True Gospel Love and Community
I must be honest. I began studying through Philippians last week with little enthusiasm. I wasn’t excited to study through it like I have been about other books which I’ve studied. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was because Philippians doesn’t have any major church messes to address and therefore I felt it might be less instructive. I don’t know. After spending a few days hem-hawing around trying to get excited, I just decided to dive in. I’m pleased to report that I haven’t even finished chapter one and it’s been very rewarding.
The very first thing I was struck by was the relationship which Paul had cultivated with the Philippian people. It was a deep, heartfelt, emotional relationship which existed between them.
3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 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.
From the get-go, Paul makes his feelings clear about the church at Philippi: he loves them deeply. From the moment they believed, they have partnered with Paul in his ministry efforts. Presumably they supported him in every way; through prayer, through financial giving, and perhaps even by helping supply Paul’s physical needs.
However, Paul’s most precious words to them in these opening verses are words of assurance and words of promise. In verse six he reminds them all that God will finish the good work which he began in them. He will see it through and bring it to completion when they stand before Jesus. This should bring hope to all of us that no matter how discouraged we may become as we live in this world that God is ensuring that we will persevere that we will make it to the end and that no matter how we may struggle, how we may fail, nothing will prevent us from being transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
He doesn’t accomplish this by forcing us to obey. On the contrary, even though our transformation is orchestrated by God, it is a willing transformation on our part. Rather than forcing us to obey and violating our ability to choose to obey, he instead gives us new desires which go to war with our old desires. Our old desires are still present and active, but where before they stood uncontested on the throne of our heart, now we have a new heart with new desires and the ability to choose whether or not we will obey God or obey the lusts of our flesh. And because the Holy Spirit resides within us, he gives us what we need in order to overcome the old desires. So it is incumbent on us to make use of the power of the Holy Spirit in choosing to follow our new desires and undergo transformation.
But this isn’t what I came here to talk about. The portion of chapter one which has really got me excited is what comes next.
7 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,[4] both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
It is right for us to have deep affections for each other in Christ. This rings true with Jesus’ command for us to love each other in John 13:
“34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
It is blatantly offensive to our faith when we live in a virtual isolation from fellow believers. And I don’t mean that we wall ourselves up in our homes. There are people who go to church every time the doors open who are isolated in their relationships and lonely. American/Western Christians have a monumental problem. We have forgotten how to truly love each other. True love for each other goes way beyond:
- Prayer groups
- Prayer chains
- Bible studies
- Church meetings
- Giving to missions or charities
- Feeling empathy for someone
While there’s nothing wrong with any of these things, they all can be used as substitutes for real loving community. People hide behind them all the time and insist that they are experiencing loving community, but they have never reached out and invited people into their home, they have never spent time with other believers outside of church activities, so they don’t really know the people who they claim to love. This must change. Deep love means breaking bread together, spending time together, investing in one another in a way that means if one suffers, we all suffer and if one rejoices, we all rejoice.
I am as guilty as anyone of lacking hospitality. I am as guilty as anyone of expressing a form of love that is filled with empty words of well-wishing and empty prayers of unfelt emotion. I want this to change in me desperately. And I believe the Holy Spirit is changing me in this regard, but the change must happen in more people than just me. I’m hoping and praying that God will do a work in me, in my family, and my friends where we insist upon deep, emotional, risky relationships (risky because of the potential for shared pain). This is what Paul had with the Philippians. This is what we should have with each other. This is what Jesus had in mind when he commanded us to love one another.
However, even as great as this love between Paul and the Philippians was, Paul prayed that it would increase. No matter how good we may be at loving each other, as long as we live here, there will be room for improvement. Paul throws in two particular ingredients which we are to add to our growth in love: knowledge and discernment.
Why knowledge and discernment? In verse ten, Paul says it will help us approve what is excellent so that we might stand blameless. The truth is that when we love people, there will always be a temptation to “go soft” on our loved ones when in actuality they may need a swift kick in the pants – in love of course! It is easier to enable a person to sin than it is to warn them and hold them accountable. It is easier to allow someone to go their merry way, especially when they appear to be happy. But if we mix with our love, knowledge and discernment, we will keep each other from blindly stumbling into sin. Community should be built around this! This is the type of community which will cause us to be filled with the fruit of righteousness. This is the fruit which brings glory to God (v 11). So if we don’t live in this type of community, what exactly is the fruit we are displaying?
The best answer I can give you is the fruit of religion. Religious fruit puts people in bondage to rules and regulations. It ministers guilt when we fail and ultimately condemns us in every area of life. It is no wonder that so many have fled the church seeking something which doesn’t bind them up in slavery to performance and condemnation! It’s not that the community of believers shouldn’t take sin seriously, but rather we should be taking Jesus seriously. We should be shifting our focus to Jesus and only Jesus and away from sin and techniques on how not to sin. When sin happens, we should deal with it, but we should deal with it by looking to Jesus and not rules and techniques.
So to sum up, we need to change the way we love each other and it will by necessity cause us to change many other things in our lives. We need to break bread together, we need to know each other on a much deeper level than we can achieve by seeing each other at church or church functions. Paul and the Philippians have demonstrated for us here a gospel-centered, deep, emotional bond which was cultivated as he lived with them and shared life with them on a level which I’m afraid we have yet to experience. May the Holy Spirit grant to us this bond and in doing so bring glory to himself, Jesus, and the Father and cause his church to shine brightly before a lost and dying world so that they may see and believe.
2 comments
Shane,
Remember what C. J. Mahaney said about Paul’s confidence in the church? It is based upon the sovereign grace of God, not upon the current status of the people. GOD will finish what HE began. The focus is here: “He Who began . . .” That is our only hope of achieving true Gospel community: that He Who began the work in us by convicting us, drawing us, and saving us will go on to lead us into the depth relationships that demonstrate the Gospel. Jesus put is so succinctly that we sometimes miss the profundity of the truth in John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Pastor John
FBC, Sterling
Great thoughts, Shane! I’ve pondered for months a quote that Robin shared with me from a blog she follows. “I think the main reason people stay in unhealthy church groups is for the sweet, soothing poison of “community”. I wonder if she is referring to the religious posturing you refer to that binds and hinders true faith.
I agree with you..it’s Jesus, pure and simple.