Truly Loved - Philippians 1:7-11

A few years ago my parents began taking classes to become foster parents. And eventually, they ended up having two little girls placed in their home. Their ages at the time were three and five. 

And they came from the type of background that is unfortunately very common. Their mother neglected them and her boyfriend was abusive. 

If you have any familiarity with the foster system, the entire goal is to reunite the children with their biological parents. So, my parents knew they were only going to have these girls for a short window of time. 

And they would fight like all siblings do, but my Dad would often tell them to love each other because each other was all they had.

They couldn’t really count on their mother. Their father wasn’t in the picture. All they had was each other. 

That mentality really reminds me of the church. According to the world, what we believe is illogical. Rising from the dead is crazy. Look around at the folks sitting in here. This is all you have. This is all I have. 

What do you think Jesus meant when he pointed to his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Obviously, there are more believers than the people just sitting in this room! But I hope you get my point: the bond or relationship that believers share is indescribable.

The love of Christ that we all share transcends everything. 

True love is gospel driven (v. 7)

The letter to the Philippians is remarkable when you consider the fact that Paul is writing to the church in Philippi from prison, and he’s seeking to encourage them. 

He says in verse 4 that he is “making his prayer with joy” and then he famously says in verse 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.”

This morning’s passage piggybacks off these verses. 

Paul says that it’s right for him to feel this way about the believers in Philippi because they’re “partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”

What exactly does Paul mean when he tells them that they’re “partakers with me of grace?”

Is he simply saying that they’ve put their faith in Christ like Paul? Or is there something more?

Paul is saying all the grace he experienced from God in the success of his ministry, the Philippians shared in that. How? Because they supported his ministry. They went out of their way to support him financially.  

But really it was more than financial support. They had a vested interest in Paul’s ministry because they loved him. And Paul loved them. 

That’s why Paul writes in verse 7 that he “holds you in my heart.” Another way that can be translated is “you have me in your heart.” 

Wait, which is it? Is Paul holding the Philippians in his heart or are the Philippians holding Paul in their heart? Both! 

They’re holding each other in their hearts because they shared such a deep bond. There was a connection between them that was greater than mutual respect. It’s love. 

It really is true that when you love someone their experiences become your experiences. You celebrate the successes of your family. And in many ways their success feels like your success because you love them so much. 

But it’s also true that their pain becomes your pain. Their hurt becomes your hurt.

Have you had a friend or spouse lose a parent or close relative? And it just breaks your heart to see them in such pain.

At the end of the day, there’s only so much you can do for someone grieving. Your words feel totally pathetic because you know you can’t say anything that will truly bring comfort. 

Their pain keeps you up at night. You’re constantly thinking about what they’re going through. 

And eventually, their suffering becomes your suffering.

That was the relationship between Paul and the Philippian church. Paul’s suffering was the Philippian church’s suffering. His pain was their pain. 

That’s what Paul meant when he says they shared in his imprisonment. 

His imprisonment was their imprisonment. That’s how close they were. But normally you think of family or close friends sharing a bond like that.

Whenever someone is close like that there’s something supporting their relationship. A marriage. A childhood friendship. Family.

But Christians share something much deeper. They share the redemption found in Jesus Christ. They share an undeserved grace. They share a perfect future in heaven. They share the gospel. The gospel is what supports the relationship between two believers.

Notice what else Paul says. Not only did the Philippians share in his imprisonment, they also shared in “the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”

The Bible commentator Matthew Henry said, “[the Philippians] were as ready to appear in their places, and according to their capacity, for the defence of the gospel, as the apostle [Paul] was in his; and therefore he had them in his heart.”

The Philippians were just as ready to contend for the gospel as Paul was. Why? Because they understood the power of the gospel. They knew how the gospel changed lives and that is worth contending for.

You know, we live in extremely politically charged times. People are desperate to see change in our country.

That’s why people are rioting and protesting the death of George Floyd. People want to see our country change.

And so we’re led to believe we educate people into changing. Or maybe if we yell loud enough we can shame people into being more compassionate.

Do you see the problem with this? We think we have the power to change people. We really think that we can tap into the core of what makes a person an individual and change them on a heart level.

But only the gospel has the power to change people. Only the gospel can turn a spiritually dead heart into a spiritually beating heart.

And yet, we often still think public policy can change people. But public policy cannot fix sin. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can.

Once you see the gospel as the solution to the problems of this world, you’ll begin to fight for it. You’ll contend for it. Social change requires spiritual change.

Paul and the Philippians were willing to defend and confirm the gospel because they understood it’s power. 

That power - the Holy Spirit that changed their hearts and conformed them into the image of Christ - was the same power binding them together. A shared race and shared political views can only bring you together so much. But a shared faith and hope in the gospel of Christ binds you together both in this life and for eternity.

There’s unspeakable power in the good news of Jesus Christ.

In order to understand the power of the gospel you have to experience it for yourself. Have you experienced the power of the gospel? Christians love the gospel because we know it’s power. True love is always driven by the gospel.

True love is reflected in prayer (vv. 8-11)

When you connect with someone over your shared love for the gospel, a love for one another inevitably follows. Paul communicates this idea. 

He tells the Philippians in verse 8 that he yearns for them “with all of the affection of Christ Jesus.”

It’s so clear from Paul’s words that he loved the Philippians. 

But he doesn’t just use words to express his love. He demonstrates it. How? He’s not with them. He’s writing them a letter... He demonstrates his love for them by praying for them.

Paul clearly believed in the power of prayer. Paul tells the Philippians in verse 4 that he prays for them frequently with joy.

He goes on in verse 9 to tell the Philippians the content of his prayers. He prays for love to abound “more and more” with “knowledge and discernment.”

It’s an amazing prayer because he wants them to grow in their love and knowledge. Love and knowledge must go hand in hand. 

Love and knowledge independent of one another don’t edify the body of Christ. Love apart from the knowledge of Christ is a shallow feeling that’s dependent on your circumstances.

Knowledge without love is pride of the purest form.

The more you know the Lord the more you’ll love him. And the more you love Him the better you want to know him. 

Love and knowledge must go together. 

Both are necessary. Love and knowledge rooted in the gospel is what drives you to holy living. It should drive you to righteousness. 

All of these things are deeply intertwined. That’s Paul’s prayer for the Philippians. Look at verses 10 and 11. 

He wants them to “approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

In other words, he wants them to grow in their love and knowledge of God so that they’ll mature in their faith. 

A love and knowledge for God are the seeds of spiritual maturity.

Isn’t spiritual maturity something that we should all want in our own lives? But what makes Paul’s prayer so powerful is that he isn’t praying for his own spiritual maturity. He’s praying for the Philippians spiritual maturity.

It’s a selfless prayer because he’s praying for others.

On Wednesday, Stacey and I went to the Helping Florence Flourish prayer meeting. And it was a beautiful experience seeing brothers and sisters in Christ bridging races in order to pray for peace in Florence. 

And from what I can tell those prayers were answered. The local protests ended up being peaceful. It was clear to me from that prayer meeting that there were a lot of believers concerned with the general welfare of Florence.

You can really get a sense of someone’s priorities based on their prayer life. 

We just finished reading through the Westminster Shorter Catechism in our services and the last 8 questions deal directly with the Lord’s prayer because Christ gave it to us to teach us how to pray.

Interestingly it’s not till the fourth petition which is, “give us this day our daily bread” that you pray for your own needs. 

Jesus taught us to acknowledge God’s holiness and a desire to see his kingdom come and his will be done before we begin to pray for our own needs. 

If your prayer life is anything like my own, I tend to fail to acknowledge God and what he’s doing and tend to immediately focus on me. 

Of course it’s not wrong to pray for your wants and desires, but to think of yourself before God is wrong. God is good. 

Your prayer life is a reflection of what you love.

Praying for others is an amazing demonstration of your love for them. Isn’t that so clear from Paul’s prayer for the Philippians? By praying for them to grow in love and knowledge, he’s expressing his love for them. 

We should pray for our own spiritual maturity, yes, but pray for others to grow in Christ. Pray that for your husband, pray that for your wife, pray that for your children, pray that for Good Shepherd.

That’s what Paul did for the Philippian church.

Have you ever had someone who you know is a man or woman of prayer tell you that they’re praying for you? When someone tells you that, you can really feel their love and concern for you. It means a lot. It shows that they actually care about you.

Do you consider others? Encourage others? Do you pray for others? If you're struggling with what to pray for, use this passage! Pray that believers both in this body and around the world would grow in the knowledge and love of God.

Praying for others is how you can demonstrate your love for them.

How desperate is this world for genuine love? A pure love.

I think about the girls that my parents fostered because they can’t get rid of each other. Only they understand each other. That’s the bond that they share as sisters and carry for the rest of their lives. They *should* love each other unconditionally because they’ve been through so much together. 

Christians are very familiar with unconditional love.

What’s more humbling than being the recipient of, as the Jesus Story Book Bible says, “a never-stopping, never-ending, always and forever love” that you didn’t earn and don’t deserve? 

Being a recipient of God’s love should compel you and I to love.

And that is what makes a follower of Christ’s love so unique. The love that you give is simply an overflow of God’s love for you.

We love because he first loved us. 

That’s what makes Paul and his relationship with the church in Philippi so special. Their love for one another was an overflow of God’s love.

When you look around and see all people created in God’s image, dead in their sin, how can you not have compassion? 

Matthew 9:6 says, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Is that what you see when you look at the world around us? When you see yourself as a beggar telling other beggars where to go to find food - that’s love in the purest form. 

After all, it was Christ’s love that drove him to the cross. Paul reminds us to walk in love,“as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

For the Christian loving someone isn’t about what someone can do for you. It’s not being nice in order to maintain your reputation. 

It’s about loving others because you’re a recipient of God’s love. 

The church is amazing because it stands as an imperfect beacon of hope and love. People from different races, socio-economic levels, backgrounds, experiences, are able to come together because of the work of Jesus Christ. 

The world divides. But the love of Christ unites.

May the love of Christ always bring us together.

Let’s pray.