The Joy of Gospel Friendship
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Last week, as we ended the book of Habakkuk, we looked at what it means to find contentment even during difficult times. This week, we are starting a series from the book of Philippians and we are going to take that thought a step further by looking at how we can find joy in the midst of our trials and tribulations. If you recall, Habakkuk ends his somewhat depressing book on a high note by proclaiming to himself and to his readers, “Nevertheless, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in my salvation.” In the book of Philippians, the apostle Paul expounds greatly on this theme and as you’ll see through this series, he constantly comes back to this idea of taking joy no matter the situation you find yourself in. In Paul’s theology, joy is the spiritual fruit of someone who knows Christ, understands His gospel, and who walks in the assurance and guarantee of their salvation. If these things are true of you, then the Christian response even in times of great hardship is one that is filled with greater joy. Our joy in the Lord overcomes our suffering. And if you miss this, you miss one of the essential, defining characteristics of the Christian life. How we endure times of suffering should be qualitatively different from the person who doesn’t have Christ in their hearts.
And it’s precisely at this very point, that there is confusion even among Christians about what it means to be joyful. I realize that we live in a feeling driven world and we tend to associate the concept of joy with feelings of happiness or elation but as we’ll see in the book of Philippians, joy is not so much a feeling but rather it is an activity. It is an active choice to rejoice in the Lord despite our circumstance, despite our fears, despite what looks like a hopeless situation. God doesn’t expect you to be happy in your suffering but He does expect you to rejoice in Him. Rejoicing in the Lord means doubling down on His goodness in spite of the present darkness and proclaiming that joy in song and word. And if you catch this, you’ll come to realize that suffering cannot rob of you of your joy because joy comes not in the things of this world but from the Lord because in His presence there is fullness of joy! As we go through this series, I pray that we would rediscover the joy of the Lord in our church.
Passage
Passage
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 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. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may 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.
Body
Body
When we look at the situation from which Paul writes this letter to the believers in Philippi, there is nothing good about his circumstance, no silver lining to the situation from a worldly perspective. He is in prison because of his unwavering commitment to the Gospel, his life is on the line, but even here Paul finds many reasons to rejoice. And we see one of the main reasons for joy in the beginnings parts of this letter. Not surprisingly, as the apostle Paul’s life hangs on the balance, his mind goes where most of our minds will go when we near the end of our lives, the relationships that we hold most dear. But unlike most of us, Paul is not thinking about his parents, maybe they had passed away. He is not thinking about his wife or children, we know that he was unmarried, perhaps a widower. Nor is he filled with joy as he remembers his siblings, we can assume he must have had some biological brothers and sisters but we don’t hear about them. Surprisingly, his joy comes as he remembers his friends in the church of Philippi. Christian friendship is what brought the apostle Paul such joy in the midst of suffering and uncertainty in his life.
There is this quote from theologian JC Ryle that reminds us of the joy that true friendship was meant to bring into our lives:
“This world is full of sorrow because it is full of sin. It is a dark place. It is a lonely place. It is a disappointing place. The brightest sunbeam in it is a friend. Friendship halves our troubles and doubles our joy.”
This was written in a time when friendships meant far more than they do now. Historically, friendship was considered to be the most virtuous of all relationships and an important source of happiness and love. In comparison, in our modern world, we know very little about this concept of friendship, we ignore the importance of it, and generally speaking the art of making and keeping true friends has been lost. In fact, one of the top five regrets of the dying is not keeping in touch with your closest friends. The apostle Paul clearly doesn’t have a problem with this issue and we can learn two major lessons from him in regards to frienship as Christians.
1. The focus of our friendship.
2. The signs of our friendship.
CS Lewis writes about the fact that lovers conduct their relationship face to face, meaning their interest is largely in one another. Friends on the other hand, stand side by side and their eyes look ahead at a common goal, something that is bigger than just themselves. Lewis goes on to write:
The very condition of having friends is that we should want something else besides friends. Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be ‘I see nothing and I don’t care bout the truth; I only want a friend, no friendship can arise.’
Lewis says something actually quite mean right before, you are pathetic if you try to find friends without a common purpose and that makes too much sense. As all of this conflict arose in our society over the past two years, many of us came to the heart wrenching conclusion that some people that we considered to be friends, simply did not see the same tuth! In a world, where we are told that there is no truth, that there is nothing to agree on, no common focus necessary for our friendships, some of us witnessed first hand the weakness of modern friendships. Just because someone friends you on Facebook doesn’t necessarily make it so. What became apparent to me more and more is that for those who are followers of Jesus Christ, the gospel has to take priority over our political beliefs, our views on social issues, our thoughts on this matter or that, because it is the one truth that can actually lead to lasting friendship between those who share it.
Right from the start, we see that there is a difference in relational focus in the early church versus an average American Christian. After the usual greetings that we find in verse 1 and 2, you can see the deep affection and friendship that Paul has built with the Philippians because of their common focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ. This represents a key differencebecause for many believers, the fact that you are Christian is simply incidental to the fact that you are friends. You meet someone at church, you like them because they share some of your common interests. (Maybe you work for the same company, you are in the same stage of life, you have some common hobbies.) Maybe you just like them as a person but can I tell you something? Just because you like someone personally and they happen to be Christian does not mean that they are actually a good one. I have friends that I like whose personalities are great and they are fun to be around but they are not very good Christians.
In those types of relationships, the fact that you are both Christian is incidental to the relationship. It’s not the driving factor. But for Paul and the early Christians, the pursuit of their common faith was the driving motivation of the most meaningful relationships in life. They were friends because they were first and foremost partners in the gospel. You see, the word translated as partnership in your Bibles is the Greek word koinonia which which has a variety of meanings in the Greek such as sharing, or partnership, or fellowship. However, there is no single English word that captures the essence of this word that is so rich in meaning in Greek.
In its truest sense the root of this word contains within it, the deepest elements of human friendship. Koinonia exists to create a bond between people, united by their common interests, purpose, and goals. All friendships depends on a common focus but what you are focused on detemines the depth and quality of that friendship. Let me give you an example, I have a friend who is a non-believer and our common bond is our love for golf. That is how our frienship began and so you can imagine just how deep that relationship is able to go. We’ll talk casually about our families, world events, even religion, but there is always a limit. On the other hand, friendship that is focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ does not have such limitations as we read in John 15.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Christ displayed his friendship towards us by laying down his life for us and he tells us that any friendship that is focused on his gospel has to move in that direction, otherwise that friendship is not driven by the love that is inherent in the gospel. This sounds really difficult to be a friends like that but if you knew that you had friends like that, would that not fill your heart with joy as you remembered them. We all want friends like this, there is no question about that but the real matter is how do we personally become friends like this to others.
In the Western understanding of friendship, it is something that is seen as less important than practically every other human relationship. That is an order that is actually inverted biblically.
A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
We tend to call many people our friends but strictly speaking in a biblical sense, they are more your acquaintances, your companions, and not truly your friends. As we see in the example of God himself, a friend is someone you confide in completely, that shares your heart, and someone that is willing to make mutual sacrifices for that friendship to grow.
To recover Biblical friendship, there are three things that we need to deal with in our modern world:
1. Our lack of time
2. Our addiction to technology
3. Our pattern of transiency
In Paul’s relationship with these believers, we see some of the signs that are the evidence of true Christian friendship.
There is thanksgiving for one another because you found people who love Christ and who want to serve Him. This past weekend, I had a chance to see our church in action and it was a beautiful thing to behold. Friday night we had fellowship and people came together to carve out pumpkins for fun and to decorate the church and to share with the CM. Saturday afternoon, I went to the City Impact Harvest Festival and it was amazing to see so many people from our church go and serve the families and children in the Tenderloin. I was so thankful to see people who care about our church, this city, and who are willing to be Jesus’ hands and feet.
There is prayerful intercession for another. It’s been said by many old pastors that a church that prays together stays together. But that isn’t always true because again it’s dependent on what those prayers are centered around. If the only thing that we are praying for is better jobs, good health, and a problem free life, that’s not the sign of a gospel focused friendship. Paul’s prayers are more focused on the good work that the gospel has begun in his friend’s lives and he prays regularly that this good work that God has begun in them through the gospel will be made complete on the day of Christ’s return. That is a different prayer all together than let my friend get the job and promotion that he really wants. My wife, Mira, who is the most prayerful person I know prays this way for many people. Take everything away from them, until you become everything to them. Maybe you don’t want that prayer, that’s the prayer you need, and that is the prayer you are gonna get. Paul expounds on what these prayers for the completed work of the gospel should like in a believer in verses 9-11 and this probably should be a message for another Sunday but let me summarize:
Pray that love would abound more and more. In other words, pray that the love of God would increase in the hearts of your friends. But at the same time, we don’t want to pray for love that is simply blinded by human sentiment, we want to pray for love that is guarded by knowledge and by discernment. The world has completely hijacked the concept of love because the enemy knows how powerful love is and if he turns it into human sentiment, love loses it’s power. The idea of love has become so twisted by the world that it actually threatens the work of the gosepel but with knowledge and discernment, it allows us to approve what it true and excellent so that we might be filled with God’s righteousness. That’s my prayers for those of you here in the church and I hope that you are praying the same fo me.
There is heartfelt affection for one another. This is one of the hardest things to find in the church today mostly becasue we have no desire to sacrifice together for the sake of the gospel. Human affection doesn’t arise out of a vacuum, it comes as we go through the difficulties and the challenges of life together. In talking about his feelings for the believers in the Philippian church, he gives the reason why they hold such a dear place in his heart. They are partakers, they have shared the grace of suffering with him in his imprisonment and defense and confirmation of the gospel. In these beleivers, Paul has found some friends who are willing to sacrifice their well being, face hostility, endure hardship just like himself. In other words, they are willing to do whatever it takes to advance the gospel and becasue they share the same passion and driving motivation in life, there is naturally an affection that arises in the heart. When someone loves something as much as you do, there is this emotional bond that begins to arise in your heart for that person.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Pastor, isn’t God’s loves unconditional and doesn’t that mean our love for one another should be the same. Yes, that may true but God’s friendship is not actually unconditional. Like any Christian friendship, friendship with God is predicated on sharing a common heart for the gospel. You may be a child of God but that doesn’t neccessarily make you a friend of God.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
In the same way in the Old Testament, Abraham is called the friend of God because you can see that he shares God’s heart to see people saved from their sin.
But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?