One Thing Leads To The Other Series

Series: Philippians

Sermon: “One Thing Leads to the Other”

Philippians 1:9-11

Pastor John Bright

Philippians 1 “9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, 11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

I want to cover one more BIG PICTURE idea in the Book of Philippians – OBEDIENCE IN THE LIGHT OF GOD’S GRACE. We often seek to balance grace and good works in the Church. Paul presents it as “both/and” rather than “either/or.” In this epistle/letter, grace is presented as working now and also in the future at the return of Christ – “…He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ…” (1:6) As we experience that gift of grace, we offer our good works as an offering to God. We will look at this down the road a bit.

In these verses I read, Paul now shares what he had been praying for the Believers in Philippi. What he describes are Prayers of Intercession. This is a description of Intercessory Prayer I found at https://www.umc.org/en/content/what-is-intercessory-prayer

“…intercessory prayer, really simply described, is offering a request for God--generally on behalf of others. Intercessory prayer is meddlesome. It exposes us to how we can be in action on God’s behalf. This is how prayer builds relationship. God’s goal is loving relationship--both in having a relationship with us… and also with us having loving relationships with one another.”

It’s like one thing leads to the other. Sometimes we call that the Law of Unintended Consequences. Here’s a classic example - https://fs.blog/2018/02/unintended-consequences/

In 1890, a New Yorker named Eugene Schieffelin took his intense love of Shakespeare’s Henry VI to the next level.

Most Shakespeare fanatics channel their interest by going to see performances of the plays, meticulously analyzing them, or reading everything they can about the playwright’s life. Schieffelin wanted more; he wanted to look out his window and see the same kind of birds in the sky that Shakespeare had seen.

Inspired by a mention of starlings in Henry VI, Schieffelin released 100 of the non-native birds in Central Park over two years. (He wasn’t acting alone – he had the support of scientists and the American Acclimatization Society.) We can imagine him watching the starlings flutter off into the park and hoping for them to survive and maybe breed. Which they did. In fact, the birds didn’t just survive; they thrived and bred like weeds.

Unfortunately, Schieffelin’s plan worked too well. Far, far too well. The starlings multiplied exponentially, spreading across America at an astonishing rate. Today, we don’t even know how many of them live in the U.S., with official estimates ranging from 45 million to 200 million. Most, if not all, of them are descended from Schieffelin’s initial 100 birds.

That’s what we are seeing all around us today. Nobody had any idea all of the unintended consequences of shutting down the churches and most of the economy for months.

Yes, one thing leads to the other and we need to see the absolutely in-tended consequences in the Church. Paul is praying for them to –

LOVE MORE

“9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment,”

As we have already covered, Paul is greatly concerned for the unity of those in the Philippian house churches. Now, he gives them the starting point of that deep unity in the Body of Christ: LOVING OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THE CHURCH. I was told by a dear friend on the Eastern Shore that he had a simple measuring stick for his personal growth in Christ. These are his words, not mine – “Can I love people this year I could not love last year?”

Let’s be honest. Some people are hard to love! Usually, when I tell folks that, they immediately think of someone in their own family, but we are not talking about anybody’s mother-in-law this morning. (Do you know the difference between in-laws and outlaws? Outlaws are wanted😊) For the record – I’ve got a great mother-in-law and she is more precious to me since my own mother graduated to Heaven – thank you, Becky – love you!

Paul is talking to them about loving each other in the Church and, most of the time, you don’t have to go and further than the Church to find folks that are hard to love. Here we find Paul giving advice for increasing Godly Love – not warm-fuzzy love. To love more we should grow in knowledge. What kind of knowledge? In the other Epistles/letters of the New Testament, knowledge is related to spiritual matters: