16th April 2025

16th April 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 1:1-2)


Message (Alan Burke)


I’ve just realised we’re not going to get through the whole of these two verses in the devotions this week probably just verse one. I did say on Monday that “These two verses are packed with timeless truths for the believer” and I wasn’t kidding. Today were going to focus on another word and it is a word that isn’t translated consistently in different versions on the bible, it is in most of them but some of the newer ones in order to sell more bibles have fudged it. The word is “Saint”, now if you’ve an NIV 2011 you will read “Holy Ones”, the translators made the decision to convey the meaning rather than the word saint and that is because of just how many people misunderstand what a saint is. 


Let’s think of who Paul writes to, that isn’t a trick question it was of course the church in Philippi and he says to all the saints. What is a saint? Well in the church of Rome it is where they canonise individuals declaring a person to be a saint as they attained a certain level of holiness and therefore are somehow worthy of special veneration and these saints can apparently even hear our prayers which has no Biblical foundation, it is a false teaching. When King Henry VIII wanted s split from the Mrs what result was the church in England split from Rome and the anglican church began of course that is it in a very broad brush stroke. There really wasn’t much of a change and in Anglicanism, Saints they are people recognised as having lived a holy life and as being an exemplar and model for other Christians and many of those that are celebrated in the Church of Rome are celebrated in the Anglican Church. 


But Paul is writing to the church, they were very much at that stage at least alive, To be a saint is to be one who is brought near into God’s presence, they are set apart, sacred, holy. This is God’s work, saints are not those who have been made a saint by those churches in error, it’s not that those whom Paul writes to are being made saints by him and sadly this is a wonderful truth that we so often miss, because of what God has done through Jesus Christ, that is applied to us by the Holy Spirit. If you have trusted in Jesus Christ then you are a saint, you have been brought near into God’s presence, you have been set apart, made sacred, made holy, you are a saint. 


While we are saints, we are at the same time still sinful, we have the potential to do heinous things but we look forward to the day when we will be made new and conformed into the image of Jesus Christ (Rom 8:29), when we will be made perfect in holiness. Until then, while we are still sinners we seek to die to sin and live for Christ, we have been made saints and this is how we should live for God has called us from one thing to another, we have been bought with the blood of Jesus, just as Paul was set apart, the church in Philippi was set apart, likewise we are set apart as saints, as holy ones of God.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q59 Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly Sabbath?
A. From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath; and the first day of the week, ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath.
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