A Thankful Pastor: Part 2
Text: Phil. 1:7-11
Introduction
1. Illustration: A pastor thought God gave Him an idea, and he presented it in the monthly elders meeting. After giving his most impassioned plea and really "selling" the idea to the elder board, the board voted and voted down the pastors proposed changes 12-1. The head elder looked at the pastor and said, "Well pastor, it’s 12 votes to 1. Looks like you’ve been out voted. Looks like time is up for the evening, so will you please close in prayer." The pastor, not wanting to give up yet on what he felt God was leading him to do then lead in prayer. As he prayed, he lifted his hands up to heaven and prayed, "Loooorrrdddd - I know my brothers here do not have the same vision you have given me. Please help them to see that this is not MY vision, but YOOOOUUUUURRRR vision!" At that exact moment, a lightning bolt with a loud clap of thunder burst in through the window in the meeting room, striking the table, splitting it in two and knocking all the elders to the floor. As the dust cleared, the pastor looked at the head elder and said - so, what do you think about that? The head elder, dusting himself off, sighed and said, "Well, I guess that’s 12 votes to 2, then..."
2. Last week we talked about Paul as a thankful pastor to the Philippian church. Today we will continue that thought and discover the nature of Paul's prayer for them.
3. In this section of Philippians Paul talks about...
a. Reason For His Love
b. Content of His Prayers
c. Purpose His Prayers
4. Let's stand as we read together Phil. 1:7-11
Proposition: The desire of my heart is to see you transformed into the image of Jesus.
Transition: First Paul expresses...
I. Reasons For His Love (7-8).
A. It Is Right
1. In the previous text Paul talked about how much he loved and appreciated the Philippian believers.
a. He talked about how thankful he was for them.
b. He talked about how he prayed for them with joy.
c. He talked about his confidence in God's continuing work in their lives.
2. He now takes those thoughts one step further when he says, "So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News."
a. Paul with the phrase, "so it is right," is connecting what he has already said with what he is about to say.
b. He has talked about how he feels about them, how they have been his partners, and about how he was confident that God would finish the good work he had begun in them.
c. Now, however, he verifies how it is right for him to feel this way about them.
d. The word "feel" doesn't refer to thinking or reasoning, but rather with a mindset or attitude.
e. What he is saying what he has already said about them is not without foundation or substance.
f. He goes on to say that they have a special place in his heart. It is important to understand what the Bible means when it talks about the heart.
g. The Biblical understanding of the heart is that place which is the center of human consciousness and the seat of both decision making and the emotions. It is the essence of who we are as a person.
h. He is saying that the feelings he has about them come from the core of his being and those feelings are completely valid.
i. He then gives the reason for his feelings, and that is they share the grace, the special favor of God, because they have stood by him and supported him while he was in prison and in the preaching and proclaiming of the gospel.
j. As always with Paul, the gospel is the center of everything, and his feelings about them are centered in their partnership of sharing the gospel both before and after his imprisonment (Fee, 88-93).
3. Then Paul further expresses his feelings for them when he says, "God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus."
a. In his verse Paul's love for them spills out.
b. Epaphroditus is about to return to them and this causes Paul's mind to turn toward Philippi and the memory of the special relationship expressed in their recent gift to him.
c. This one of several times in his letters that Paul expresses his thoughts and feelings about those to whom he is writing.
d. God must serve as his witness because these feelings come from his heart, and the only one who can read the heart is God.
e. This longing that Paul has for them is more than just missing their company, but is a strong yearning for them as his dear friends because of the strong commitment to the gospel.
f. This is evidenced by the phrase the "tender compassion of Christ Jesus." There can be no greater love than the love expressed toward his children by Jesus Christ (Fee, 92-95).
B. A Pastor's Heart
1. Being A Pastor Means...
a. Spending three years studying systematic theology only to discover that the most scholarly comment people respond to is "God loves you.
b. "Never having enough money to pay one's bills and enough time to count one's blessings.
c. Receiving two anonymous letters in the same week—one correcting the grammar in last Sunday's sermon and the other containing money to be given to a family experiencing difficulty.
d. Seldom living near relatives but always near friends.
e. Trying not to laugh when asked to say a blessing at the dedication of the town's new sewage treatment plant.
f. Always working overtime but seldom feeling the need to watch the clock.
g. Uniting with God's children at all of the turning points of life.
h. Sharing the joys of the wedding, the birth of the child, the baptism of the believer, and tears in the hospital and the funeral home.
i. Pushing the button of hope for those who have hit bottom. —R. Robert Cueni (Paul Lee Tan, “8915. Being A Pastor Means..,” in Encyclopedia of 15,000 Illustrations: Signs of the Times, (Dallas, TX: Bible Communications, 1998), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 2004-2005).
2. The life of a Pastor is one of great paradox.
a. 1 Thessalonians 2:8 (NLT)
We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.
b. We don't have much money, yet we are the richest people on earth.
c. Most of us are not famous, but everyone in town know our names.
d. Our jobs are 24/7, and yet most people think we only work on Sundays.
e. We spend years studying theology, Hebrew, Greek, counseling, and parliamentary procedure, yet we spend most of our time doing everything else.
f. But when its all said and done we wouldn't do anything else.
Transition: Next Paul talks about the...
II. Content Of His Prayers (9).
A. I Pray That...
1. Paul now moves to the nature of his prayers for them.
2. He says, "I pray that your love will overflow more and more..."
a. Paul had mentioned in his introduction that he prayed for them on a regular basis.
b. Now he expresses the content of those prayers.
c. First he prays that their love would overflow.
d. Overflow: To be more than enough, to have an abundance of, to be superior, to excel in (The Complete Biblical Library Greek-English Dictionary – Pi-Rho, 3915).
e. The love that Paul is talking about here is not an emotional type of love, but rather a love of action and placing a high value on someone or something.
f. He is talking about a love of behavior that is pure and blameless (Fee, 99).
3. The next thing he prays for is "...that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding."
a. The next thing that Paul prays for is that they grow in knowledge and understanding.
b. He is talking here about knowledge that comes from a relationship, and the relationship he is referring to is their relationship with Jesus.
c. There are many ways that we build our relationship with Jesus, but the two main ways that we foster our relationship with Jesus is to pray and read his word. In prayer we strengthen our knowledge of him.
d. We gain an increase in our love and understanding of God by spending time with, just as we build a relationship with one another by spending time with people.
e. By reading and studying his Word increase our understanding about him.
f. By spending time reading and studying Scripture we learn about the nature of God, and about what he expects from us.
g. In addition, we learn how to combat all those things which attempt to lead us away from Jesus.
B. Spiritual Growth
1. Illustration: During Super Bowl XXXVII, FedEx ran a commercial that spoofed the movie Castaway, in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down, stranding him on a desert island for years. Looking like the bedraggled Hanks in the movie, the FedEx employee in the commercial goes up to the door of a suburban home, package in hand. When the lady comes to the door, he explains that he survived five years on a deserted island, and during that whole time he kept this package in order to deliver it to her. She gives a simple, "Thank you." But he is curious about what is in the package that he has been protecting for years. He says, "If I may ask, what was in that package after all?" She opens it and shows him the contents, saying, "Oh, nothing really. Just a satellite telephone, a global positioning device, a compass, a water purifier, and some seeds." Like the contents in this package, the resources for growth and strength are available for every Christian who will take advantage of them.
2. My prayer for you is that you hunger and thirst for more of Jesus.
a. Job 17:9 (NLT)
The righteous keep moving forward, and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger.
b. The goal of the Christian life is to constantly be moving closer to Jesus.
c. We can never stand still in our faith or we will inevitably move backwards.
d. We cannot be passive; we must always be on the active when it comes to our relationship with Christ.
e. It will require work.
f. It will require time on your knees.
g. It will require time set aside to ready, study, and meditate on the Word.
h. It will require service.
i. It will require sacrifice.
j. But the reward will be love, joy, peace, and abundant life here and now and in the world to come.
Transition: Finally Paul gives...
III. Purpose Of His Prayers (10-11).
A. For I Want You To
1. Now that Paul has expressed the content of his prayer he now explains the purpose of his prayer.
2. He says, "For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return."
a. The reason that Paul prays that their knowledge and understanding increase is that they would be able to discern what is important and what is not.
b. In life we need to assess our priorities because some things are simply more important than others.
c. By increasing our knowledge and understanding we are able to determine which things are higher on our priority list and some are lower on that list.
d. By reading and studying Scripture we see our priorities change because the Bible shows us where God's priorities lay.
e. We learn that something’s are beneficial to us, but we also learn that other things will ultimately destroy us.
f. It is by matching our priorities with the truth of Scripture that we are able to lives that are pure and blameless.
3. In addition Paul says, "May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God."
a. Another reason for his prayer is that they prayer is that they be "filled with the fruit of" their salvation.
b. John 15:5 (NLT)
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
c. Both Jesus and Paul lived in agricultural societies and so the concept of trees or crops producing fruit was an important one.
d. A tree that produced well was a good tree, and a tree that didn't was a useless tree that was cut down and burnt in the fire.
e. Here Paul reiterates Jesus desire that his disciples bear fruit, and for the follower of Jesus this fruit is the Fruit of the Spirit.
f. Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
g. Notice what how Paul refers to this fruit; he calls it "righteous character produced in you life by Jesus Christ."
h. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is character that is produced in us by Jesus Christ, and this character is God's character.
i. Things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are all attributes of God.
j. Furthermore, Jesus produces these characteristics IN us.
k. It is his character and his work that causes are characteristics to change, and therefore, he should receive all the glory for them.
B. Transformation
1. Illustration: The motor home has allowed us to put all the conveniences of home on wheels. A camper no longer needs to contend with sleeping in a sleeping bag, cooking over a fire, or hauling water from a stream. Now he can park a fully equipped home on a cement slab in the midst of a few pine trees and hook up to a water line, a sewer line and electricity. One motor home I saw recently had a satellite dish attached on top. No more bother with dirt, no more smoke from the fire, no more drudgery of walking to the stream. Now it is possible to go camping and never have to go outside. We buy a motor home with the hope of seeing new places, of getting out into the world. Yet we deck it out with the same furnishings as in our living room. Thus nothing really changes. We may drive to a new place, set ourselves in new surrounding, but the newness goes unnoticed, for we’ve only carried along our old setting. The adventure of new life in Christ begins when the comfortable patterns of the old life are left behind.
2. The goal of the Christian life is transformation.
a. Romans 12:2 (NLT)
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
b. Our goal is not to pay up our fire insurance.
c. Our goal is not to simply go to church.
d. Our goal is not even to be a better person.
e. Our goal is transformation; allowing God to change us.
f. This requires leaving our old life behind and letting God change us from the inside out.
g. In order for this to happen we need to submit our lives, desires, time, and even our finances to God.
h. When we do this God changes us like a caterpillar is changed into a butterfly.
i. God wants to do more the change what we do; he wants to change who we are.
Conclusion
1. Paul is a thankful Pastor and he expressed to his flock in Philippi...
a. The reasons he loved them
b. The content of his prayers for them
c. The purpose of his prayers for them
2. My prayer for you today is that you be committed to the goal of transformation.
a. That prayer becomes a daily routine for you.
b. That Bible study becomes a passion for you.
c. That submitting to the guidance of the Holy Spirit becomes a way of life for you.
