Letters from Lockdown

We are looking today at verses 9 to11 which outline Paul’s priorities in prayer.

Using Paul as a model, we are, hopefully, going to learn how to pray and what to pray for.

You will be familiar with the phrase: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Apparently, this idiom is about 1000 years old, and there is actually a lot of truth in it – but, apparently, only for men, according to many studies.

Putting the gender difference aside, there is something about separation which increases our longing for each other, physically and emotionally. It is often true that you do not know what you have got until it is gone. It is not until we are separated that we realise the preciousness of what we have lost.

Now that Covid-19 places on us this enforced separation, our longing to be together at Cornerstone grows stronger. What is true for us was also true for Paul and the Philippians.

Verse 7 states “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus”. Other translations use the term ‘yearn’ to emphasise the strength of feeling he had.

So, his affection seems to be growing. His joy in their partnership is swelling. You can also evidence this from his prayers.

Verse 3 states that he always prays with joy. He longs for all of them with the affection of Christ Jesus.

How do we know that his love is growing? - Prayer. - It is the love language of the gospel. It is the way we express love for one another.

We are going to look at Paul’s prayer together.

What is he praying for? Why does he choose these things to pray? And what can we learn about prayer?

The first ‘lesson from lockdown’ about prayer is that true love would abound.

Verse 9 states: “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight”

Have you ever tried to grow something indoors? Sometimes things sprout

up quickly, but if you are not careful, the new shoots will flop over and die. You need to put a cane in to help the plant flourish. It will enable the plant to maximise and abound in growth. This is what Paul means in his definition of love. He regulates what kind of love he is praying for. It is a true love which is supported by knowledge and depth of insight. It needs this structure in order to grow properly.

This principle applies both to our love for God and to one another. If we are going to grow in our love for God, then we need to know Him better.

We cannot say we love something we haven’t got to know well. Imagine booking a holiday in the Lake District for the first time and telling people we love it simply because of photographs we’ve seen. How can we love a place we’ve never visited?

However, if a person has been visiting the Lake District for many years, and has regularly walked in the hills there, then that person would be entitled to say they know and love the Lake District.

Our love for God must be based on what he has revealed of himself in his word and

If we are not basing our love for Him on this, then we are basing it on what we have created for ourselves. So, we need to know him more in order to love him well.

But we are also to grow in knowledge and depth of insight in our love for each other. If we want to paint our garden fence, and we have no idea what paint to choose, this is a knowledge problem. But if we do know the paint that we need, yet decide to use the wrong paint, this is not a knowledge problem. It is a poor knowledge-judgement.

Christian love is like that. We need to know how to love one another. There is a knowledge aspect, but we also need to exercise good judgment.

There are times in our lives when it is wise to overlook an offense. That is an expression of Christian love. But sometimes the most loving thing is not to overlook it but to bring it to a brother. This is also an expression of love.

‘Knowledge’ says, “I know what it looks like”. ‘Depth of insight’ tells us how to apply this knowledge in different situations,

Why do we need to grow in this aspect of love in order to make the right call at the right time? This is hard, and something we need to pray about. This is the sort of love that Paul wants us to abound in. And it is the kind of church that we want to belong to.

We want to demonstrate a love for God which is rooted in the knowledge of God; and to demonstrate a love for one another which is abounding in knowledge and depth of insight.

Can we agree to pray this kind of thing for our church while we are separated?

The second priority in Paul’s prayer was that the church at Philippi “may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ” v10

When it comes to making us like Jesus, God will do it. But when it comes to prayer, we must go after it and long for it in our own lives. Muslims will often say that if our salvation is guaranteed, why don’t we just carry on in sin, following our own desires? They do not see that grace changes our heart so that we long for holiness. That is what is referred to in v 7-8

“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. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.”

Basically, the heart of the believer is changed, and becomes hungry to be like Christ. But what does it mean to be pure and blameless as described in verse 10?

“so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ”,

In Paul’s mind, Christian purity means loving one another in the way that we have just described. A blameless life is a loving life. We need to be abounding in Christian love. If we are striving after holiness, then we cannot be harbouring resentment against individuals in the church.

Paul prays that their love would abound and connects it to purity and a blameless life. Let’s pray for one another that we would grow in holiness for the day of Jesus. This is the same as saying let us try to grow in Christian love.

Thirdly we should pray that we would be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

As soon as he has stressed the importance of holiness, Paul reminds us that it is through the work of God.

God made sin in Jesus Christ that we may be made sinless.

We have become the righteousness of God. It is an astounding truth that God would count the perfections of Christ through us.

This gift of righteousness is loaded with energy. It is like having a truckload of soil poured into the soil. It is a delivery that is loaded with life. When the righteousness of God is delivered into the human heart, then the

We are to show partnership in the gospel. Everything in the book of Philippians is the fruit of righteousness.

Prayer is the love language of the gospel. It is how we show love for one another.

When we pray for the church family and when we ask for prayer, what things do we ask for? Are we taken up with the desires to abound more and more in true Christian love, discerning what is best, longing for more and more fruit for the honour of God?

Let us commit to praying like this for one another.