00:00:00:28 – 00:00:27:55
Clint Loveall
Hey everybody. Happy Wednesday. Glad to have you with us. As we continue, moving into the text of the book of Philippians. Find ourself today in the first chapter yesterday. Kind of a slow burn as we got into the introduction and, the opening words of the letter. I think worth listening to if you haven’t already, but whether or not today we jump in to where Paul kind of begins the letter.

00:00:27:55 – 00:01:00:57
Clint Loveall
And this isn’t uncommon for Paul, but it’s especially notable, I think, in the letter of Philippians, that Paul begins with a kind of relational, a relational opening expressing affection. Sometimes Paul doesn’t do that if there’s tension, but but here we just get a genuine sense of Paul before he has anything to say. He just wants to greet them, and he wants to let them know that he cares about them and how much he appreciates them.

00:01:00:57 – 00:01:24:31
Clint Loveall
And we’ve mentioned that this letter has, I think, start to finish, maybe a little bit more of an overall positive feel. And I think we get right into that today. So let me read about eight verses or so. Then we’ll come back and we’ll work our way through them. Paul writes I think, my God, every time I remember you constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you.

00:01:24:36 – 00:01:46:43
Clint Loveall
Because of the sharing of the gospel from the first day until now, I am confident of this. The one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It’s right for me to think of you this way, because you hold me in your hearts. For all of you. Share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

00:01:46:48 – 00:02:12:29
Clint Loveall
For God is my witness. How I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and the praise of God.

00:02:12:34 – 00:02:39:36
Clint Loveall
Again, Michael, not unusual for Paul to start with some kind words to the church that he’s writing. But this is especially, this is especially emotional. I think this is especially affectionate compared to the other letters. And I do want to point out that we don’t even get really one full sentence in where he says, I constantly pray with joy in every one of my prayers.

00:02:39:36 – 00:03:07:28
Clint Loveall
And for those of you that hope to be with us or plan to be with us throughout the the length of this study, file that away, because joy and rejoice are two central words to this letter. And already Paul is introducing the concept of joy and the character that it brings in Christian life. Here, saying that whenever I pray for you, I pray with joy in each of my prayers for you.

00:03:07:28 – 00:03:10:12
Clint Loveall
That’s a wonderful thing to say about a group of people.

00:03:10:17 – 00:03:48:28
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. And already by verse three, we have not just the recognition of the gifts that God has given. I thank God every time I remember you. But we jump right here into verse four and then into verse five because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now, Paul, in so many letters, is very clear about how his leadership either needs defended because there’s, opponents, there’s people who are arguing the opposite, or you have a community that is rocked by division, and Paul is trying to make a strong case that draws them back together.

00:03:48:41 – 00:04:12:55
Michael Gewecke
Here. It’s astonishing how we just had yesterday the naming here of the bishops and the deacons. But to all the saints, we made, you know, a long conversation about that. Well, here we are, the day sharing in the gospel for the first day sharing with Paul. It’s a conception of unity. It’s a conception of shared purpose. We not just have a kind of I remember you as your leader.

00:04:13:06 – 00:04:34:08
Michael Gewecke
It’s a I remember you as we have been called under the same gospel together. It is a beautiful praying for one another, shared relational space. And yes, we’ve already hit that theme really hard, but I just think, Clint, you don’t understand. Philippians. If if these things don’t jump off the page to you because this is not shared in every book.

00:04:34:22 – 00:04:57:48
Clint Loveall
Right? And there’s a wonderful I think for many it’s among favorite verses, verse six here, I’m confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will see it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. There are slightly different versions of this between version or between different translations. But what a wonderful thing for Paul.

00:04:57:48 – 00:05:20:49
Clint Loveall
The founder of this church and the one that the people of this church look to as their leader in the faith to be to be able to say, I am confident that what God started in you, God will finish in you on the day of Jesus Christ. An affirmation, certainly, of God’s work, but also of the church’s work.

00:05:20:49 – 00:05:45:54
Clint Loveall
And if you’ve ever had somebody important to you, a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, a coach, a mentor of some kind, say to you, I’m confident that you will figure this out. I know you’ll do well. I know you’ll succeed. I know you’ll be okay. If you’ve ever had someone that you trust and respect offer you that kind of confidence and that kind of encouragement.

00:05:45:59 – 00:06:13:03
Clint Loveall
Again, what a wonderful thing for this church to hear. I pray for you. It make. It brings me joy when I pray for you and I know that God is going to do ultimately, the great things that he started in you, through you, and in your place. And then he says it’s right for me, in other words, and I know this is the right way to feel about you because you hold me in your heart.

00:06:13:07 – 00:06:25:22
Clint Loveall
Again, we don’t want to beat this into the ground, Michael. But very relational here. Very affectionate. Deeply personal in comparison with some of Paul’s other letters.

00:06:25:37 – 00:06:56:58
Michael Gewecke
You know, Clint, we’ve got to be sure to disclosed this on the front end, but we are in a reformed Christian tradition. And so that does give us a way of reading Scripture. It’s it’s there is a tool as we come along and we read these scriptures, and it would be very hard to pass by verse six without recognizing that within it is this beautiful promise that it’s not the work of the people, it’s the work of the one who began that good work.

00:06:57:07 – 00:07:27:19
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, all the way to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. This is great good news. And our tradition would give us, I think, lenses to see that at the end of the day, when Paul wants to talk about the shared gospel, it’s not just limited to sharing between you and me, between humans and congregation. It’s also God working from within that body by the power of the Holy Spirit, actually bringing to pass the thing that God has begun from that first day.

00:07:27:30 – 00:07:54:50
Michael Gewecke
So this is a more expansive vision, I think, than what we sometimes think of. Because and this is essential, friends, we hear this encouragement, not because the Philippians always got it wrong, not because they were superhero Christians, but rather because Paul is confident that the people who God called and chose, and the people who are praying for him and he’s praying for them, those real humans have the real Spirit of God working in their midst.

00:07:54:50 – 00:08:18:47
Michael Gewecke
And that’s enough to bring it to completion. So don’t take this kind of encouragement as a reflection of the perfection of this congregation. Take it. I think more rightly, as a recognition of the God who’s bringing them nearer and nearer to that perfection. And that’s what Paul is. You may be it’s short in words, but it’s it’s very, very long in depth.

00:08:18:52 – 00:08:49:51
Clint Loveall
And Paul reminds the church of this and reminds us of this. But don’t miss, as you read through this, this reference to Paul being imprisoned. It is striking to recognize, to realize that as Paul is imprisoned, and with all of the uncertainty that brings about his future, he writes to a church and says, I’m praying for you. I’m holding you in my heart.

00:08:49:51 – 00:09:17:57
Clint Loveall
I’m grateful for you. I was briefly, during my seminary training, a hospital chaplain, and went into a room one day and met a gentleman who asked me lots of questions about becoming a pastor and my work, and then near the end of the visit, I said, could we pray together? And that gentleman grabbed my hand and prayed for my education and my family and my ministry.

00:09:18:01 – 00:09:41:29
Clint Loveall
And I remember thinking, well, you know, we have this backwards. I’m supposed to be praying for you. And here you are praying for me. And and that’s the sense I get in this hour. You know, Paul says, I rejoice and I’m praying for you. And oh, by the way, I’m in prison. But don’t worry, because I know that we share grace together in Jesus Christ.

00:09:41:29 – 00:10:10:03
Clint Loveall
For God is my witness how I long for you with the compassion of Christ and my prayer is and this I think, is the sermon in this passage, Michael, my prayer for you is that your love may overflow more and more with the knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless.

00:10:10:08 – 00:10:46:12
Clint Loveall
Having produced a harvest of righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus. So it. I don’t think there is a better prayer for a congregation for a church than these words. Paul writes, that you would be overflowing with love and knowledge and insight so you can determine what is best that this is, you know, I, I don’t know that we consider Paul a poet, but this is beautifully written and I think incredibly deep.

00:10:46:17 – 00:11:24:34
Michael Gewecke
How often do we think of our love overflowing with knowledge and insight? I think that’s a really powerful, transformative thought. We sometimes do fall in to the categories of culture, and we have this idea that love and feelings are matters of the heart. We have the idea that rationality and thinking and education are things of the mind. Like Paul slips in and out of that far more fluidly than I think we read in Paul quite often.

00:11:24:39 – 00:11:50:24
Michael Gewecke
And I think very specifically right here, the impact of this should not be missed. That a thing that God does in what we conceive of as the heart, has the direct impact of transforming the insight that we have to help us navigate, to determine right to see with our moral compass what we should or should not do, what is best towards the end.

00:11:50:34 – 00:12:25:30
Michael Gewecke
That we might more and more come to that place of purity and blameless ness, because our harvest has been produced, that this just flows. Clint, with like, like water in a river. It just keeps rolling and flowing and it’s uninterrupted in a way that we are not always very comfortable with it. The heart transforms the head that the head has the direct way of impacting what we do, and that what we do matters, because that’s a reflection of everything that’s come before it, that this is, in a way, a highly deep theology.

00:12:25:35 – 00:12:40:14
Michael Gewecke
It’s not a theology of words and thoughts as much as it is a theology of a life lived. And and therein. I would agree with your word that poetry. I think it speaks in far more ways than just the word itself.

00:12:40:19 – 00:13:08:57
Clint Loveall
I don’t want to kick a hornet’s nest here, but I was involved in a conversation in another Bible study about the reality that sometimes in portions of the church, we’ve kind of boiled the point of faith down to get to go to heaven, or what happens after we die. And I think the Bible gives us in general, particularly the New Testament, gives us a wonderful corrective to that.

00:13:09:01 – 00:13:34:40
Clint Loveall
And I think as you read these words, as Paul says, you know, this is my prayer for you, for the people of Philippi, for the Christians of this congregation, that your love may overflow, that you may know and have insight and determine what is best so that on the day of Christ you can be pure and blameless. This is so much deeper than the idea of quote unquote being saved.

00:13:34:43 – 00:14:16:15
Clint Loveall
It is being made new. It is being transformed, being changed, being blameless and producing a harvest of righteousness for the glory and praise of God. And I think we do our faith, a service when we regularly remember that the gospel is much larger than we generally think, than sometimes we think of it being, and that the call upon us is not just some kind of assurance of what happens when we’re done with this life, but is a pathway to a new kind of living in the here and now.

00:14:16:15 – 00:14:23:28
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, probably informed by that conversation, I hear that echoing in these words.

00:14:23:33 – 00:14:57:07
Michael Gewecke
Clint, there’s a kind of generosity. There’s a kind of abundant desire and hope in these words. And for all of the times that Christians are given the impression or give the impression that we are stingy, that we are judgment focused, that we are more interested in the speck in other people’s eye than the plank in our own, to whatever extent that lands and is true.

00:14:57:12 – 00:15:39:57
Michael Gewecke
When you see Paul’s words here, it is astonishing how generative and beautiful and invitational, and how earnestly hopeful it is, on this desire for the flourishing and betterment and growth and transformation of these people, that you love it. And to whatever extent we can hear that today, I hope it’s inspirational. I hope that it’s even a guiding voice that anything that we do, say or think that doesn’t rise to meet the bar that Paul is setting in hope for the other, that that we’ve got room to grow, that this is the illustration.

00:15:39:57 – 00:16:01:48
Michael Gewecke
It’s the inspiration. This is the thing we’re called to rise to. And I think we would all stand to do well when we offered prayers, as Jesus calls us to pray for not just our friend, but our enemy. We would do well to practice prayers that long, that others might grow in their love, and that that love might overflow for their own wisdom and functioning.

00:16:02:02 – 00:16:26:45
Michael Gewecke
And what we might discover. In fact, what Christians throughout all the generations have said is that the surprising thing that happens when we pray for others, these gifts we often receive them ourselves. And that’s the beautiful thing that happens when the Spirit of God is at work, not just in one, but the whole community. We discover that this overflowing flows into others and that overflows beyond them.

00:16:26:45 – 00:16:31:21
Michael Gewecke
And that’s the great gift of how God continues to work in the world.

00:16:31:26 – 00:16:53:15
Clint Loveall
I think it’s impossible to read these words and not have a genuine sense of the affection Paul has for these people. He cares for them. He prays for them. He wants what’s best for them. And certainly, as they would have heard these words, that would have resonated as well. So really strong, strong start of a letter.

00:16:53:20 – 00:17:13:22
Michael Gewecke
I certainly want to invite you. Make sure to join us tomorrow. It’s fascinating how the theme of imprisonment has already been brought out and how that’s going to function more as the letter continues on, and the ways in which that can provide a frame for understanding what the gospel and Christian work is in a life lives. Glad to have you with us here today.

00:17:13:22 – 00:17:23:52
Michael Gewecke
If you found this video helpful, if it has encourage you or you have learned something new, certainly give it a like it will help others find it in their own study. And indeed, we look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

00:17:23:58 – 00:17:24:43
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.