Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from a Roman prison, in chains and awaiting trial. He had spent his life travelling, planting churches and defending the gospel; now he would hardly travel anywhere at all. By any ordinary measure his working life was over.

In this sermon opening a new series, Light in the Darkness, Revd. Mark Fletcher turns to Philippians 1:1-11 and traces what came out of those two years instead - letters that are the earliest documentary evidence we have of the early church, and some of the richest writing in the New Testament.

The sermon turns on verse 6: he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. Paul is anxious for churches he can no longer reach, and is reminded that the work was never his in the first place. "It is never too late for God to use us," Mark Fletcher says.

It is a sermon about prayer as the best use of constrained time, about joy that runs deeper than happiness, and about love that grows in knowledge and depth of insight.

Full transcript and video: https://stpeters.ch/sermons/what-does-philippians-1-6-mean/