Scripture: Philippians 1:1-8
Sermon Series: One Another – Doing Church Life Together – Sermon 11
Imagine that you’re going through tough times. You’re homeless, penniless, and sleeping on the streets. Your dirty, tattered clothes and an old blanket are barely enough to keep you from freezing at night. Your food is whatever you can find in dumpsters. You’ve lost contact with all your family and friends.
Now picture your favorite President of the United States, and as you sit on the sidewalk, suddenly the presidential limousine pulls up to the curb. The President gets out and invites you to join him. You get in the limo and are whisked to the airport, where Air Force One is waiting. You fly to D.C., are driven in the presidential motorcade to the White House where your own room is ready. There are new, clean clothes, all the food you can eat, and servants to meet your every need or whim. But, more than that, to your astonishment, the President treats you as his friend. He shares his heart with you and wants you to share your heart with him.
At first, you’re so dazzled with this incredible change of events that you’re only aware of the President, but after a while, you realize that you’re not there alone. There are many others who’ve experienced the same thing. You suddenly have a large family of brothers and sisters who care about you. As you exchange your stories and talk of how the President has helped each of you, your relationships with each other deepen.
It’s an unbelievable fable, right? No, if you’ve come to know Jesus Christ, it’s a true allegory. Christ found you in the gutter of sin and brought you to His heavenly palace to live with Him and to get to know Him as a friend. You discover brothers and sisters from all over the world who’ve had the same experience. You’re accepted in a huge, loving family where every member has a variation of the same story: “I was lost in sin when Jesus found me and rescued me.” All the family spends its time enjoying the bounty of the King, and best of all, getting to know Him better and better.
That’s the glorious theme presented throughout the New Testament – the joy of fellowship with God and with one another. This morning we’re concluding our series: One Another – Doing Church Life Together. In a few weeks we’re going to begin 2 Samuel (picture/logo). Today we want to work through Philippians 1:1-8 (p. 921) and Life Together…Forever.
The greatest joys in life come from loving relationships. We all want those relationships, but some of us have a history of bad relationships. Maybe you had an abusive parent, or you had or still have, an abusive mate. Perhaps your children have gone astray and are a heartache. At the root of all such disappointments is sin, which causes alienation from God and others. Yet, in spite of the reality of painful relationships, we all know true joy doesn’t come from the accumulation of wealth, fame or power. True joy comes with the experience of love and relationships.
Picture a man on his deathbed, all alone, except for the nurse. He says, “Bring me today’s Wall Street Journal so that I can see how my investments are doing. Get me a phone so that I can call my attorney to see how my lawsuit is going.” There’s a poor man!
Picture another man on his deathbed. He owns little but is surrounded by caring family members, who are telling him how much they love him. He’s a man who knows God and knows that soon the Savior who died for him will welcome him Home. There’s a rich man! He’s a man who enjoys fellowship with God and others. It’s Life Together…Forever. If you’re taking notes.
1. Life Together…Forever is based on true fellowship with God. Paul begins with a key phrase, “To all the saints in Christ Jesus.” That phrase “in Christ” is used over 80 times in the New Testament.
When we meet some people, we know instinctively that they’re different. We want to learn their secret. It’s not the way they dress or talk or behave, although it influences these things. It’s that they know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They’re “in Christ” and He’s a living reality to them. They dwell in Him and He dwells in them. Jesus Christ is the source of their life, and it shows in everything that they say or do.
Although unbelievers who come in among us should be able to sense the love, they can’t experience true fellowship with other believers until they personally come to faith in Jesus Christ and begin to walk with Him. Knowing Christ personally and growing in that relationship is the basis for all true fellowship with others that know Christ. It’s Christ Himself that we share in common. He draws us together.
True Christian unity is based on true fellowship with God, which must be based on faith in the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. When you know Christ personally, you experience genuine unity and fellowship with other Christ-followers, even though there may be significant differences in background, personality, social status, or race. Among Jesus’ disciples, Simon the Zealot was from a radical political group whose hobby was killing tax collectors. Another disciple, Matthew, was a tax collector! Jesus brought them together and said, “Love one another!”
Paul emphasizes that in the church, there are no distinctions between slaves and free, Jews and Gentiles, but “Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11). Christian unity starts with mutually knowing Christ through the gospel. This unity deepens as we grow to know Him better through His Spirit and His Word. We draw closer to each other as we draw closer to Him. The gospel creates a supernatural family. This means every Christian is a saint.
Ian MacPherson wrote about a grocer in Edinburgh, Scotland named JAMES SAINT. A man who knew James Saint wrote a letter to him but mistakenly addressed it to “James Saint, Aberdeen, Scotland.” When the letter reached Aberdeen, the postal workers searched diligently, but couldn’t find anyone in town named James Saint. So, they returned the letter to the sender with this notation on the envelope: “There are no Saints in Aberdeen. Try Edinburgh.” According to the Bible those postal workers were wrong because if there were Christians in Aberdeen, and there certainly were, then there were saints there! According to the Bible, all believers are saints.
2. Life Together…Forever means praying with and for each other. “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy” (Philippians 1:3-4). Though Paul was imprisoned and couldn’t be with the Philippians, his chains couldn’t prevent him from thinking about them and praying for them. His remembrance of them filled him with thanksgiving, as he thought about how God was at work among them. His thoughts turned into frequent prayers on their behalf.
Our remembrance of other believers should be much more than warm, fuzzy feelings. Our remembrances should be turned into heartfelt prayers for each other. Ephesians 6:18 tells us to “pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 we’re told to “pray without ceasing.” Romans 12:12 tells us to “be devoted to prayer.”
This doesn’t mean we’re to quit our jobs and spend 24/7 in prayer. The word translated “without ceasing” was used for a hacking cough. Someone with a hacking cough always comes back to it after an interval. Prayer is to be an ongoing conversation between us, and the Lord and the focus of our prayers should often be other Christians and their walk with God.
Believers are commanded in James 5:17 to “pray for one another.” Repeatedly, the Apostle Paul pleads, “Brothers, pray for us.” His letters to churches testify of his prayers for them. Even Jesus asked for the prayers of Peter, James, and John in the garden of Gethsemane. One of the chief characteristics of the church after Pentecost was that “they devoted themselves to…prayer” (Acts 2:42). Can anyone doubt that these church prayer times included a lot of prayer for each other?
Most of our prayers are for sickness or traveling safety, yet most of the prayers in the Bible are for spiritual needs, not physical ones. When Jesus prayed for others, He prayed for their faith. He prayed for protection against temptation in their lives. He prayed for their unity and sanctification.
Paul prayed for the salvation of the lost; that Christians would stay on the right path; that believers would be strengthened by the Spirit, rooted and grounded in love and comprehending God’s love. These are all prayers for spiritual, not physical blessings. They’re all within the Father’s will, prayers guaranteed to find a “yes” according to 2 Corinthains 1:20.
At Grace, we want to be a church of prayer. We want to grow in prayer. In a few weeks we’re going to launch a monthly prayer meeting after the second service along with our one before the first service. Yet many Christians feel uncomfortable praying out loud with and in front of other Christians.
Let me share a great story about praying out loud in front of others. Bill Moyers was a special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson (picture). Moyers was also a former Baptist minister. So, Moyers was asked to say grace before a meal in the family quarters of the White House. As he began praying softly, LBJ interrupted him with “Speak up, Bill! Speak up!” Moyers stopped in mid-sentence and without looking up replied, “I wasn’t addressing you, Mr. President.”
The prayers of believers are part of God’s way of accomplishing His will. He uses prayer to change the heart of the one doing the praying, as well as to work in the hearts of others. As you bring your requests to God, your motives are exposed. You quickly realize you can’t honestly bring certain requests before God, because your thoughts about a brother or sister aren’t pleasing to Him! Prayer draws us closer to God and to each other.
And if you’re having trouble with another believer, even if it’s your mate or a family member, pray often for that individual. It’s hard to stay angry at someone if you’re consistently praying for them! James Montgomery Boice (picture) said, “I think that ninety percent of all the divisions between true believers in this world would disappear entirely if Christians would learn to pray specifically and constantly for one another.”
3. Life Together…Forever means serving with each other. “Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now…It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (Philippians 1:5, 7). From day one, the Philippians joined Paul in the cause of the gospel. They were active in serving the Lord. The concept of being a church member who attends a worship service once a week was foreign to them and rightly so. It should be foreign to us! Christ never saves anyone so that they can add church attendance to their list of weekly things to do. Nor does He redeem anyone so they can live happier lives that are as self-centered as they were before salvation. Every believer is saved to serve God and the local church is a to be a fellowship of those who serve Jesus and each other. That service sometimes includes suffering and even persecution.
Paul mentions how the Philippians were partners with him in his imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. He tells them, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29).
Can you picture the Philippian church taking out an ad on social media to market the church: “Come, join our church! You’ll love suffering with us! We have the best persecution program in town!”?
Every Christian here has a role to fulfill by serving in our church family. Jesus didn’t save us to sit but to serve. Serving Him isn’t always easy or free from strife and conflict, but it knits us together in fellowship when we join in serving Him. True fellowship means praying and serving Christ together.
Christian servants have learned the same thing. It brings us joy to help others. It brings us joy to let others help us. When we take the focus off ourselves, we end up helping ourselves in the process.
4. Life Together…Forever means trusting God’s sovereign working in each other. “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
Verse 6 means that I can trust God to work in the lives of my brothers and sisters. God began their salvation; He will always finish the job. Fellowship can break down when I see that another brother or sister isn’t exactly where I’m at on some issue. I may even feel threatened by Christians who are different, so I take it on as my responsibility to change them so that they’ll be like me. They sense my rejection or attempts to change them and draw back, and fellowship is hindered.
If God has truly saved them, God will finish the job. I can relax, accept where they’re at with the Lord, encourage them but also learn from them areas where I need to grow. You and I are not the Holy Spirit. It only breaks our fellowship when we take that role on. This also applies to spouses and adult children. You can and must trust God to bring about spiritual change.
5. Life Together…Forever means partaking of God’s grace together. “It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (Philippians 1:7).
Paul saw brothers and sisters as “partakers of grace” with him. Just as Paul, the persecutor of the church, had found God’s undeserved favor at the cross, so had the Philippians, and so have we all who’ve met Christ. Every believer is a partaker of God’s grace. The more I grow in Christ, the more I sense how much grace I needed to be saved and how much grace I need daily to go on with Christ. And the more I should view my brothers and sisters as fellow sinners who need not only grace from God but grace from me, as we work together to please the Lord Jesus.
Viewing ourselves and other Christians as partakers of God’s grace humbles us and puts us all on the same level. Paul could have viewed himself as God’s greatest apostle to the Gentiles, but there aren’t any celebrity Christians. It’s interesting to trace how Paul refers to himself in his letters. In 1 Corinthians 15:9 he said that he was the least of the apostles. In Ephesians 3:8, he said that he was the least of all saints. Finally, in 1 Timothy 1:15 he called himself the chief of sinners. Yet, we’ve all been around Christians whose company is a bit difficult to enjoy. It’s easy to become judgmental and impatient, where you think, “Why is this person so hard to be around?” and fellowship is strained. Almost every church family has one or more “EGRs.” EGR stands for: Extra Grace Required. They’re high-demanding people.
There are some in every church, office, school, meeting, and every family. These are the folk who get on your last nerve. They drain your energy and engulf you in their constant drama. They’re always stirring things up.
There’s nowhere to escape them. Quit your job and go to a new company? You’ll find “EGR” people waiting for you there. Leave your church and go to another one? You’ll find as many “EGR” people there as in your last church, maybe more! Leave your “EGR” spouse for greener pastures? It won’t be long before you find your new spouse is also an “EGR.”
I believe that God intends that we treat “Extra Grace Required” people with the grace that they require. God put these people in our lives for their benefit and ours. They’re an opportunity for our spiritual growth and a test of fellowship: Will we love them as brothers and sisters and treat them with grace and dignity, the way Jesus treats us because we’re all EGRs without the cross? If we remember that we’re all partakers of God’s undeserved favor, we’ll give each other more room to grow. We’ll be more patient and loving with one another. True Christian fellowship is a sharing together in God’s abundant grace.
6. Life Together…Forever means having heartfelt affection for each other. “For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8).
“Affection” is the word for bowels or inner vital organs. It emphasizes the emotional aspect of Paul’s love for these people who are so dear to him. He is unashamedly emotional in his love for God’s people. He told the Thessalonians that he’d cared for them as tenderly as a nursing mother. Then he said, “Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8).
God’s grace unites us; sin always divides us. It divides us from those who are different from us. The love of Christ unites us, not just intellectually, but with heartfelt love. This love seeks God’s best for them. So how do we demonstrate this love?
Love values the other person. While love is a wonderful, warm feeling, it’s not only a feeling. According to the Bible, love is primarily an active interest in the well-being of another person. Love acts for the benefit of others. According to William Barclay (picture) love “is the spirit in the heart that will never seek anything but the highest good of its fellow man.” God loved us not because we had something to offer Him, but because He had something to offer us. God loved us so that He could demonstrate His mercy to us in the person of His Son.
Dr. W.A. Criswell (picture), famous pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, officiated at a lot of weddings. The nervous groom would always say, “Dr. Criswell, how much do I owe you for this?” Criswell would smile, look at the groom and say, “Aw, just pay me what she’s worth.” Dr. Criswell made a lot of money from weddings because to each man his new bride was of extravagant value. In the same way, everyone around us is of incredible worth to God. His Son died in their place. Because people matter so much to Him, they must matter to us. We need to love them as He loves them.
Love is vulnerable to the other. In other words, love opens up its life to another person. It goes beyond sentimental feelings. It exposes the heart.
Think about Jesus. He left the glory of heaven to come to earth. He veiled His divinity and took on humanity. But what did it get Him? “He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him” (John 1:11). Can you imagine being away on a business trip for a week, coming home, and your family not recognizing you? That’s similar to what Jesus experienced when He came to earth. It must have hurt. Then, as He hung on the cross, dying for these people that He loved, they hurled abuses, scorn, and ridicule. His heart was broken but He forgave them. So, obey and let Christ love others through you.
C. S. Lewis (picture), in The Four Loves, describes the vulnerable nature of love. “To love is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken. Instead, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
Love entails a cost. It gets its hands dirty. It takes risks. It does the unexpected, surprising, and stirring. Often these acts are never forgotten. This love loves the unlovable. As G. K. Chesterton (picture) said, “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”
A woman named Regine, who was a survivor of the genocide of Rwanda, tells the story of another woman whose only son was killed. This grieving mother was consumed with hate and constantly prayed, “God, reveal my son’s killer.” She wanted revenge. One night she dreamed she was going to Heaven, but there was a complication: in order to get to Heaven, she had to pass through a certain house. She had to walk down the street, enter the house through a neighbor’s front door, go through its rooms, up the stairs, and exit through the back door. And in her dream, she asked God whose house this was. He told her it was the house of her son’s killer.
In her dream, the road to Heaven literally passed through the house of her worst enemy. The next day she couldn’t get the dream out of her mind. Two days later, there was a knock at her door. She opened it and there stood a young man. He was about her son’s age. He hesitated but said, “I am the one who killed your son. Since that day I have had no life. No peace. So here I am. I am placing my life in your hands. Kill me. I am dead already. Throw me in jail. I am in prison already. Torture me. I am in torment already. Do with me as you wish.”
This woman had prayed for this day, now it had arrived, and she didn’t know what to do. But she found to her own surprise, that she didn’t want to kill him, throw him in jail or torture him. In that moment of reckoning she found she only wanted one thing—a son. So she said, “I ask this of you. Come into my home and live with me. Eat the food I would have prepared for my son. Wear the clothes I would have made for my son. Become the son I lost.”
And he did. He became like a son to her—and grew into a godly young man. That day this woman was practicing God’s love because she reflected God’s love in her attitude and action toward the worst person in her life.
Love entails a cost. It does what God has done, making sons and daughters out of bitter enemies, feeding and clothing them, blazing a trail to heaven straight through their houses.
Conclusion: Jesus wants us to live and love together now because for those who’ve committed their lives to Christ, we’re going to live together forever. A church that pleases God is one that loves and knows how to live together now like Jesus has commanded us to.
Lee Iacocca (picture) asked legendary football coach Vince Lombardi what it took to make a winning team. His book Iacocca (picture) records Lombardi’s (picture) answer: “There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the fundamentals and have plenty of discipline but still don’t win the game. Then you come to the third ingredient: if you are going to play together as a team, you’ve got to care for one another. You’ve got to love each other. Each player has to be thinking about the next guy and be saying to himself: ’If I don’t block that man, Paul is going to get his legs broken. I have to do my job well in order that he can do his.’ The difference between mediocrity and greatness is the feeling these guys have for each other.”
In a Christ-honoring church, in a spiritually healthy church, each one learns to love and care for their brothers and sisters. As we take seriously Jesus’ command to “Love one another,” we’ll grow into a church that pleases Him.
Too many believers take Christian fellowship for granted. What a great privilege it is to be able to share together in the things of God! If you just attend church, but aren’t connected with other Christians, you need to get plugged in with the fellowship! We all need to see ourselves as servants of Christ with a responsibility to reach out in true Christian fellowship to our brothers and sisters…Life Together…Forever starts now!