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Philippians 2:1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Introduction
How many of you grew up singing that song “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”? It is good to know that Jesus loves you because the Bible tells you so, but could you also sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, because I have felt his love”? I know he loves me because of the encouragement and comfort I have received from his love. We have been studying through the book of Philippians, and we come this morning to chapter 2. Take a look at verse 1.
Philippians 2:1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion…
Before we finish that sentence, let me just ask you – have you? Have you experienced Christ’s tenderness and compassion and comfort and encouragement? Do you feel loved by God? And what are the implications if the answer to those questions is yes or no?
Review
The main purpose of the book of Philippians is unity in the church. Unity requires a right perspective on suffering, and a right emotional response, and so Paul taught us how to do that by his example in chapter 1. Now in chapter 2 he is going to give us the secret to unity in the church. It’s very simple: selfless humility.
2 make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose, 3 doing nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility considering others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
A thousand problems in the church and in your marriage and in your friendships and in your family relationships would disappear if you could simply put those verses into practice. But to do that, we need motivation. Here is the structure of the argument in ch.2:
Verse 1 verses 2-4 verses 5-11
Motivated by Jesus’ love - be humble and unified - by following Jesus’ example.
So before we start with the motivation in verse 1, let’s take a quick look at the command in verses 3-4, because the motivation will mean more to us once we understand what Paul is trying to motivate us to do.
The Command: Be Humble
Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
Let go of pride and embrace humility.
4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Each of you should look not only to your own budget and financial stability, or your own family, or your own health, or your own reputation, or your own education, or your own success, or your own happiness—don’t just think about that, don’t just have desires about that, don’t just strategize about that, but think about and desire and work and strategize for the financial wellbeing and health and family and reputation, and education, and success, and happiness of others.” In other words, Love your neighbor as yourself (Mt.22:39). If you buy or sell something, are you as concerned about the other person getting a good deal as you are about you getting a good deal? If you are watching TV and your child says, “Would you play with me?” don’t just think about how tired you are. Think about the interests of your child. When someone does something that is insulting to you or irritating to you, don’t just think about yourself. What are their interests? What would benefit them the most right now? What can I do and say that will make them put their head on the pillow tonight and say, “This was a good day”?
That almost sounds impossible, doesn’t it? How could I ever get to the point of having that kind of humility and selfless love? It’s going to require some very powerful motivation. And that is where verse 1 comes in. Our motivation is the tenderness and kindness of God toward us.
The Motive: God’s Tenderness
Understatement
Verse one is made up of four “if” statements. And in the Greek, there are actually no verbs in the whole verse. Literally it is:
Therefore,
if any encouragement in Christ
if any comfort of love
if any fellowship of Spirit
if any compassion and mercy, then…
And then he goes on to tell them to be unified in humility. So why all the “if” statements? And why does he keep saying “any”? Why does he say, “If there is any encouragement in Christ” rather than “Since there is a lot of encouragement in Christ?” Here’s why: Paul is using understatement in a way that is designed to have an emotional effect. Imagine two brothers who are fighting and bickering and yelling at each other, right at the moment when dad comes home from work. Their father walks in, sees them arguing, and then looks over at his wife who is almost to the point of tears. So he gets down on one knee and pulls the two brothers close to him and says, “Guys, look at your mom. Do you know how it makes her feel when you fight? Do you want to break her heart? I’ll tell you what – from now until you go to bed tonight, if your mother has ever been nice to you, if she is ever done one single thing to help you, if she ever one time, changed your diapers when you were little, or cooked a meal for you, or did your laundry, or ever did anything nice at all, then would you make her happy, and make me happy, by showing some kindness to each other?”
Can you see how that would have a little bit more impact than if you just said, “Since your mother has shown kindness to you, therefore show kindness to each other”? The meaning is essentially the same, but the emotional impact is greater when you understate it – “If she has ever, one time, done something nice for you…” When you hear it put that way you want to jump in and say, “Ever once? She’s been kind to us millions of times, Dad!!!” And when they start thinking that way, that will move their heart to want to make her happy and not break her heart. That is exactly Paul’s strategy in verse one. When he says, “If there is any encouragement at all in Christ, if he has ever given you any comfort, any love, any fellowship, any compassion, any mercy at all…, then stop fighting each other and be unified in humility.” And he expects us to respond by saying, “What do you mean ‘if’ he has ever shown any love at all? His love and comfort and compassion and encouragement and mercy towards us is beyond description!” The normal Christian life should be for us to say with the psalmist:
Psalm 94:19 When anxiety was great within me, your encouragement brought joy to my soul.
Something really painful happens, anxiety rises up inside us, then we receive encouragement from God and that brings joy back to our soul. That is how life with God is supposed to work. We get upset and lose our joy, he encourages us, our joy comes back.
Problem: Lack of Experience of His Love
But what if that’s not your normal experience? What if you read verse 1 and say, “Actually, there really isn’t all that much comfort. I know I’m a true child of God, but I don’t feel much tenderness and compassion or love from him.” If that’s the case, that is a real problem, because if our motivation for obeying verses 2-4 is the encouragement and comfort we receive from Christ, and we don’t have much encouragement or comfort, then we are not going to have the motivation we need to be humble and selfless toward one another.
Neglected
That section starting in verse 5 (showing us Jesus’ example of humility) is one of the most famous and well-known passages in all of Holy Scripture. The motivation in verse 1 is one of the least-known passages in all of Scripture. We tend to neglect passages like this. That’s not to say the topic of God’s love is neglected. You hear plenty of preaching about God’s love as a theological fact. But what you don’t hear nearly as much in evangelical circles is about the experience of God’s love. We are real big on duty. We make a big deal about the command in verses 2-4, and the example in verses 5-11. We hare all revved up about duty, but then when we try to carry out that duty we fall flat on our faces because we neglected verse 1. We haven’t had enough profound experiences of God’s love and tenderness toward us to equip us to carry out our duty of living like Christ.
Experiencing Truth
We don’t use experiences to determine truth; we use Scripture alone to discover what is true. But that’s not to say experience is unimportant. The whole point of discovering the truth is so that we can experience it. I don’t want to just learn about heaven; I want to go there. I don’t just want information about salvation; I want to be saved. I don’t want to just memorize facts about forgiveness of sins; I want to be forgiven. And I don’t just want to be aware that God loves me; I want to have the encouragement, and comfort, and endurance, and joy that the Bible says I will have when I actually have delightful experiences of his love for me. It is not enough to know information about the spring of living water – at some point we need to stop analyzing it and actually drink from it. So what is it that is preventing us from doing that?
Roadblocks to Experiencing God’s Love
Ignorance
I think the biggest roadblock is probably ignorance – ignorance of what God is like. Many Christians just simply have a skewed perception of what God is like. Maybe their dad was grumpy or harsh and so they figure God must be grumpy and harsh. Or maybe they get their perception of what God is like, not mainly from the Bible, but from their own experiences. Every time they have some hardship or difficulty, they come up with some interpretation of that hardship that skews their perception of what God is like. The solution to that is to form your perception of God by Scripture alone, and not by your feelings.
Ignoring
In other cases, we might know and believe the truth about what God is like, but we just ignore his gestures of love. You get up in the morning, and take a bite of a perfectly toasted bagel with just the right amount of melted butter, and it just really hits the spot - other days it’s just a bagel, but today it seems to taste so good and be so satisfying – what is that? That is a gesture of God’s love. The Bible is very clear that God is in charge of enjoyment. He is in charge of when something will be especially delightful and satisfying, and when it won’t. He is in control of the cravings and desires and moods that you have that all contribute to how delightful experiences are going to be. And in those moments when he makes all that come together so that something is especially satisfying, that’s God wrapping his arms around you and saying, “I love you.”
When something fumbles out of your hand and you are able to quick catch it before it falls all over the floor – that is God saying, “I love you.” When you are in a hurry and you keep hitting green lights, or you start searching for something that’s lost and you find it right away, or you lay down in bed and you’re able to fall asleep right away, that’s God expressing his love. When you read something in God’s Word and you understand it, and it touches your heart, that’s God saying, “I love you.”
God says that to us so many times every single day, but all too often we just ignore those messages. We get nothing out of it other than, “Wow, I sure do like bagels.” What kind of impact would it have on your heart if 20 times a day, each time you experience one of these gestures of God’s love, you found yourself whispering under your breath, “I love you too, God”?
Unrepentance
Just like when you sin against your wife or your best friend – it hinders the closeness of the relationship; it’s the same way with God. And that relationship stays fractured and broken until you repent and seek forgiveness, and God forgives you. So if you are clinging to some sin that you won’t give up, that would explain why you don’t feel his love like you should.
But what about those times when you do repent, but you don’t feel like you are forgiven? You know that the Bible says you are forgiven, but you have a hard time believing it because of the way you feel. That is the next roadblock – self-condemnation.
Self-Condemnation
God’s Word is saying that you are forgiven; your heart is saying that you’re condemned, and you believe your heart more than you believe God’s Word. This happens a lot to people who operate on feelings. People who live like that are always hopelessly lost, because the Bible is clear that our hearts are desperately evil and deceptive. So if you just follow your heart, it will lead you into a ditch every time. If you feel condemned by your heart, but God’s Word says that you are forgiven, realize that God’s opinion trumps your opinion. God is greater than your heart, and he knows everything, so what he says is valid, and anything that contradicts what he says is invalid. Live by the truth of God’s Word, not by feelings.
Self-pity
We suffer some hardship or loss, and instead of seeking comfort from God, we try to comfort ourselves through self-pity. Trying to seek comfort through self-pity is like trying to get clean by rolling around in dirt. When we give in to self-pity, all our thoughts are about how rough we’ve got it. And when you are trying to build a case for how rough you’ve got it, acknowledging God’s good gifts and his blessings will just spoil your case. So you find yourself actually ignoring God’s blessings. You want to be able to rattle off a list of how everything went wrong today, and so you just blind yourself to the numerous blessings that God sent your way today. Self-pity is one of the most diabolical things that we ever fall into, because it makes us actually resist comfort from God when we are suffering.
Seeking Comfort Elsewhere
God alone is our Comforter. But he doesn’t always provide comfort on our timeline. And so we are tempted to give up on God and seek our comfort from something else - like the refrigerator. Or the Internet. Or the TV. Or alcohol or pot or pills. Or friends or music or family or exercise or work or a vacation. We do what the people did in Jeremiah 2 when they gave up on God as their spring of living water, and they dug their own cisterns – trying to find satisfaction for the thirst of their soul in some other source besides God. When we fail to wait on God, and we give up too soon and revert to some other source of comfort, we forfeit the comfort we could have received from God if we would have just simply kept seeking him and waited on him. Seek comfort from God alone, and keep seeking it from him until you find it.
Demanding Relief Rather Than Seeking Comfort
There are some times when we are suffering, and we are not interested in God’s comfort. We are only interested in relief. We want God to take the trial away, take the suffering away, take the discomfort away – and that is the only thing we are interested in. But God has a purpose in that suffering, and it’s not time to take it away just yet, but he is willing to give us comfort and strength in the midst of that suffering, but we miss it because we are not even seeking comfort. We are demanding relief. It’s fine to ask God for relief. But asking crosses the line into demanding when you have an attitude that says, “I won’t be happy unless I have relief.” And when we have that attitude, we miss what could have been some of the sweetest moments of fellowship with God we ever had, because very few things in life are sweeter than receiving comfort from the Lord Jesus Christ in a time of sorrow. And it’s tragic when we miss out on that because our stubborn hearts are demanding relief.
You Have Experienced God’s Love!
So those are some roadblocks that prevent us from experiencing and enjoying the tenderness and kindness of God. But even if you struggle in some of those areas, still, isn’t it true that you have received a great deal of comfort and compassion and encouragement and tenderness and mercy from the Lord in the time you have been a Christian? Let’s just take them one at a time.
Encouragement
You could sum up the entire ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ with that word, encouragement. In Luke 2:25 the arrival of the Messiah into the world is referred to as the encouragement of Israel. Your Bible might say the consolation of Israel, but it’s the same word. Jesus Christ came into this world to give us encouragement, and so being encouraged by him is one of the most fundamental things that happens in his church.
Acts 9:31 Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.
And how does that encouragement come? Primarily through Scripture.
Romans 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
God encourages us through his holy Word, especially through his promises. Hebrews 6:18 says that he made those promises so that we may be greatly encouraged. Even God’s warnings about chastisement and discipline for our sin are given to us, Hebrews 12:5 says, as a word of encouragement, because it addresses us as God’s sons. 1 Corinthians 14:3 says that prophecy in general is given to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. Haven’t there been times you have been in distress, and you opened up the Bible, and it was a soothing, healing balm to your soul? Haven’t there been times when you have been listening to a sermon and right in the middle of it God spoke to you in a very direct, profound way? He opened your eyes to some new perspective about him that you never really saw before? Or he convicted you about some sin and showed you the path to restoration? Or he gave you some motivation where you didn’t have motivation? Or he gave hope in a situation that seemed hopeless?
Comfort also comes directly, through prayer. Haven’t there been times when you were weighed down by some grave matter, and you took it to the Lord in prayer, and he refreshed your soul? Or someone else prayed for you, and it gave you encouragement?
Another way God gives us encouragement is through one another in the church. Encouragement is one of the spiritual gifts. Romans 12:8 speaks of the gift of encouraging. Haven’t there been times when you have been down in the dumps and God sent a brother or sister your way who lifted your spirits? How many times has God done that in your lifetime? That is one of the ways he unifies his church.
Romans 15:5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity
Comfort of Love
Paul expands the idea of God’s encouragement with the next phrase - comfort of love. That is how God encourages us – with his love. The word encouragement literally means to approach, or to be next to the person. It is not just to bring them from sorrow to joy – it is to do it by being near them. A while back I told you about my niece, Bree, who had taken in a stray kitten that was close to death and nursed it back to health. The cat became the family pet. They named it Sugar, and Bree just loved it. My sister said morning, noon and night Bree would say something about how cute Sugar was. But one day a dog attacked Sugar and killed her right in front of Bree. Bree was 10 years old at the time. Afterward she told her mom she knew it was God’s will, but still she was just crushed by it. And the first thing she did was to go into her room and open her Bible and read Psalm 34 about how God is close to the brokenhearted. A couple nights later they were praying with her and she said, “God, thank you for giving me that feeling you gave me in my heart when I asked you for comfort.” That’s what it means to receive comfort from the nearness of God’s presence.
He encourages us through the comfort of his love. Psalm 63:3 says that is the best thing there is - his love is better than life itself. Have you felt that? Do you enjoy his love?
The writer of Psalm 139 rejoiced in the fact that God always saw him – wherever he went. Does that strike you as odd? For many people being seen by God feels like a curse. I think that’s because they don’t understand his love. They reduce His all-seeing eye to an impersonal, non-relational kind of surveillance. And they think, “Why would God want to watch me all the time anyway? He could watch the most spectacular thing happening in the universe – why would he want to watch me brush my teeth, or drive to work? What could be more boring? Do you want to know why God wants to watch you? It is the same reason I had zero interest in any little league baseball game for 42 years of my life, but then when my son was playing I was riveted. Before that, I had zero interest in whether some kid playing third base made a tag, or some runner slid in safe – unless my son is the one tagging or sliding. And then, it was pretty much the only thing I cared about at that moment. You see love generates interest. God is watching you and he’s loving it for the same reason you love watching your baby take her first steps, even though there’s nothing really all that spectacular about a human being taking two steps and then falling on her face. For you, it’s the highlight of your day. Why? Because of love. That’s the way God is with you.
Affection
The next one in the list is fellowship with the Spirit, but I would like to save that one for last, so let’s move to the fourth word. The NIV says tenderness, your Bible might say affection – the Greek word is splagna, which refers to the internal organs in your midsection. It’s a word that describes emotions of love and compassion that are so deep that you feel it in your stomach. Paul has already used this word to describe Jesus’ affection for us back in 1:8.
Philippians 1:8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
In Luke 1:78 Jesus is described as the one who would give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God That word tender is our word splagna. God has mercy on us, but not just mercy – tender, heartfelt, emotional mercy – the kind you can feel in your stomach.
When was the last time you really enjoyed the affection of Christ? How can you enjoy it? How do you know when Jesus feels something in his stomach for you? You know because the Bible says it. This is something you have to believe, and not just believe, but attend to. You have to intentionally put your attention to it.
So much of the kindnesses that we receive from Christ are like the kindnesses that you received from your mom growing up. Countless thousands of them happened before you were even paying attention. You don’t remember the times she got up in the middle of the night to nurse you or to change a diaper. God’s gestures of love for us are like that – the great majority of them we don’t even know about. But as we mature, our understanding and awareness should increase. We know from Scripture that when God sends blessings into our lives, it is because of his compassion that he feels for us.
And that should encourage us, because God designed us to enjoy compassion – to enjoy having someone else feel sorry for us when we suffer. That’s why when you were a kid, and you scraped your elbow, you came running in the living room crying until your mom kissed it, and then you were fine. Did her kiss actually do anything physically to heal the wound? No, but you were able to handle the suffering after that, because you knew that someone you loved was aware of the suffering and cared about it. And that gave you the strength you needed to go back out and play. God designed us to enjoy sympathy. But it takes a little effort to enjoy God’s sympathy, because he’s not physically present. And so we have to just take some time to sit and think about the pain that he feels in his stomach over our suffering. Just thinking about that for 10 seconds isn’t going to do much. It requires some serious meditation and thought and time spent in the passages of Scripture that talk about his love and compassion.
Mercy
And Paul pairs that word spangna (affection, compassion) with this next word – mercy. Your Bible might say compassion, or sympathy, but I think mercy is probably a better translation. It’s the idea of a compassion that withholds punishment or severity and gives leniency or kindness instead. Mercy is when God gives you what you need instead of what you deserve. This is the word in Romans 12:1.
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices
Paul has just given 11 chapters about the benefits of salvation. Those are the mercies of God. So the righteousness of Christ being credited to our account and our sins being forgiven, being chosen and adopted as his son or daughter, being given the Holy Spirit, being freed from sin - those are not just benefits of salvation; they are mercies. The word “benefits” says nothing about the attitude of the person giving you those benefits. But the word mercy is very much focused on God’s attitude. He gave you all those things, not just because they are part of the benefits package of salvation, but because he looked at you, lost and in need, and it moved his heart, and he was flooded with feelings of compassion for you, and was moved by his emotions to give you all those benefits.
That’s just what God is like. Paul uses this word along with the first word in the list (encouragement) to describe God’s nature in 2 Corinthians 1. He calls God the Father of mercy and the God of all encouragement. That’s just what he is like.
And his mercy is the basis for our forgiveness. When David finally repented after his adultery and murder and lying, he asked God to forgive him. On what basis? He said, “Please forgive me God, because…” and then he gave God a reason to forgive him. What was the reason?
Psalm 51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Did you know that the reason God has so much mercy on you when you sin, and the reason he is willing to forgive you, is because he feels sorry for you? When you rebel against God, trample his Word in the mud, reject his authority, and dishonor his name by sinning against him, you are in deep trouble with him. And he actually feels sorry for you for being in trouble with him. And it is on that basis that he shows you mercy and forgives you when you repent! Have you ever noticed Psalm 41:4?
Psalm 41:4 I said, “O LORD, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
What kind of logic is that? It is the logic of grace. You see it again in Psalm 25.
Psalm 25:11 For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, because it is great.
Not “in spite of the fact that my sin is great,” but “because of the fact that my sin is great.” This is the logic of grace. And the thing that makes it logical is the fact that it is God’s nature to have mercy on his children.
Psalm 25:8 Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
God is so good, it is His nature to bring about more good—which requires starting with something not good –something that needs an increase in goodness. It is our sin that makes us so needy of His guidance into goodness, and the needier we are, the more his mercy reflects his nature of showing mercy to the needy.
When you have trouble believing God has really forgiven you, it is probably because you have forgotten that God forgives you for his sake. And the greater the sin, the deeper his feelings of mercy toward you. And he is eager to forgive, because the more evil the sin, the more his forgiveness glorifies him because the greater the sin, the more his mercy is put on display when he forgives.
Learn to enjoy God’s forgiveness. If you constantly doubt God’s forgiveness, that’s not humility; it is just unbelief. And one thing that really helps is to learn how to discern when his forgiveness comes. Don't just ask God, “Please forgive me,” and then walk away thinking, “I hope that worked.” Stay with it until you know for sure that things are right between you and God. That is what the prophet Micah did when he sinned.
Micah 7:8 Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. 9 Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD’s wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.
So Micah could tell that, “Right now, I’m still in the darkness. I haven’t received the forgiveness yet; God is still displeased with me, so I will wait. But there is no doubt in my mind that soon God will plead my case and bring me back out into the light, and the discipline will be over.” He could tell when he was still in the darkness of God’s displeasure, and when he was back out into the light. Learn how to do that. After you sin, it may be appropriate for you to follow James 4 and spend some time grieving and mourning over your sin.
James 4:8 …Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
And when you are in that kind of darkness and gloom, that is when you pray the prayer of Psalm 51.
Psalm 51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. … 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
And God answers that prayer, and the joy of salvation returns. And you can sense that by the gestures of love that God gives you. You can enjoy food once again, the sunset is especially beautiful to you, the cool breeze puts you in a good mood, God restores your ability to enjoy his gifts - those are the kinds of gestures that let you know that the discipline is over and everything is forgiven, and there is nothing between you and God anymore! Pay close attention to all that, because that will enable you to feel God’s mercy. And feeling God’s mercy and love and tenderness is crucial, because it is our motivation for selflessness and humility and unity. If you don’t have that motivation, you will never succeed in trying to follow Jesus’ example in verses 5-11.
Fellowship with the Spirit
I skipped over the third phrase – fellowship with the Spirit, because I wanted you to get a feel for the rest of the list first. When you look at the rest of the list, does this one seem to not quite fit? Encouragement, comfort of love, affection/compassion, mercy… and then fellowship with the Spirit? If that one doesn’t seem like it fits in the list, maybe we have the wrong conception of what fellowship with the Spirit is. Because the Holy Spirit inspired this list, and it seemed to him to fit just fine. So evidently, having fellowship with the Holy Spirit is really similar to feeling God’s love and experiencing his mercy and tenderness. And that is exactly what we see elsewhere in Scripture.
2 Corinthians 13:14
May
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Look at that list. Grace from Jesus, love from God, and fellowship with the Spirit. So fellowship with the Spirit is in the same category as experiencing God’s love and receiving his grace. Fellowship with God is something very sweet and soothing to the soul. It is not a theoretical encouragement or comfort that is not really felt in the emotions. Comfort that is not felt could hardly be called comfort. The same goes for fellowship with God. It is real and deep and is felt as profoundly as any physical sensation. It is more than a mere feeling to be sure, but it is not less. Experiencing the tenderness of God happens in proportion to how much fellowship you have with the Holy Spirit. That’s why Scripture keeps telling us, walk by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit, be filled by the Spirit, pray in the Spirit. Intentional, personal, delightful interactions between you and him all through the day.
Conclusion
When you come home after a really hard day at work, everything went wrong, your boss yelled at you, you get blamed for things that weren’t your fault, your back is killing you, you’re dead tired, you’re hungry, and you just really need to sit down with some peace and quiet and unwind and rest; the most natural thing in the world is for you to come in and fully expect your spouse and your children to forget about what they have going and be completely focused on your needs. It is perfectly natural that their needs and their hard day and their desires and expectations would be the farthest thing from your mind. All of that is perfectly natural, but it is strictly forbidden in this passage. God requires that we consider their needs and desires and expectations and sore back ahead of our needs and desires and expectations and sore back. How is that even possible? The more we enjoy the tenderness of God toward us, the more ability we will have to put the interests of others ahead of our own. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Seek comfort from him, seek encouragement from him, devote yourself to fellowship with him, and enjoy his tenderness, affection, compassion, and mercy.
Benediction: 2 Thessalonians 2:16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.
Application Questions (James 1:25)
1) Share with the group a time when you were in distress and God comforted you, or you felt his tenderness and compassion.
2) Which of the roadblocks to experiencing God’s tenderness tend to be the biggest problem for you? (Unrepentance, self-condemnation, self-pity, unbelief, ignorance about his gestures of love, seeking comfort elsewhere, or demanding relief rather than seeking comfort)
3) Can you think of something you could do this week to help someone in your life experience or become aware of the tenderness of God?
