A pastor and a bus driver went to heaven. The bus driver got a big, beautiful mansion with large rooms. The preacher got only a one-room bungalow. So, the preacher went to St. Peter and asked, “How come I got a very small place, and the bus driver got that beautiful house? I’ve preached the good news all my life!”
St. Peter replied, “When you preached, the people fell asleep. When the bus driver drove his bus, people prayed.”
No doubt about it, the Lord wants us to pray. The Lord loves to hear from his children. It has been said that the life of the Christian is the life of prayer. But what is our attitude in prayer? When can we find time to pray? Why pray with joy? What are we to pray for others? These are some of the questions we are going to explore this morning based upon Philippians 1:3-11. Listen for God’s word to you…
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 and, 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 for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
The first thing I see in this passage is something about our attitude in prayer. I believe the Lord wants us to pray with an attitude of thanksgiving. Note: Paul’s prayers are almost always in the affirmative. Yes, there are some exceptions. As we saw, Galatians was a rather severe letter at points. But in every one of Paul’s letters, except for Galatians, 1 Timothy and Titus, Paul opens his letters by telling his readers that he is praying for them, and he is praying with thanksgiving. In 2 Corinthians and Ephesians, particularly, he opens his letter with praise to God.
I wonder: How do our prayers compare to Paul? Are we praying for others? Do we pray with thanksgiving for others?
Let’s be honest. As human beings we tend to focus on the negative. I think of the story of the husband and wife who had been married for many years. The wife was so critical that the husband started to anticipate his wife’s criticism before she even voiced it. One morning, before the man left for work, his wife said, “I like your tie today.” And he said, “What’s wrong with all my other ties?”
We tend to focus on the negative in such a way that we anticipate the negative even when it is not forthcoming. How different Paul was. He focused on the positive much of the time.
Pastor John Guest used to tell the story of Don James, an ex-marine who had fought in Korea. Don moved to Pittsburgh after the war and sold insurance. Don often said, “If I can’t eat it, drink it, or sleep with it, I’m not interested in it.”
One day, Don James wandered into Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh where Sam Shoemaker was the pastor. Sam was one of the men who helped develop the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. After the service, Rev. Shoemaker was shaking hands at the church door. Don James shook his hand and said, “You all are full of shit here!” To which Shoemaker replied, “That is the most refreshing thing anyone has ever said to me coming out of church.” Don James was so taken aback by Sam’s response that he returned to services at Calvary Episcopal again and again.
But one thing that hindered Don from coming to faith in Christ was his hatred for his boss. So, as Sam and Don got to know one another, Sam challenged Don to begin praying for his boss. And Don said, “You’ve got to be kidding. Pray for him? I’d like to kill him.” But Don started praying for his boss anyway, that God would bless him, because that is how Sam challenged him to pray.
Soon after Don began praying, Don’s boss came into his office one day and asked, “What is it with you? You’ve changed!” It was true; Don had changed. He even went to Sam one day and said, “I’d like to join your church.” And Sam said, “What makes you think we would want you?”
Don James and Sam Shoemaker teamed up to lead what became known as the Pittsburgh Experiment. One day Sam took Don up Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh, showed him the city and said, “Don, that’s your city. Let’s pray together that Pittsburgh will one day become as famous for God as it is for steel.”
I wonder: do you have a vision for our community? Are you praying for other people? Are you praying in the affirmative, asking God to bless them?
I hope you are doing that. And I hope you will do one thing more. If you are praying for others, tell them that you are praying for them. That’s what Paul did. He not only prayed for the Philippians, but he also told them he was doing that, and it was a great encouragement to them.
I feel encouraged every time someone tells me they are praying for me. So why not make someone’s day? Pray for them. And tell them about it.
But you may be thinking, I just don’t have any time. When can I find time to pray?
Here’s a suggestion… why not pray every time you think of someone? We are, of course, thinking all the time. If we weren’t thinking, we’d be dead. And about 90% of the time we are thinking about people. Some of those thoughts are negative. Maybe a lot of them. Why not turn those thoughts, the negative and the positive ones, into prayer? Paul wrote to the Philippians: “I thank my God every time I remember you.” And Paul encourages us to follow his example. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 he writes, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Steve Douglass wrote a wonderful little book entitled Enjoying Your Walk with God. In that book he says…
Even attentive people don’t normally listen or otherwise pay attention to one thing more than about 10 seconds at a time. Our minds work so fast that most activities around us can’t feed in enough information to keep our brains fully engaged for longer than that. So, about every ten seconds we’re shifting a little bit from whatever is in the foreground of our mind to something else. Since our minds are going to drift anyway, why not “let your first stop be God”?
Let your first stop be God. That’s what Paul did. Whenever he thought of the Philippians, he prayed for them. And he prayed with thanksgiving. Why not try it? We may find ourselves having a running conversation with God throughout the day. And our lives might just be changed for the better as a result.
Now, I know what you may be thinking… “You don’t understand my situation. You don’t know the people I have to live with, work with, etc. And people in church… don’t get me started! How can I pray with thanksgiving for the people in my life every time I think of them? Why pray with joy? It seems so unrealistic.”
Well, let’s examine what Paul says a little more closely. He writes, “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…”
One thing we can be sure of: if someone else is a Christian, and we are Christians, then we are partners with them in getting the good news about Jesus out to the world at large. It doesn’t matter whether we like the personality of the Christians around us. And it doesn’t matter if the people around us are perfect or not. After all, the Philippians were not perfect. Theirs was not a perfect church.
You know what I always say? If you are looking for the perfect church, and find it, don’t join it, because then it won’t be perfect anymore. You know why? Because you aren’t perfect!
The Philippians were not perfect. But Paul prayed with joy for them anyway… because of their partnership in the gospel. Another word for this is witness. The Philippians were witnesses. All Christians are witnesses.
I read a great definition of a witness some time ago. A witness is something or someone visible or evident that gives grounds for believing in the existence or presence of something or someone else. Let’s apply this to our Christian life. If Christ is living in us, then we are people who give grounds for believing in Christ’s existence and power and love.
So, if we are Christians, then we are witnesses. And God has put us together with other imperfect witnesses in one body. We call that body the Church. And as a Church we are partners together in getting the good news of Jesus out to the world. It is the news of forgiveness, love and power. That’s worth celebrating! That good news gives us reason to pray with joy for one another.
But let us probe even deeper. The most fundamental ground of Paul’s joy in prayer is the fact that God is sovereign. God is in charge. And God is faithful. God finishes what he starts. Paul says, “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.”
Paul prayed with joy for the Philippians because he knew that even though they weren’t perfect, God was one day going to complete the work that he had begun in them. One day God will make all of us perfect, whole, complete in Christ. That is the ultimate reason why we can pray with joy for our fellow Christians.
But what about praying for non-Christians, for those outside of the Church? How can we pray with joy for them?
Well, we can pray that unbelievers will discover Jesus as their leader and forgiver. And we can pray knowing that God will hear us because God desires even more than we do, for unbelievers to change and come into a personal relationship with himself through his Son Jesus Christ.
Listen to what Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:1-4…
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
We can pray with joy, even for those outside the Church, because God loves them too and longs for them to come into a positive relationship with him. He will not force such a relationship on anyone. We must make the choice. But God longs for us to make that choice and I believe he does everything possible to enable us to make that choice.
Now, I know, you still may be thinking, “This is all sounding very ‘Pollyannaish’ to me. Can I really pray with joy for others? Is praying with joy enough? The answer is “no”. Because the kind of joy that Paul prayed with, and the kind of joy we need to pray with, needs to be coupled with love.
Paul says, “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.”
Paul prayed for the Philippians out of a deep love, what the Bible calls agape. We studied this love in depth in Ephesians. Agape is “in spite of” kind of love. God loves us “in spite of” our sins and shortcomings.
Paul loved the Philippians with agape. He said to them: “I have you in my heart.” In the Old Testament the high priest wore a breastplate when he was carrying out official functions in the Temple. On that breast plate were twelve stones with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel inscribed. The high priest bore the names of the Israelites over his heart before the Lord.
Are we holding others in our hearts in prayer?
Paul also said to the Philippians: “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” In effect, Paul was telling the Philippians that he loved them. But the ultimate source of that love was Christ Jesus. The love flowed from Jesus through Paul to the Philippians. I wonder: do we allow the love of Jesus to flow through us to others? One way we do that is through prayer.
But what, specifically, are we to pray for others? Sometimes we run out of words. Or our prayers fall into somewhat meaningless routine. This is where the words of prayers in the Bible can enliven our prayers and give us words that are richer and deeper than our own words. Thankfully, Paul tells us precisely what he is praying for the Philippians…
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
So, if we are going to follow Paul’s example, we need to pray for others in the church that their love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. This suggests that it is not enough just to love God and others in some general, non-specific sense. We need to love with knowledge and discernment. God’s love for us is a model in this regard. God loves us right where we are, but he loves us too much to leave us where we are. His love is such that he will help us, if we are willing and cooperative, to become all that he created and redeemed us to be—whole, perfect, complete. I believe the Lord wants us to love others in the same way; God wants us to help others toward full human flourishing. Real love is tough. Real love is willing to confront human sin and evil. Real love speaks the truth, but it does so in a caring, sensitive way.
Furthermore, agape love discerns what is best. When we have this kind of love, we can discern what is morally excellent and we will be aided by the Spirit of God to make good choices, in both the large and small decisions of life. Such love will lead us, eventually, to become pure and blameless. To be pure, in Paul’s sense, means to be unmixed. And to be blameless means to be morally uninjured. The word refers to bumping up against an object and falling down. We have a tendency in life to go to extremes, to always be bumping up against the guardrails or even going over them. Having a discerning love helps us to avoid these extremes.
Paul’s prayer gives us a picture of the goal of the Christian life: to be filled with the fruit of righteousness on the day of Christ, that is, at the time of Christ’s second coming. But how in the world can we live the kind of life Paul describes in this prayer? How can we possibly be filled with the fruit of righteousness? That fruit of righteousness comes from Jesus Christ. It is not something we can produce in ourselves or others by our own human power. Jesus must produce that fruit in us—the fruit of the Holy Spirit that Paul talks about in Galatians. Only Jesus can make us pure. Only Jesus can make us blameless.
I am reminded of the story of two English brothers who, when they would come home from school, would receive tea and cakes from their mother. But if they had done something wrong, they would be sent to their room without tea. Now, these boys got into mischief quite often, and so there was many a day they were sent to their room without tea. But being very clever little boys, they devised a plan to circumvent their mother’s discipline. There was a fruit tree growing outside their bedroom window. And even though their bedroom was on the second floor of the house, they could climb out the window and down the fruit tree. Then they would go to a shed behind their home where they had all sorts of fun together. They even stored up food and various provisions for just such occasions when they wanted to escape from their bedroom.
Then, one day, their father came home and announced, “I am going to cut down that fruit tree. It is growing too close to the house, and besides, it hasn’t produced fruit in years.”
The boys were horrified. What was going to become of their afternoons if they could not escape their bedroom? They had to do something. So, the boys came up with a plan. They went to the grocery store and bought a bag of apples, came home that night, and somehow managed to tape the apples to the threatened tree.
The next morning at breakfast, their parents looked through the window and seeing the apples on the tree, they were amazed. And their father said, “That is simply astonishing. There is fruit growing on that tree. Apples no less! And it’s a pear tree.”
What’s the lesson of the story? The lesson is simply this: pear trees don’t produce apples and fallen human beings like us don’t produce the fruit of righteousness. Only Jesus can produce the fruit of righteousness in us. And he does it organically. The fruit of righteousness isn’t something God tapes on the outside of us. He wants to change us from the inside out by the power of the Holy Spirit. And he will, if we let him.
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