Christian Embrace - Philippians 4:21-22

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon Arpey Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today, and we pray that you'll be blessed by both hearing God's Word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart. Please open in your Bibles with me to the book of Philippians, Philippians chapter 4, and we'll be looking this morning at verses 21 and 22. Philippians chapter 4, verses 21 through 22 can be found on page 1045 of your Pew Bibles. Philippians chapter 4, beginning at verse 21, This is the Word of God. Pay careful attention. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, but especially those of Caesar's household. Thus ends the reading of this portion of God's Word.

Well, I was in grad school in Chicago, and I remember one day I was coming home after being in the library for dinner, and as I came, I put my keys inside the door to unlock it, and no sooner did I turn the handle than my beautiful wife was standing there to greet me. And in her arms was a little child, and she said, I was never this bad as a child.

How you greet someone says a lot about your emotional state towards that person or what's going on in their lives. How you greet someone communicates a whole lot about your relationship with them. How you greet someone communicates a whole lot about how you think about your relationship.

And the reality is we all long for someone to answer the door and to greet us with a warm expression of love, don't we? We all long for that. We want that. And we need that in the church too. And here Paul tells us this is how the church is supposed to operate.

We're to greet each other. Or we're going to explore what that idea means in greeting, but it's deeper than just howdy. But it's embracing each other. It's loving each other. It's welcoming each other. And so your call this morning is to embrace each other. And the first part of that embracing each other is found in verse 21. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. There's a whole bunch of different ways to greet people, isn't there?

You can greet people, you pass along the street with a little wave. We do it on the country roads, right? When somebody's driving down the gravel, you kind of give them the friendly steering wheel wave. Or if it's somebody you love or you particularly enjoy, you might see them and you might smile and you don't have to say anything, that's your greeting.

Others of you will just give a kind hello. Some of you make us uncomfortable and you're huggers and you want to hug people to greet them and that's fine. But there's different ways to greet each other in different cultures and in different situations.

If you were to go into the palace of the king or the queen, how would you greet them? You would bow to them. That's the customary greeting. If you're in the military and you're an enlisted man and an officer walks in, how do you greet them? You give them a salute. And that's your formal greeting of showing honor and respect to that person.

If we were in a more chivalrous culture, If a woman walked into the room, what used to happen? How would men greet them? You'd push back to your chair and you would stand up. And that was a way of showing respect and honor that you were greeting them into the room.

Well, in the Old Testament culture, and even now in some Jewish communities, there's a customary way where you would greet someone. If you met a brother or sister along the street, you would tell them, Shalom. peace, or you might tell them Barak, blessing. You would pronounce God's blessing or God's peace to them and that's your way of showing that this is God's love and I know his favor rests on you and I want you to have peace in your life. And elsewhere in the New Testament, we see that Paul and Peter both tell the people again and again and again to greet all the saints. In Romans, Paul tells them to greet each other with a holy kiss.

In 1 Corinthians 16.20 and 2 Corinthians 13.12 and 1 Thessalonians 5.26, again and again the commandos greet each other with a holy kiss. That was the acceptable norm of the time to show that there was intimate fellowship, that there was communion.

Some of us might get weirded out about thinking the greeters are going to start kissing you when you walk in the door. But if you were in Southern European culture or if you were in Middle Eastern culture, this is the accepted norm. You would give someone a kiss on the cheek to say, I'm glad you're here. You're welcomed here. This is a traditional greeting that you would give someone. It might be the same way guys today kind of look at each other and just give the head nod or give each other a handshake.

It means you're here and I'm recognizing it and we're together and you're welcomed here. But there's a deeper sense of greeting as well that we find in scripture. We're going to do a little bit of walking through the Bible. Turn your Bibles with me to Genesis chapter 18. That's where we read. We did Exodus 18 with Moses and Jethro. Let's go to Genesis chapter 33. Genesis chapter 33 verses 3 through 4.

And there's a relationship that's happened between Jacob and Esau where they hate each other. The last time that Jacob has heard about Esau, he wanted to murder him. And now they're finally going to meet each other after years and years and years being apart, and he's scared for his life. Jacob is scared for his life. And this is how they greet each other, though.

Genesis chapter 33, verses 3 through 4. What's Esau's reaction, though? But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell upon his neck, and kissed him, and they wept." They loved each other, and Esau had put the past behind him, and he wrapped his arms around him, and they wept, and they kissed, and they were brothers, and they loved each other. This is a picture of greeting each other. Turn over to Genesis chapter 45. Genesis chapter 45 verses 14 and 15 and we find a similar expression. In Genesis chapter 45 verse 14 we're dealing with Joseph now.

So Jacob's son Joseph and Joseph has been separated from his brothers for years upon years. Last time Joseph had seen his brothers he was pleading with tears in his eyes for his very life as they were selling him into slavery. And now he's face to face with his brothers and his younger brother Benjamin is there. In verse 14 he says, And Benjamin wept on his neck. And after all this his brothers talked with him. Do you see it? Joseph puts the past behind, he throws his arms around his brother, he is embracing them, he kisses them, he weeps over them, he talks with them. Joseph shows that they are welcomed with him.

Just in the next chapter, Joseph sees his father for the first time. Genesis chapter 46, verses 29 through 30, just flip over a page, Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to Goshen, that's where his father Jacob is. He goes up to Goshen to meet his father Israel. And he presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while. Jacob loves Joseph, and Joseph loves Jacob, and they embrace each other, and they love each other, and they welcome each other together.

But this isn't only an Old Testament pattern of how people welcomed each other. Luke chapter 1, the very familiar story of Jesus becoming incarnate, as we looked at in the catechism question this morning. Luke chapter 1, verses 39 through 45. This is Mary. Mary goes and she goes to visit Elizabeth. This is on page 903 of your pew Bibles. Luke chapter 1 beginning at verse 39. and greeted Elizabeth.

And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe, that's John the Baptist, the babe leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. But why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as I heard the voice of your greeting, sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be fulfillment of these things which were told her from the Lord. Mary goes into Zacharias' house and there's her cousin Elizabeth. She greets her and that greeting, from the mother of our Lord makes the baby in Elizabeth's womb, John the Baptist, leap for joy.

But it's even better than that. Turn over to Luke chapter 15 with me. Luke chapter 15, verse 11. Luke chapter 15. This is a story of the prodigal son. You remember the story of the prodigal son where the younger son comes to his father and he says, I want the inheritance. I want my portion of the inheritance.

And he takes it and he goes off and he squanders it in licentious living. He finds himself poor, feeding pigs and wishing he could just eat up their slop. And he realizes that even his father's slaves are being treated better than he is, and so he decides, I'm gonna go to my father, I'm gonna confess my sin, and I'm gonna go make it right with my dad. And he rehearses what he's going to say. He says, I will arise, this is verse 18, chapter 15, verse 18, I will arise and go to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me one of your hired servants. He rehearses his greeting to his father. He's going to go to his father and he's going to humble himself and confess his guilt and his sin.

But how does the father respond? And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion on him and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. You know the rest of the story. The father does not condemn his son. The father sees his son and he runs for him. He sees him off for a distance and his desire is not for his son to come and to humble himself, but the father knows the prodigal son has returned and he throws his arms around him and he loves him. The father has done that with you. The Father has looked upon you from the distance and has ran to you and has thrown his arms around you and has greeted you with mercy and with love.

In the story of Jesus, this happens again where Jesus and Mark chapter 10, the people are bringing the children to Jesus and the apostles are just outright annoyed. We don't want all this crying in the pews. Hold on. Keep these kids away, people. What does Jesus do? Jesus rebukes them and he says, don't hinder the little children from coming to me. And he embraces them and he blesses the children. Jesus greets the children with love and with tenderness and with kindness. Jesus sets the pattern for us for embracing each other because he has embraced you.

But you need to be careful. There's a temptation in the church that you might just embrace the people you like. Right, it's no secret. You might try to keep it a secret, but it ain't no secret. You like some people in the church better than you like other people in the church. You have closer friends and other people that you'll smile at, but that's about it. But what does Paul say here in Philippians chapter 4?

Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. We need to first deal with an issue of this word saint. The word saint here is a Greek word hagioi. It's all it means is God's holy ones. This isn't a special group of people. It's not like, you know, we have the holy rollers who sit up here in the front pews and those are the ones we really greet. That's not what it's talking about here. This isn't super Christians.

Paul is clear that the saints, the holy ones, are the people of God. This is how it's always been used in the Old Testament as well. The nation of Israel was to be a holy nation. Exodus chapter 19 verse 6 is clear about this. Psalm 34 verse 9 and Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 specifically say that God is saving a people through Jesus Christ who might be holy to himself.

You, each one of you who love the Lord Jesus Christ, God looks at you and says, holy. You're set apart for me. And if God has set someone apart for himself, has saved someone and brought them into the family of God, that's someone you have to love. Because the Father has loved you. So let me ask you a question.

When you come to worship, when it's Saturday morning, when it's Sunday morning, Are you excited to come to worship? When we sang Psalm 122, I was filled with joy and gladness when I heard them say to me, to the Lord's house let us go. Are you happy? Are you anticipating with joy that you are going to get to come together as the church and see your brothers and sisters in Christ? That is part of the fabric of what it means to be a Christian. We looked at that last week of sharing each other's burdens or afflictions, fellowshipping with one another. It's a joy to be together as God's people. But this isn't always the case.

I remember reading in a history a while ago there was a family with a good Scott Irish name, the McCartneys. Even had the lowercase c. The McCartneys were good Covenanters from good Covenanter stock, but even in the Covenanter church, they weren't a big family clan, they were somewhat small, and as they traveled out west from the Pittsburgh area to go to California for work that the Synod had called Reverend McCartney to do, they found themselves stopping in a pretty big town, and in that town they found an RP church, and all of a sudden she found out what it was like to be an outsider coming into an RP church. And as this lady was writing about her history, she said, they grilled me down.

Trying to find out, so what church are you from? What clan? Hold on, how's the family line up? Are you really part of us? And when they didn't know the McCartney clan, it was, okay, we're gonna kinda trust that you can come to worship, but you're not really part of the inner circle.

And this is a danger in legacy churches like ours. This is a danger that happens in the church and it's good to have a thick and rich history and a thick and rich legacy, but I'm surprised that a legacy church like this would hire a German last name pastor.

And it's a sign of the openness and of drawing together all the saints and welcoming all the Christians in. But this is not The church, the RP church specifically, cannot be the Scotch-Irish club of southeast Iowa. The church is the gathering together of the saints of all God's people. I remember what it was like to be one of those outsiders and to come inside the church.

What it was like to be a single man at a Presbyterian church in Virginia. and for the Snaps to invite me over to their house for pork roast and for okra. And then another week for another family, the Hearst, to invite me over for Memorial Day barbecue, for the Miracles to invite me over for lasagna and conversation, for the different families, for the Phillipses to invite me over on Sabbath evenings just to get to know me and to love me and to let me know you're welcomed here, you're greeted here, and we are embracing you.

Are we embracing all the saints? How are you showing love to the single people in our congregation? How are you welcoming the new families? How are you caring for the widows and the shut-ins? And even though they can't be here, are you still greeting those who can't come here? Are you on the phone? Are you visiting? Are you loving them? How are we making sure that the children are greeted? How many of you this morning looked at the children, called them by name, and said, I'm glad you're here?

Many, many children have walked away from the faith because this was their parents' church and the adults did their thing and didn't welcome the children in like Christ did in Mark chapter 10. How are we caring and welcoming the teens and the newlyweds? How are we caring and welcoming the new Christians and the old Christians? How are we welcoming and embracing those who are coming with deep trials and struggles? and those who are coming with hearts rejoicing and happy.

We're to be those who are welcoming. But it's broader than just that. It's broader than just our church. Look with me again at verse 21. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me greet you. We need to embrace other Christians, not just Christians in our own congregation. We need to be embracing other Christians.

Paul says, the brothers who are with me greet you. Paul is in Rome. He's writing to the people in Philippi, and the people in Rome love the people in Philippi. They might not have ever met them. They might have only heard of them, and yet they love them, and they want them to know, hey, we're thinking about you. Your brother Paul is talking to us about you, and we want you to let you know that we love you.

This is why it's so important to not just be worried about what's going on at Sharon, but it's why we need to pray for the other congregations in our denomination. It's why when we have joint psalm sings, we need to be able to rejoice with those from Washington. It's why it's imperative for the women to be able to go to the women's Presbyterian camp and to be able to go be discipled and to love other Christians in the denomination.

This is why it's important for us to go to international conference. I'm not sure if you've ever been to international conference before, but we're a small denomination and a small church. But there's something amazing when you go to international conference and there's people from Japan, and there's people from China, and there's people from Ireland, and people from Scotland, and people from France, and people from all over the US and Australia, and you come together and all of a sudden you have 4,500 people who sing the Psalms. One of the children in our last congregation was walking around with some ice cream at an international conference and as he was eating ice cream, all of a sudden, people, the whole congregation started singing a psalm and he stopped and he went, it's kind of like heaven. We need other Christians outside of just our congregation. We might be different congregations But we have one head, Jesus Christ, and we are one body with each other. But it's even broader than that. It's even broader than that.

Look with me at verse 22. All the saints greet you, but especially those of Caesar's household. We need to embrace the church broadly. Embrace the church broadly. Look at how Paul says it here. All the saints greet you. Paul takes it and he says, greet each other, the local congregation. He spreads it out and he says, the brothers with me are greeting you. And then he spreads it out even more and he says, all the saints greet you. Paul is a missionary. He's going up to Macedonia and he's going to Rome. He's going to Caesarea. He's going down to Jerusalem. And he's telling them about the faith of the Philippians. And all those people are telling him, when you go back to Philippi, tell them we said hi. Tell them we're excited about what God is doing there.

And in the same way, our denomination, our congregation, we're only one church amongst 200 churches in the RPCNA. But the RPCNA is a drop in the bucket of the universal church. The Lord is doing amazing work throughout many gospel-believing, Bible-centered churches who love Him. And we should, when we see the work of the gospel going out, we should rejoice. There's a temptation that we want to segregate ourselves over here and we're doing all the right things and they're over there and they're doing their things. We might have legitimate biblical critiques of some of the things that they believe and do. But if they are true Christians, whether they're Baptists or Lutherans or Methodists or Independents, we should rejoice that the Lord is saving souls and calling people to himself.

Does that mean that we give up all biblical principles? No. You're going to have to pry the psalter from my cold, dead hand. I believe it. I wouldn't be a psalm singer if I didn't believe it. But it doesn't mean that I can't fellowship with my Baptist brothers who don't sing the psalms. Do I wish they sang the psalms? You better believe it. But do I think they're not Christians because they don't sing the psalms? No, I just think they're wrong.

We need to rejoice that the Lord is doing a good work and we need to not be afraid about having those hard conversations. We need to not be afraid when Baptist brothers and Methodist sisters come into our congregation and they have questions. We should be able to say, you know, that's a good question. Let's go to the Bible and let's look at it. And we should rejoice when people love the scriptures and are desiring to grow in their knowledge and their love of God.

And it's not just here in the U.S. either. Lord is doing amazing things in this globe. In this world, he is working in powerful ways outside of the US borders that you would be amazed by. The work that he is doing in places like Bolivia, and Chile, and Peru, and Uruguay, and Brazil, and Ethiopia, and Uganda, and South Sudan, and India, and Pakistan, and China, and North Korea, and South Korea, The Lord is spreading his gospel. Don't buy into the secular lie that somehow secularism is taking over the world. There are more Christians in the world today than have ever walked the face of the planet before.

The Lord is doing a good work and we should be embracing and loving the Christians. We should greet them in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and when they stray away from the gospel, we need to be able to tell them, no, come back. Come back, we love you, come back. Don't forget your first love. We need to greet each other. We need to love one another. In the congregation, in the denomination, As we live in our communities and as we see other Christians laboring for the glory of Christ, together we should greet all the saints.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for calling us together as your people. Lord, we long to see in heaven and be a part of that great choir, Lord, who sings out your glory and your power. Lord, we long, Father, we long to sit before your throne and to bow before you with the universal church. Lord, when all of our differences will be corrected, Lord, when the whole church will be brought into conformity with your pure truth, Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit work in our hearts, Father, that we would love each other and that we would embrace one another and love each other biblically and well. Lord, we pray that you would root out favoritism and preference from our own midst. Lord, and in the church broad, Lord, we pray that you would bring us in conformity with your will for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.