Hey everybody, at all of our life churches, our network churches, those of you in our church

online family today, we're starting a brand new four week series called

Perspective. Everybody say perspective. We're going to look through the book of

Philippians taking some high points out of four different chapters over the next four weeks and

look at one of my favorite books in the Bible, the book of Philippians. And what I want to do is give

you a little bit of context about this book because the context will give us a different perspective

and help bring this teaching to life. So if you want to jot down some notes, feel free to.

The book of Philippians was actually a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in

Philippi. Now Paul actually started the church. He was an apostle who was sinned out by God and would

lead people to Christ. He would raise up leaders and he would start churches in all different cities.

This was actually a church that he started around the year 52 AD. So about 20 years or so after

the death and resurrection of Jesus, he assembled this church and he loved them dearly. And you're

going to see the deep affection the Apostle Paul has for the people in the church in Philippi.

Well he started the church around 52 AD. The time he's writing this letter is about 10 years later

around 62 AD or so. And he's writing in response to something the Philippians did for him.

Paul was actually in a time of significant need and the people took up a very generous love offering

to send to him and normally Paul wouldn't have received a financial gift. He was very proud and

would say, hey, you know, I've never been a burden to you. I've always worked. I've never imposed

on you for financial gift. But because of his relationship with this church, he actually received

the gift, was blown away by it. And so he wrote this very heartfelt and emotional thank you letter

and mingled in it some gentle and loving instruction. Now as we go through and look at high points

of the book of Philippians, there's an unmistakable theme that rises to the top and that's the theme

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