Sermon: "Praying for Partners"

First in the "Philippians" series.
Delivered June 18, 2006 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

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Time flies when you are having fun and it's hard to believe that in just two weeks it will be the first whole year of my fourth reincarnation at Central Church. Don't applaud. That is not why I am saying it. The reason I am saying it is that one of the most delightful things about this last year as I have worked with others on the natural church development process; it's a sort of behind the scenes kind of thing and I think I have mentioned this before, is that in eight quality characteristics of growing churches, Central's strongest characteristic is loving relationships and I am so; I mean I knew that. That is not a surprise. In between all the reincarnations, I bragged about Central Church in different contexts to different people. But what I wonder about today in spite of that fact that that might be our strongest characteristic is if you are here today and just not feeling that; maybe somebody is here saying that is a surprise to me that loving relationships is our highest characteristic. To the extent that whatever part of that we own as members of this church that we do not communicate that love, I want to apologize. There may be something if you are not feeling that you have to do differently, but I just want to emphasize today how one of the strengths of this congregation is the love that we show for one another and if you are here feeling like I don't feel it or maybe even thinking on Father's Day, I would like to know how to be more loving as a person, then this text is for you. And it's great that we are sharing the first chapter now, the first half of the first chapter of Philippians.

We are doing a nine-week series in Philippians. At the beginning of the year Pastor John kind of set the stage. He put a target verse on the mental wall; the greatest commandment, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. These two; everything hangs on these two. We talked a lot about loving God and experiencing God and today we are going to focus on the second part of Jesus' great commandment about loving others and loving each other. And that starts with feeling loved in the home and in church and if you start to drift on my sermon and you want something to do, turn to Acts, Chapter 16 and you will learn about how the Philippian church was planted. In Acts, Chapter 16 it gives the whole background of how the Philippian church was planted. And the interesting thing of the two of the three converts, the first converts of Philippi, Lydia and the Philippian jailer both had Paul and his friends into their homes. I think that tells it, because one of the ways that we express love toward one another is being with each other in our homes and having meals and small groups and all of that. So I hope that you will see from Paul's words how much he was applying the second half of Jesus' great commandment to the Philippians. Lots of times when we think about the Philippians, we think about joy, 16 times joy is mentioned in the four chapters, but today I think love stands out even more powerfully. And so look at, as we read this text, note the phrases that Paul really is expressing love in a very direct way. And just before we look at this text from the first 11 verses, let me pray for us.

Lord, we look to you again because we know that we need your Holy Spirit who dwells in us to illuminate our minds and hearts. Sometimes we come to church Lord and our minds and hearts are blocked or we have something unsettling in terms of our relationships. Whatever might be like that Lord, we pray that you would help us to remove it and that you would open our minds so that what we hear and read today we would not only understand, but we would also apply. For we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.

The first 11 verses of Philippians:

"Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 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. 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. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God."

Did you catch all of those phrases? I mean when was the last time that somebody said to you, "I thank God every time I think of you? Every time I remember you, I just thank the Lord for you." I mean that is a very loving thing to say. "I pray always with joy because of your partnership." If you are in a partnership with someone there is an equality, there is a respect, there is a sense of value and worth that's communicated. "I know Jesus will finish the work that God has begun in you. I feel so much love for you I have you in my hearts and its right for me to feel this way. I long for all of you with the innards, the bowels, the affections of Jesus himself." I mean that is loving talk. I mean if you didn't know any better and if you tweaked this conversation, and you were out to dinner, you might think you were listening to a loving couple communicating on their anniversary or something. And it does not stop there. Paul goes on the pray and I want to focus on Chapter 1, Verses 9 and 10. That is the focus of this sermon.

We could say many many things about this text, but this is what I feel the Lord has wanted me to emphasize. Because Paul goes on to define what he prays for his friends in Christ and it's all about love. And he basically prays, in context of praying for love, two main things and then two resulting things from those main points. And he says, "This is my prayer. That your love may abound more and more." And one of my goals for this sermon today and one of the takeaways that I hope you will take away is that you would start praying these two verses, at least these two verses 9 and 10, for yourself, for each other and for your family. And he says, "I pray that your love might abound more and more" and he could have said, "I pray that your love abound." He could have said, "I pray your love abound some more." But he like trips over himself to make the point, "I pray that your love may abound more and more." He wants it to be out there.

Now one of the emphases of the Philippians, Chapter 1 that you pick up very clearly, that Paul rejoiced over the fact that the Philippians spread the gospel with him and there is an awful lot about communicating the gospel. But do you think that Paul knew that the key to really communicating the gospel was through loving Christian community? I think that is what he knew more than anything. Of course he knew that because he may not have heard Jesus say it directly, but I know and there is witness in the Bible for this, you can go to Galatians and see that Paul sat down with some of the apostles and I bet when he sat down with some of the apostles he probably asked them things like, what was Jesus like? I mean I know he saw him on the road to Damascus, but when you walked with him for three years, what was on his heart? What did he talk about most? What do you remember; what do you really recall about those days when you walked with him? And I am sure they said lots of things, but one of the apostles probably said, "I will never forget. I will never forget the night at dinner when he spoke to us and he spoke of love and then he washed our feet and then there was some exchange with Judas that we did not understand at the time and then he said this. He said, "I give you a new commandment, that you will love one another as I have loved you." And then he went on to say, "by this all people will know that you are my followers, you are my disciples if you love one another.""

So I think Paul was very clear in tying together that the spread of the gospel most happens through loving Christian communities. When people see that behold how they love one another. And I think churches; that's the fulcrum for church health and growth. I mean if you took a survey of what's blocking growth and health in a church, you would get all kinds of answers like conflicts and fights and struggles and different visions and its just another way of saying lack of love. So Paul's prayer for love abounding he starts to qualify it. This abounding love more and more - well what's it look like? What are the characteristics of it? He says, it's a love that is abounding in knowledge first of all in Verse 9. That your love may abound more and more in knowledge. Now, what does that mean? It has to do with a clear grasp of spiritual truth. That our love capacity is based on one of the writings of another apostle, Apostle John when he said this in 1st John 4: 7 and following and it just a little like it, but just listen. You know it. You are familiar with these verses. "Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Everyone who does not love, does not know God because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son in to the world that we might live through him. This is love. Not that we love God but that God loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us we also ought to love one another." So when Paul prays that our love would abound in knowledge that is what he is talking about; the knowledge isn't based on the fact that we all like the way we all look or we all smell good or we all like the same things. He prayed that as each of us grows in our knowledge of God's love that that would permeate our relationships, that that understanding and affection for each other as believers would be founded on the reality that God is love. It's an experiential, agape, unconditional love and that starts and grows with God. That is what it means by love that's of knowledge. It's an experience of God knowledge that plays itself out in our relationships.

Now listen, it does not say that God is like love or that God is loving; it says that God is love. You see that is not a characteristic of God-like mercy or power or wisdom or justice or even wrath, those are all characteristics of God who is love. See all those characteristics stem from God's nature, which is love. It's a radical statement. I mean when it was said it probably blew the minds of any religious person who ever heard it; that God is love. See, there is a big difference between saying I believe in a loving God. I believe in God who is love. Here is the difference; God doesn't just do loving things for us. He does plenty of loving things for us, but that is not the ultimate; that's just a penultimate. Love from God is the fact that God doesn't just give us something. God gives us himself. He sent his son in to the world to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

In Romans 5, Paul says and listen to this,

"God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

And so we start to see what love really is. It's not just about doing things for each other, although that is loving things. It's actually giving of ourselves. It's giving ourselves away to each other. Our growth in knowledgeable love is not easy, it's costly, but it's the way that we find life in God and in community. And so Paul wanted the Philippians to just give themselves that abounding love, that knowledgeable love would be given away more and more in every direction. It's like if I took this cup of water and I turned to the choir and I went like this; now some of them would duck, right? But if I went like this, oh there is nothing there, it would just splash out and it would just get all over the place; that is what Paul was praying for; that it would just get all over the place, that God's activity in our life would just be permeating everything that happens when people feel it when they walk in. That is the first thing that he prays.

Secondly, he says not only do I pray that your love would abound more and more in knowledge, but it would abound more and more in depth of insight. The King James version says that we would abound in judgments. The word behind all the English words things like perception, discrimination, the ability to weigh things so that you can make a godly decision about how to relate to those whom you interact with. I know the answer to this before I ask it, but have you ever been in a conflict or difficulty with someone where it's just a struggle when you did not know quite to respond or what the most loving way to respond was? I am sure that we all have and that is not surprising and I am going to tell you why. Because God's love is also synonymous in the scriptures with light; like when John says walk in the light he is talking about walking in love. And so God's love if you think about white light, when you really see light in his purist form you see no color; it's white. When that white light goes through a prism it comes out in many colors. And I would just like to share with you three colors of expression of God's love that we need to keep in balance and because we don't keep them in balance we have a struggle; even when we do keep in the balance it's hard to know how to respond to one another in situations.

Let me put it to you this way and if you want to remember this it would be good to write these three words down. If you want to jot down "justice" that would be the first word to write down. Then next to justice put the word "truth" and then next to truth put the word "grace". So it's justice, truth and grace. These are the three colors that are refracted from the light of God's love. And to just help us think about these things more underneath each of those words put three names. These are writers of scripture, okay? Under justice put "James" and under truth put "John" and under grace put "Paul".

James was called James the Just. He talked about loving our neighbor and what he lifted up was concern for the poor and that people were being treated with favoritism over against other Christians in the body. I think if you think of a modern day character who could typify the striving for love that is justice it would be somebody like Martin Luther King; somebody who said that we have to obey just laws, but we have to disobey unjust laws; that part of expressing justice is working for what is just for everyone. And it's not just justice like in a court of law, it is compassionate justice in relationships like what Martin Luther King was working for, for equality. So that would be justice; that is one way of expressing love.

The second is truth. The Apostle John, you know I am paraphrasing right now, but he said you know if somebody comes in and does not bring the truth into your house, just don't even hang out with them, right? If they don't say the truth is in Jesus, then you might as well walk away. I have no greater joy than to hear of my children walking in truth. I mean if he was having conversations like we have today he would say forget relativism. If we claim to have fellowship with God yet walk in the darkness, we lie and we do not live by the truth. Somebody that we might think of today in a modern day, maybe a champion for this - deceased now, but many of you remember Francis Schaeffer. He always talked about true truth, but people like R.C. Sproul and Ravi Zacharias and people like that, you know kind of standing for the truth, apologists, striving for the truth.

And then thirdly there is grace. So there is justice expression of love and there is a truth expression of love and then there is a grace expression of love and we put Paul there. 150 times the word grace is mentioned in the New Testament. 100 times from the pen of Paul supposedly. In Verse 2 of Philippians it says, "Grace and peace to you." If you snuck a look at the last verse in Philippians, look at what it says 4:23 "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you." Grace is for all. Grace of God; it's all grace. He said, "By the grace of God I am what I am." He said that if somebody comes at you with a different gospel that is not of grace, let them be cursed. And I think if you thought of a modern day character we might think of Mother Teresa; somebody who showed grace in an individual form to people. She said things like, "Never allow yourself to meet someone who will not be happier after their encounter with you." One time a reporter was kind of looking over her shoulders as she washed a worm-ridden body in the streets of Calcutta and the reporter muttered under his breath, "I wouldn't do that for a million dollars." And she said, "Neither would I. I would do it for free, because I see Jesus in these people." See, that's grace. That's love being reflected in grace in overlooking sometimes what we might not otherwise overlook.

God's love is expressed through those three colors. And usually all of us kind of lean to one or the other, but just since it's Father's Day let me give you an idea of how every parent would need to balance those three things. If you showed favoritism to one child over another you would be erring in the arena of justice, wouldn't you? You wouldn't be just. If you overlooked the harmful behavior of your child, you wouldn't be truthful and that would not be loving to overlook harmful behavior. And then if you were too harsh in punishment with your child, then you would be erring against grace. So the question is, when I am in a situation with somebody else, what do I do? How do I respond? What's the most loving way?

Here's two questions to ask yourself. "What does the other person most need in this situation of those three things? What does the other person most need?" And the second question would be "What am I able to offer at this time?" See, because if you not feeling a lot of grace in yourself, if you are not feeling good about yourself , you will struggle to give grace, I mean it just makes sense and that's where the next part of the prayer applies; that after Paul prays that they would abound in love more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, he then says in Verse 10, "so that you will be able to discern what is best." Literally this means, to test the things that differ. It was used to talk about spying counterfeit coins in ancient time. You would be able to discern what's counterfeit and what's real. You would figure out what matters most. Jesus used this phrase when he spoke in Luke 12:54 and he rebuked those who could discern the weather patterns, but they couldn't discern the present moment and his role in it. And it's interesting in that context that he says, "Why don't you judge for yourselves what's right? Why you are in a dispute, why not try hard to be reconciled before you go to court?" It's all about relationships and being loving.

One writer put it this way;

"Love should be able to recognize the difference between emotional stress that needs to be reached out to and selfish egotism that needs to be rebuked."

Jesus knew the difference between Mary Magdalene's sin and her crushing need. He knew the difference between Zacchaeus' greedy heart and his empty heart that longed for love. So love that is fueled by real knowledge and depth of insight will help us figure it out. It sounds like we are talking about the same thing, but the distinction I think would be like when Solomon had that great test of the two women that came before him and both claimed the baby; it is like the depth of insight was the ability to weigh the situation and then discerning what's best was able to make the choice about what to do. They are very similar like both sides of the same coin. So that is what he prays about love; knowledgeable, discernment, be able to help us judge what's best and then what?

Another result is that we will be pure and blameless. This Greek word means sincere. Have you ever held a glass up to the sunlight to see if it had any water spots on it? Well that is what he is talking about. He is talking about a life that you can lift up to the light and it's clean, it's pure, it's transparent, it's blameless.

It's also used in a context of not putting a stumbling block in the path of another person and if you think about people coming to know God's love, we can be people who either make a smooth path by the way we are pure and blameless and interact with them or we can put an obstacle in their path by the way that we treat each other or them. They get confused about God's love if they don't see it expressed through us and so Paul is saying that that pure and blamelessness would be a way or a path for people to come to know God as well.

And so as he prays this, that you would be able to discern what's best, pure and blameless until the day of Christ, I wonder today, I wonder if the discernment for some of us here; maybe is to just stop, just stop and before we look at loving anybody else that we look at loving ourselves, because that is what it says, love your neighbor as yourself. I know we all struggle with that. What does it mean? But it just means that people who don't love themselves really can't love others. You can't give what you don't have. And maybe the answer is that we need to have - I remember speaking to a man who was probably in his late 70s or early 80s and I preached a sermon on forgiveness and after the sermon he was vulnerable enough to come up and tell me, I just can't forgive myself. He was like 80 years old. I said, "You have been carrying that around for so long, you can't forgive yourself?" That's kind of like not loving yourself. And I know other people who have reached out in love and they have been rejected, they have been burned and so like a turtle that put that shell or that hardness around themselves.

You know love is a risky thing. If love is giving of ourselves, we are going to risk rejection. But look at it this way; just try to imagine it this way. Let's pretend for just a moment, you are the juiciest, most beautiful, reddest looking apple in the world, that's you. You can't find any apple that is nicer than you and everybody loves it because you just look so good and you are so wonderful and you seem so great, but you run in to people that just don't like apples, right? So what's the answer? Try to be a banana? That would not be true to yourself. Just say, well some people just don't like apples. That's all. It's not my problem. It's not about me. If I give of myself a love and it's rejected it is about them and that's why we need to not just think about love as doing loving acts, but God fill me to the brim with your love so it just spills out everywhere and even if it's rejected it will be okay, because there is plenty to give. Usually those who reject you, if you just keep after them they will turn.

So I am just going to conclude this with a couple of practical exercises. One of these I have stolen from my friend Walter Mills. He told me about this and these exercises are really really good ones, but I want you to think about this. Not every exercise may be for you, but I want you to go away with something practical, because I want you to know how loved you are. So here's one exercise. In that moment between when you wake up every morning, when you are somewhere between sleep and awakeness, put a little note on our end table so that when you wake up and see it, it says, "I am loved by God" and say it 20 times when you are still in la-la land. "I am loved by God. I am loved by God." Because that kind of seeps in, see? It seeps in to when we are in that in-between state. That's one exercise.

If you don't like that, then try this one. When you get up and you are finally awake and you are walking around, thank God for everything that you come in contact with. When you turn that tap water on, just say "Lord I thank you that I don't have to walk out in the back yard to get water. I thank you that it's both hot and cold. I thank you for that shower and I thank you for this pair of shoes so that I don't have walk out in the street with no shoes." Just think of everything you can think of. That's another exercise.

If you don't like that one, try this one. Okay, here is the third one. Put little notes all over your house wherever you will see them that say, "You are loved." Put them on your bathroom mirror. Put them on your TV set or your kitchen sink, your refrigerator or wherever, your dashboard and every time in the heat of the day when you are not feeling very loved and you stumble across one of these little notes, you just pray, "Lord, I am going to breathe out all of this restlessness and I am going to breathe in the fact that you love me. I remember it again with gratitude."

And that's what I want to say to end, "You are so loved. You are so valued." You are so valued, because that's God's heart for you. Even though sinful, weak and marred.

I know I have shared this before, but I will share it again because it is so pertinent - if somebody came in to the Louvre Museum in Paris and they took a knife to the Mona Lisa, no curator in the world would say, "Well, that's that. Let's chuck that painting. We will just get another one." They would call in the greatest restorers of art ever and they would fix that up to it's closest, imaginable, original condition. And I just want you to know that the main reason that you are loved is because God, the master restorer, came to put us back together in Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection. That's what Paul wants us to rejoice in so that we will be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God and that the whole world will know that we are his disciples as well by our love for one another.

Let's pray. Lord thank you for your grace and love to us abounding more than we understand, wider, broader, higher, deeper than our imagination. Thank you that indeed you are love and it's not just a characteristic, but it's who you are and so fill us, fill us with that love so that we might pour out to others and to a world in need. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2006, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org