God Completes What He Starts

Philippians 1:6

There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.

• The Apostle Paul was impressed to encourage the followers of Jesus at Philippi to press on in faith with confidence knowing fully well that God is in charge.
• This truth does not negate the fact that the enemy will still attempt to attack you.
• The devil does not attack you based upon where you are at. He attacks you based on where you are going.
• Where you are going he just can’t go.
• The moment you became a child of God you became open to attacks, because you are a work in progress.

1)Start- The God we serve always gives you a start.

The word start comes from a Greek word arxē which means ‘what comes first and therefore is chief’, that is, has the priority of being ahead of the rest.

a)The counsel of the Lord shall stand.

Isaiah 46:10 says, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, My purpose will stand and I will do as I please”.

b)God does not lie. What He says He will do shall surely come to pass.

Numbers 23:19 records, “God is not a man that He should lie, not a human being that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill”.

• Balak hired Balaam to curse the people of God. Balaam said, ‘”I have received a command to bless and I cannot change it”.

c)God is bigger than your situation. His word speaks life into every situation.

• Isaiah 55:11 “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty but accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”.

• God, the Master, told the dry bones in Ezekiel 37:5-10, “I am bringing the breath of life to you and you will come to life. I will attach sinews on you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You will come alive and realise I am God.
• Ezekiel prophesied as commanded. There was a sound, a rustling sound. The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching, sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them.
• God said to me, “Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy son of man. Tell the breath, “God the Master, say, come from the four winds. Come breath, breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!”
• So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army.

1)Receive Him.

John 12:1 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”

• Isaiah 49:15 records, “Can a woman forget her missing child of her womb? Even if these forget, yet I will not forget you. Look I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.”

2) Put your confidence only in God. The arm of flesh will fail. He will never leave or forsake. Paul said, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, no height nor depth, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39)

3) Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Do not be distracted by the devil.

• I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. (Ps. 34:1-4)
• God will finish what He started. He started it and He will finish it. What God has in store for you, no one can stop it.

• It has already been ordained that:

1. i) Victory shall be yours. Paul says in Romans 8:37, “Yet in these we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
2. ii) Your best is yet to come.The Psalmist said, “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Ps 139: 15-16)