and who will meet your needs. You see, this is where Paul is going in the argument.

Let me just add one more note. When Paul says, "I've received full payment," Paul isn't implying here that someone in Philippi is questioning Epaphroditus's honesty, that maybe he skimmed something from the top, right? Remember, this tone throughout the letter is warm, and Paul is embracing their partnership, so there's no implicit accusation that Epaphroditus didn't give everything. Rather, Paul is saying here, "I've received it all, I've received the whole gift, and this gift is a gift that is a fragrant offering." Right? Maybe another way to kind of think about this blending in our ears, blending of straight-up finances and sacrificial worship, because they seem two different categories for us, but recall that in the ancient world, certainly in the Jewish worship at the temple, people brought money to then buy a pure animal or bird for sacrifice. It would be awfully hard to bring your own sheep or lamb or goat safely from Galilee to Jerusalem and make sure that it didn't get harmed in any way along the journey and thus not be satisfactory for sacrifice. Instead, most people brought money and then they purchased their sacrifice there in the temple.

Of course, you can imagine, and Jesus pointed it out, this created real temptation to up the price—like food bought in airports, always more expensive than the grocery store because they got you there in the airport. So too in the ancient world, people would be comfortable using money to buy sacrifices; it's not like those two things wouldn't go together in their imagination. But they also would recognize the temptations to sin that are involved in that kind of configuration, and Paul is thus really insistent on this being their worship. It's their blossoming, their fruit. I mean, all of this language calls to mind a genuine sacrifice to God. And it's from there, from that position, that Paul can say in verse 19 that "my God will meet all of your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

So let me just say what Paul has done in part in this claim that "my God will meet all of your needs" is he has reshaped the typical social structure of gift-giving in the ancient world. No longer is Paul the one that's responsible to give a gift back, but rather it's God now. Their gift—God is the big benefactor, God's the one who actually receives this gift, and as such then, it's God who will meet their needs there. Paul is showing gratitude for the gift, which was a common expectation at that time, but rather than get into a kind of competition, or is Paul the client, are they the benefactor, or is Paul really the benefactor because he's the pastoral leader of the church—rather than mess with all of those social dimensions of gift-giving, instead Paul says, "This gift is a gift to the Lord, and so I can receive it gratefully and thank you, but I'm also thanking God because of your faithfulness in our partnership." And this is how Paul frames it.

What conclusions might we draw from this? Well, Paul is stating what the Philippians believe I think also to be true, namely that their gift to Paul was really their gift to God, their partnering in this ministry. And Paul, when Paul receives it, he recognizes it's not his money, it's God's money, because it's all about the ministry. So if we think about that today, you think, if you are someone who gives, then are you thinking about your gift as being unto God, not so much to a person or to an entity, but unto God? I would say, if Paul is anything to go by here, there's real freedom in that acknowledgment. You might not get a building named after you, but there's great freedom as God receives the glory. And then, if you are someone who is receiving the gift, are you receiving it as though the gift is God's to accomplish purposes that God has for you and not your own dreams?

You just think about—speaking of your own dreams and thinking about Paul receiving this gift—did he ever think that his ticket to Rome would be the free transport provided by being chained to a Roman soldier? No, I doubt it. But his dreams are subsumed and reframed through his walk with the Lord each and every day faithfully. And so receiving this gift from the Philippians helping him while he's in prison—maybe another person, maybe even me, might have dented my ego a little bit. I wish I could receive the gift as a free person striding around Rome preaching the gospel, but he didn't. He received the gift content in his own situation because he knew that's where God wanted him to meet, to be. Remember our conversation about chapter 1, verses 12 to 18. God is working, and he receives the gift as it's meant to be, an act of worship by his partners, the Philippians.

In this passage, especially verse 19, the church has sometimes plucked some of these words out of context, "My God will meet your needs, all your needs." I think it's interesting that Paul uses the word "my" here—"my God will meet your needs"—because it's clear the Philippians worship the same God as Paul does. Maybe what Paul is driving at here when he says "my God" is that he's thinking about the gift that, yes, he did receive, but really this gift is actually God's. So the gift that's, maybe in a technical sense, given to Paul is a gift that's given to God. It is the case, and I think we need to state it up front, when Paul says, "My God will meet your needs," the immediate context of this conversation does include money; that's true. But Paul also has redefined the importance of money to include acts of sacrificial worship.

So I'm trying to walk a fine line between recognizing that God cares about our material needs and can meet them—I don't want to over-spiritualize—and yet I also want to avoid merely imagining that God only answers prayers with material items. Paul knows that God can provide money, God can provide physical healing. When he states God will meet their needs, he has experienced that in space and time, not just as kind of spiritual abstractions. He knows that God can heal, but he never intimates here that God promises to all his followers health and wealth, as though God is, I don't know, some kind of great vending machine, you know? You just stick a little bit of money in, push a button, and out falls blessings, material blessings. I realize that's a crass picture of God, but I think sometimes we understand our prayers and our relationship to God in a very transactional way. And that's not what Paul is getting at here when he says that "my God will meet all your needs." He's not promising a type of answer, but he knows that the one true God loves each and every person so deeply that he wants to show his compassion, his mercy to each and every believer.

III. Final Greetings & Grace (4:21-23)

And then Paul closes the letter: "Greet all God's people in Christ Jesus. The people who are here with me"—the brothers and sisters here in, I'm thinking in Rome, they're ministering to Paul's needs as he's under house arrest—"they send their greetings. Everyone, including even the household of Caesar." In these closing remarks, they tend to be a bit more brief than we find in some of the other letters, like the long list of friends at the end of Romans. And it may be in part that because Epaphroditus and Timothy will be heading there shortly, and so the greetings can be done on a more personal level there as they meet them. And Paul includes Caesar's household; that may be a reference to those believers who are imperial clients or slaves, or maybe freedmen, freedwomen from Caesar's household. Caesar's household was such an extensive group of people, an entourage we might say today, those who managed Caesar's estates and civil affairs. So amongst this large group, there are a few who are now following Christ.

And Paul closes then with this last line: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen." In this final line to the Philippians, I think it expresses what we've seen throughout the whole letter, which is this hope that is given by the risen Christ to those disciples, the promise that our Savior will return and will transform our lowly bodies to share in the likeness of his glorious body.

The beauty of grace—when he says, "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ," I'd like to reflect just a little bit on what that term can entail for us today, the grace, the beauty of the grace of Christ. Philip Yancey in his book, What's So Amazing About Grace? talks about the nature of grace and how it can be lived out between individuals. And he tells the story of a woman named Daisy who was one of ten children. Her family—this happened in the late 1800s—as one of ten children, she grew up impoverished. Her father was an alcoholic; he kicked her mother out of the house when she was wee little. And Daisy grew up very angry at her father. All the kids grow up to adulthood, the father vanishes off the screen for a while and then later appears, and he's changed, he's sober, and he asks his children to forgive him. And all the children do except Daisy. He comes back to the town where Daisy lives; he lives with Daisy's sister just eight houses down in the same block, but she never visited. In all five years, Daisy never visited her father.

However, Daisy had a daughter who looked similar to her, and that daughter stopped by for a visit to see her grandfather. And the father, who was very close to passing, thought he was seeing Daisy. And as some of the other family members were around, they could hear him saying, "Oh, Daisy, Daisy, you've come to me at last." And Yancey writes about this story that the others in the room, they didn't say, "Oh, no, no, no, that's her daughter." Instead, as Yancey puts it, they just let their father go on because he was hallucinating grace.

Another story that we might be familiar with that helps us I think understand grace is Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. In this story, grace exposes ourself to ourselves. Victor Hugo's novel, you know, about forgiveness and grace—there's a musical by the same name. Again, we have the beginning of the story, this prisoner 24601, not a name, just a number, Jean Valjean, and he's wandering the streets after his release from prison. And he meets a bishop, Myriel, who gives him shelter. But that night, Jean Valjean steals some silver and he flees. In the morning, the police capture him, take him back to the bishop's house, and they're expecting the bishop to applaud the police, "Thank you for capturing my thief." So the police are stunned when the bishop hands over two silver candlesticks. He said, "No, I've given all of these to Valjean. He's not a thief. Here, take, take more, these are my gifts." And with that act of grace, the bishop broke the chain of ungrace that had imprisoned Valjean. And in this new life, this new life of grace, having received grace from the bishop, he decides—Valjean decides—let me build a new life. He does break his parole to do that, and he becomes a factory owner, he becomes an official in his town.

But one police officer, Javert, tracks him down. This man is intent on catching the criminal, as he sees him, and he locates him eventually. He finds him, Valjean is on the run, but at a particular moment when Javert is facing Valjean, and Valjean has him in his power, he can kill him—he doesn't, he sets him free, he shows grace. The gift of grace from a man who Javert has always identified as a criminal, always defined as bad, receiving a gift of grace from that man breaks Javert, but not in a good way. It destroys him. It undoes—he cannot receive, he cannot admit to himself the goodness of this grace, and he commits suicide. Like our story of Daisy, Javert does not receive grace; he turns away from grace and forgiveness, unlike Valjean, who receives grace from the bishop.

I think there's a reason for this, and Miroslav Volf in his book, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, addresses this. He makes, I think, a crucial but it's counterintuitive, a crucial point: that extending grace or granting forgiveness, in doing so, you are implying that the recipient has a need to receive grace or forgiveness. To forgive is to name and to condemn the misdeed. And Volf goes on to say this is true of God as well. God doesn't just condemn and then forgive; God condemns in the very act of forgiving. And as we accept God's forgiveness and grace, we receive, in a sense, a new vision of ourselves and can go forward and be a new person. But that's not always easy, and some people don't want to admit the sin part.

To illustrate this truth that Miroslav Volf finds, he writes this story. He writes about his friend Esther, who had been abandoned by her alcoholic mother at age nine. Then years later, Esther searches for her mom, this woman she vowed she'd never love. And when she found her mother, having a change of heart—Esther having a change of heart, she finds her mother. Esther begged her mom for forgiveness for all those years that she didn't write or call, and then Esther waited for her mom to ask for forgiveness also for abandoning her. But her mom didn't say anything; her mom didn't ask for forgiveness. So Esther went further and she said, "Mom, I love you, and it's—I'm okay, mom. My life has turned out okay. I forgive you for everything." And that was the moment then when her mother started to weep and repeated over and over again, "I am so sorry." And Esther realized in that exchange that initially her mom's guilt had had such a hold on her she couldn't even face it. Her daughter's love overcame her own sense of shame. Receiving grace is complicated; sometimes receiving forgiveness can feel maybe simple, but it, it's powerful.

Paul's closing sentence to the Philippians, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you," that sentence reflects the promise and the hope of the church. Paul is convinced that Christ's grace will cover, will protect, will guide, will sanctify until the day of his coming. And Paul asks that this grace be with their spirit, that same one spirit in which they stand firm. I hope that you have enjoyed walking through Philippians with me. This letter is filled with such joy; I hope it's infectious and you've experienced that even as you've soaked in the rich theology. And I hope you also feel now more equipped to stand firm in whatever the Lord has for you in these next years of ministry, that you would return again and again to this joy-filled, hope-filled letter that helps us to stand firm as we await our Savior who's near and coming.