Sermon Tone Analysis

Theme: Thanksgiving for God’s unconventional means (separation anxiety, discernment, imprisonment, rivalry) of advancing the Gospel.

Fallen Condition Focus: We lack the faith to believe that God’s Gospel intentions succeed through lackluster circumstances.

It is in our nature to doubt God’s ability to use frustrations for His glory and our good.

God’s ways are frustrating to us.

Proposition: Because God finishes what He starts and since what He started is good (; ; ) you must rejoice in His peculiar means of bringing good things to pass.

Scripture Introduction: Please turn in your Bible to .

Paul writes one happy thought after another as he reports and reconnects with some of his dearest brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.

You may recall a visit to the first six verses of this encouraging letter back in February of this year (I know at least one of you remembers), but if not… for sake of context, please pick up with me in verse 3, we’ll read through verse 18.

Sermon Introduction: When we read a letter like this, it’s easy to only focus on the good news (and we should focus on the positives), things like: thanksgiving, the preservation of the saints, God’s power, our union with Christ, the advancement of the Gospel.

There can be a problem though when we neglect to realize the context, the fact that all of these things are taking place in a time and place that is counter-Gospel: Paul’s in prison, he misses this congregation, the early church seems to constantly be threatened by false teaching our persecution.

So much in the world seems to oppose the good that the Gospel brings but for as much as we may think that a tyrannical government would be the leading inhibitor to Gospel advance, Paul’s encouraging words come with an edge to them, revealing that how we deal with frustrations in life directly relates to God’s Gospel mission.

In reality we all struggle with God’s plan, because often God’s way of sanctifying us is frustrating to us.

The truth is, is that Paul is confident that what God starts, He finishes; and that everything the God starts is good (just look again at verse 6).

Because this is true, you and I must rejoice in the circumstances God brings into our lives, no matter how inconvenient or frustrating they may seem.

So much in the world seems to counter the good that the Gospel brings...

Transition: Paul writes to encourage you to rejoice in God’s peculiar means of Gospel advancement in the face of life’s “frustrations,” and he does so by rejoicing in certain aspects of a life of faith.

The first of these is the...

Effectual Bonds of Grace (verses 7-8)

Effectual Bonds of Grace (verses 7-8)

Effectual Bonds of Grace (verses 7-8)

1. Effectual Bond of Grace (verses 7-8)

In the face of his own frustrating circumstances, Paul demonstrates for us the encouraging bond of grace that unites believers together (read verses 7-8).

(verses 7-8)

Facing frustrations with our affections.

This deep expression of love (“having them in his heart…yearn[ing] for [them]”) flows from the gift that they share together in Christ, the Gospel itself.

Mankind is separated from God because of their sin, but God (the righteous Judge of all and the loving Creator of all) bought us back from our slavery to sin through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.

That if we have faith in Him, we are reconciled to God by His Spirit.

This is the grace we have in Christ, this is the Gospel.

But what exactly does it mean for them to be stakeholders, partakers, “partners” in a common grace together?

First, they are bound together through the same gift of God’s love through Christ in the Spirit.

They share the same status together that Paul already asserts in verse 1 when he greets the whole church as “saints.”

Remember from back in February, there is no two-tier Christianity, all believers are all saints, and so Paul says it is fitting to speak so confidently of God’s persevering work, because he and the Philippians have received the same gift from God.

Here already, Paul again reflects on the long history he shares with these beloved people, a history (given the nature of the religious scene is Philippi) that typically involved persecution and even imprisonment for the church.

There is no two-tier Christianity, all believers are all saints, and so Paul says it is fitting to speak so confidently of God’s persevering work, because he and the Philippians have received the same gift from God.

Paul also speaks of sharing this grace because he was the vessel through which God ministered the Gospel to these people in the first place.

Their dramatic first encounter is recorded for us in , and the simple first conversion of a desperate Philippian jailer and his family sparks the beginning of a new congregation.

And this is where we see the link between a minister and his flock; oh, the effectual bond that forms between saints through the ministry of the Word together!

I cannot believe there to be any greater affinity formed than such that is of the Gospel.

Paul’s words also indicate that these believers were now facing the same pushback that Paul was experiencing... as they had also been given opportunities to explain the reasonableness of the Gospel in a world grasping for truth... as well as to confirm the Gospel through a martyr’s death.

They were all sharing the same consequences of the Gospel, both the distain of the world and the glory of heaven; they were all partaking together.

This is a key essential for a life of faith: though you may feel alone, you are never truly alone.

Don’t lose heart.

Such was the concern of Elijah during a time in which it seemed that he was the only one in Israel who cared to follow the LORD.

In he bemoans his perceived loneliness, only for God to let him in the truth: “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

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God has guaranteed his people that He will not abandon them, Jesus commissions His Spirit so to never leave us comfortless.

We could count all day the assurances of God’s presence, and yet... here Paul is… alone, far detached from where he says his heart is… Consider the frustration that would set it, being moored far from familiar, familial faces...

As Paul writes, he is very open about how much he wishes he was with these brothers and sisters.

Paul again reflects on the long history he shares with these beloved people, a history (given the nature of the religious scene is Philippi) that typically involved persecution and even imprisonment for the church.

Think for a second about who Paul is writing to when he brings up his “imprisonment” in verse 7. It seems all things concerning Philippi involved imprisonment in some way shape or form, and here Paul is writing from prison, in Rome, but despite all the undesireable circumstances, he is still as joyful as he was when he and Silas were chained in their cell together, singing hymns in the middle of that glorious night years before when God birthed a new congregation in Philippi.

How Paul recalls these memories with fondness.

(read verse 8) How he must have longed for a similar miracle to take place there in his Roman confines as it had in Philippi, not so much for his own relief, but for the sake of the Gospel.

Paul has become accustomed to imprisonment, and he knows he can cherish this frustra-… no, He knows he can cherish God’s peculiar means of ministry with these dear people given their shared history.

Application: to put it simply... Paul missed these dear people.

They had his heart, but he was hundreds of miles away from them.

Thus comes the "rub” when God’s plan brings distance, differences, or any change between us and the people we find so comfortable and easy to connect with; when God’s design for growth involves relocation, or a change in work schedules or shepherd groups; when God’s call on the lives of our children takes them around the world away from us; when a church program doesn’t quite fulfill what we’ve experienced at other churches… we are quick to idolize the past and lament what God is doing today.

How fickle is our American Christianity; how rebellious is our contempt of God’s work when it frustrates us.

May we embrace this essential to a life of faith: that all of life really is all about God, and that means that any frustration I feel about differences between the past and the present comes from my selfish resistance to His good hand at work.

Transition: Paul, on the other hand (again verse 8), is beaming.

He rejoices in the past, he cherishes everything that he has shared with these people that have made them so dear to him, but he doesn’t just stay there.

Look now to verse 9 as he begins his exhortation in this letter and we encounter a second vital aspect of a life of faith...

(read verses 9-11) Here Paul encourages the congregation to continue in discerning love.

2. Abounding, Discerning Love (verses 9-11)

Abounding, Discerning Love (verses 9-11)

Paul begins by praying that the Philippian congregation would continue to abound in love.

The text indicates that this is not something Paul is introducing them to, Paul loves them so much because they are already so lovable and..

Paul begins by praying that the Philippian congregation would continue to abound in love.

The text indicates that this is not something Paul is introducing them to, Paul loves them so much because they are already so lovable and..

This is a fitting encouragement.

According to Jesus, love is the fulfillment of the whole Law of God, the truest form of holy devotion.

Love is in fact the foremost fruit of the Spirit of God at work in a believer’s heart.

The love Paul is condoning in the Philippian church is the true mark of the follower of Christ and this congregation had well cultivated it.

When the New Testament speaks of love, It speaks of a very costly thing.

Contrary to popular opinion, love is not a natural expression of the human heart.

True love is a sacrificial, others-focused devotion.

The congregation in Corinth would have done well to follow the example of their Philippian siblings.

In writing them, Paul did have to introduce and explain love in all its facets: patience, kindness, gratitude, humility, meekness, and gentleness.

“It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.”

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It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Such love and devotion grows from a heart that has been radically turned inside out and renewed.

To be dead in sin means to be a slave to self-devotion and pleasure.

Only a work of God can bring such a change to a darkened heart.

There is no surer mark of being in Christ than a love that counters personal interest for the sake of others.

Paul prays that this will continue and swell over in Philippi.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

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Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.”

But notice, this isn’t just any kind of love, Paul mentions a special quality of Christian love (verse 9): knowledge and discernment.

Love will not survive where there merely are emotions and affections.

Biblical love is not a blind love.

We must beware such blind love: Love without maturity enables sinful behavior; love without discernment is an invitation for abuse; it is a cheerful fool who abounds in heart but has no mind.

Many gatherings, even churches, have much to say about love, but their words are empty of meaning.

Love means more than blind affirmation and open acceptance.

Paul makes the point that no church should love for “love’s sake.”

Because love is not an end in and of itself; Paul desires that they love in a way that “approves what is excellent” (read verse 10).

In a time in which love is often an excuse for poor choices (“Why’d you do that?”

-> “Well because I love him.”),

Paul encourages us not to put love to waste, which is not an altogether difficult thing to do.

Caving to the pressure that society even puts on the church to “do the Christian thing” is no excuse for ecumenicism or for associating with evil organizations or compromising biblical truth.