Philippians 1 3-11
We are going to be looking at Philippians for the next month or so. Philippians is a great letter of Paul to a wonderful church. Paul, as you may remember, was the apostle to the Gentiles, to all of us non-Jews. He wrote many letters to different churches which were so wonderful and obviously inspired that the churches preserved them, and have been passed along to us as Scripture. Paul, though, didn’t have an easy time planting churches. Most of the churches Paul planted had serious difficulties, and I think it can be said, drove him a little nuts. He had planted these churches, in Colossae where we get the letter in the New Testament called “Colossians”, in Galatia where we get the letter “Galatians”, Ephesus and Corinth and so forth. In fact, to prove these churches drove Paul a little crazy, in the letter to the Galatians we can read where Paul yells at them, “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?”
But the church at Philippi was different. There were almost no troubles, and as we go through the letter slowly you will be able to hear, at least I hope, the great joy Paul has when he thinks and prays for the Philippians.
This joy is odd, because Paul is receiving and experiencing this joy when he is in jail. Through the church at Philippi he is experiencing joy while he personally is in a tough place. Wherever we find ourselves today, in whatever tough situation, there can be joy. That is the promise of Philippians, there is joy in the Lord, and joy to keep us going even though times are hard. The text is Philippians 1, verses 3-11.
I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
7 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Let’s pray.
Before we get deep into the text, I’d like to give you some background to help place Philippians in perspective. Philippians is one of the letters Saint Paul wrote to the churches he himself had founded. Philippi, which is north and west of all the other churches Paul started. Philippi was a major trade city, and was prosperous. We can do some background reading on the church at Philippi in Acts 16. Paul first went there because of a dream, had some tough times there like being beaten for casting out a demon, and planted a church there, starting with Lydia.
The first convert in Philippi, Lydia, was a trader in purple, which was the richest, most expensive dye. Purple cloth was used to denote wealth, both by business men and royalty alike. Back then purple dye was as valuable as gold. Her contacts in the business community were probably also fairly wealthy. The second convert was a jailer who nearly killed himself. Paul was thrown into jail for casting a fortune telling demon out of a woman, and while in jail there was an earthquake, which opened all the jail doors. The jailer panicked, and assumed all the prisoners had escaped while he was in charge. Paul stopped him from killing himself, the prisoners stayed, and the jailer became the second convert.
We know this was a wealthy town, and a wealthy church within the town. There was an important Roman military colony at Philippi, which brought in both money and a strong Roman influence to this Greek town. Philippi was also at a major crossroads on the “Egnatian Way”, which was one of the major “interstates” in the Roman Empire.
In stark contrast to all this wealth, Paul is writing this letter while he sits in jail, most likely in Rome, awaiting his trial and execution. Paul, you remember, was persecuted by the Jewish hierarchy, and was on trial before the Roman authorities when He appealed to Rome, to Caesar, his right as a Roman citizen. So there he sits, in chains, in jail, awaiting his fate, writing to the Philippians about their church, and about joy. It seems so out of place, to have this letter so filled with joy written by a prisoner. But so often that is life in Christ, finding great joy in really odd places. Odd physically, but not spiritually, because there is joy in Christ, no matter what the physical circumstances.
So Paul is writing to this church, these people he knows and loves, to encourage them, to urge them on toward unity. Paul starts off his letter by thanking the people and letting them know he is praying for them.
I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Paul is a man of prayer. Paul knows the strength he personally draws from prayer, but also that prayer is effective. Prayer makes a difference. Paul is confident that his time in prayer is not wasted time, but is the most concrete help he can give the Philippians as they struggle to follow Jesus, as they struggle to share the good news to those around them. Paul, and others I’m sure, are praying for that church, praying for those individual leaders that they might not go astray, but might be powerful leaders, passionate and energetic folks for Christ and the kingdom of God.
Paul prays with thankfulness and joy because of their response to God. Philippians is one of the few letters where Paul is not addressing a serious issue that is dividing the church. Paul founded this church about 10 years previous, and it is thriving, and growing. And so Paul can pray with great joy, because the church is functioning well. There aren’t outside theological attacks, like those suffered by the church in Galatia. There aren’t folks inside the church who have a weird theological beliefs like they are beyond sin, like some people in Corinth believed.
Paul is able to pray with joy also because of the way the Philippians have become partners with Paul in his ministry. No person ever ministers alone, but rather is a part of a larger ministry team. The Philippians are praying for him, and Paul is praying for them. They are ministers together. Paul is guiding them, but they are doing the actual ministry. So they are full partners in trying to reach as many people as possible with the good news that in Jesus Christ God came to us, and offers us salvation. The Philippians don’t depend on others to do their job, but rather seek out the lost, and tell them of the hope that is in their hearts because of Christ living in it. They are partners with Paul, as are we. We too are partners in this endeavor to tell the whole world about who Jesus Christ is, and what He has already done for them. That was the mission of the Philippians church, and it is still the mission of the church, including our church.
You know, the church is always one generation away from extinction. It always has been. But the hope found in Christ and lived out in the community we call the church, it will always be important and vital. We have a part to play in God’s salvation plan. I love it that God has a part for us to play; what a gift that our talents, our time helps God’s plan of salvation move forward. Our lives are not purposeless, not without meaning like some modern philosophers want us to believe, but we are important to God, we are important to those around us struggling to find meaning, struggling to find God. That’s who we are, it is who we have been for centuries.
So not only that, but the Philippians are also partners in one of Paul’s other missions, and that is to collect money from these churches he has planted to assist the poor Christians in Jerusalem. The Philippians have helped him in this mission as well. It is not only the spiritual mission Paul has of spreading the good news of the gospel, but also the ministry of assisting the poor in their struggle to survive. These are Paul’s partners he is writing to, partners he recalls daily in his prayers with great joy for all that he is hearing about them.
This is one of the practical outcomes of being partners in this endeavor to evangelize the world. We are in this together. One of the images of this is mountain climbing. In mountain climbing all the climbers are roped together for safety, for encouragement. That’s who we are, the climbing church. We are all roped together in this life. We are doing something difficult, trying to live faithfully to Christ in a hostile world. Sometimes that can feel like we’re climbing a mountain, but we do it together. There is joy in climbing the mountain because we do it for and with Christ, for and with each other.
Lastly, Paul knows with confidence and joy that Christ will continue to work in their lives individually and collectively, until that time when Jesus returns. I was recently reading a book called “A long Journey in the Same Direction”. It has to do with faithfulness, and what really makes a difference in this world is not flitting from new idea to new idea day after day, but a long traveling in the same direction. Can people count on us to be proclaiming Christ and His kingdom up until the time we die or Christ comes back? Or are we people who are continually after new fads, new twists and turns always seeking the next thrill, the next exciting thing to happen? What makes a difference is steady movement, continuing, in the mission God gives us, and the mission God gave the Philippians. That’s what makes a difference, not jumping onto the latest fad. Paul is completely confident the Philippians are running the steady race, they will keep going, keep proclaiming their faith. They will make a difference because they are all headed in the same direction; they have the mind of Christ, who is working to perfect them. Paul continues in his letter to the Philippians.
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Paul genuinely loves these people, this church. His joy in them, and in watching and hearing about them is unchanged by his physical circumstance. Whatever he is doing, he will always have affection for the Philippians. How do we do that too? How do we have joy, not just small joy but great joy, despite our troubling circumstances? Paul has joy, and yet he is imprisoned, held in chains. Today we have prisoners who get books to read, they get time out of their cells to move around; Paul got none of these things. Being in prison is never a fun thing; it must have been really bad for Paul. And yet, his attitude is not despairing, but full of joy.
I think the answer is in Paul’s great confidence in God’s grace, goodness and love. Paul trusts that God is in control, no matter what the circumstances. No matter what happens to him, whether he is in chains, or is being beaten, or is shipwrecked, Paul knows who God is, that He is good and trustworthy, and that God loves him. We can endure quite a lot if we know we are loved. We will put up with an amazing amount of hard times if we know, deep in our bones, that we are well and truly loved. I want to confirm that fact for you. You are loved by God. In fact, you cannot imagine how deeply you are loved by God. No matter what you have done, no matter what your past is like, if you come to God and ask, He will change you, because He loves you. He is simply waiting to be asked. Paul knows this; Paul has experienced Christ’s love and forgiveness for the terrible things he had done while persecuting Christians. Paul knows God’s love, even in prison, and so he is able to be full of joy, despite the suffering he is going through. There is joy in the Lord.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Joy is the result of faithfully following God. There are ways to follow God individually, and ways to follow God corporately, strategically. Some people here at church are thinking about what our purpose really is here at the Presbyterian Church of Islip. We have been reading a book called the purpose driven church, written by a pastor named Rick Warren. As I read through this section of Philippians I was struck by how much this sounded like a purpose statement. Paul is praying for the Philippians something very profound and powerful.
First, he is praying that the Philippians’ love would abound more and more in the knowledge and depth of insight. This is part of what this church is trying to move toward, people who love, but people who love with a purpose. Our love for God moves us to study the Bible, His Word to us. We are striving to grow in the depth of knowledge of God, so that we might better reflect His love and communicate His knowledge to the people in our lives who need that love, and who need the knowledge of how life can be
lived well. God gives us His instruction book for living, but we need to read it, be immersed in it, we need to know His Word, so that we are faced with questions or tough situations, we know how to respond.
In his book, Rick Warren describes this as the spiritual growth of the church and its members. We are all learning, and in learning, being trained to do the special task God has laid out for each of us. The purpose of all this training is so that you can minister yourselves. Maybe not the way I minister, but the way you minister. God has created each of you in a special way to do a special ministry. Maybe it is to be a strong Christian at your place of work; maybe it is to teach Sunday School, maybe it is to be a deacon or a session member. Whatever it is, before you jump into it there needs to be training. That is what we do here at Sunday School, at Alpha, at Bible studies and so forth. This is training for your ministry, using the unique talents God has given you to do His will.
Training so that you might be able to discern what is best, what is excellent. We ought to be living our lives excellently. We should be striving for excellent relationships, excellent
attitudes, excellent lives. We have been adopted into excellence, and that should show in our lives. We want each of you to have excellent ministries; however God calls you to minister. Some are called to minister in the church, some are in church to get revitalized in order to do ministry outside of the church. Both ministries are important and equally vital. But everyone should have a ministry, whether they are free or even in prison, everyone has a ministry of some sort. Ministries are not draining, but full of joy, and satisfaction that God is using your life to make a difference, to bring people to Him.
We do our jobs until Jesus finally shows up. And it was Paul’s prayer, and ours as well, that we all reflect the righteousness of Christ, as it says in the text, “the fruits of righteousness”. Not only to reflect it, but to be full of the fruits of righteousness given to us only through the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father. Everything in this life should be motivated toward helping other people know Jesus, and through Jesus, to come to and know God the Father. That is our individual purpose as well as our collective purpose as a church. This we continue to do until Christ returns in glory. This is our overarching job, to be filled with the fruits of righteousness through the Holy Spirit, reflecting the righteousness of Jesus to the glory, to the magnification of God the Father. Being a Christian, knowing Christ, isn’t dreary, like that famous painting of the farmer and his wife dressed in boring garb, having a stern and condemning look on our faces all the time. There is joy in the Lord, abundant joy. We need not be the morose people the world paints us to be.
It is our hope and prayer that people see in us something they want to be like, something different, something of Jesus living in and through us that would motivate outsiders to glorify God. We should be living our lives so that even those outside the faith can see the fruits of righteousness in us, see our peace and patience, our forgiveness and goodness. And in seeing us, we hope they see a little bit of who Christ really is. If Christ can give me peace and patience, then how much more can He do for you? If you see the forgiveness and goodness I have, clothed in my human frailties and shortcomings, how much more wonderful is Christ?
This is our joy: to be used by God to accomplish His purposes, to allow God to shine through us. I was speaking with Lorraine the other day, as she lay there in the hospital. Lorraine has been told her cancer has come back, it is in her spine and that is what broke the vertebrae in her back, causing her much pain, as you can imagine. Yet when I visited her, she talked about joy. She told me, there is so much joy in Christianity. And while that’s true, it is a little inaccurate. There is joy in knowing Jesus. That’s the bottom line. Christianity is about knowing Christ, it can never be reduced to a set of rules to follow. We follow a person. We follow Jesus of Nazareth, and one of the rewards is pure joy. That is while Lorraine can lie in a hospital bed, in pain, and talk about joy. That is how the apostle Paul can sit in a prison, awaiting his execution, and talk about joy. There is deep joy in Christ, there is deep joy in knowing God is using our efforts, our feeble efforts on His behalf. Isn’t it odd: joy in touch situations. Joy in knowing we are playing our part in God’s salvation plan. I promise you, there is joy in Lord, deeper and stronger than you can imagine. Not just temporary happiness, but real joy.
Let’s pray.
