Pastor Chris Kam, 17/03/2012
This is the first in the Studies in Philippians series.
Pastor Chris told the story of Helen Lemmel who wrote Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (originally known as The Heavenly Vision). Helen who was blind wrote over 500 hymns. Pastor Chris then gave us a wonderful rendition of the hymn. He wanted to encourage us that God can use us.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Pastor Chris thinks we can learn theology from hymns and hence it is important for us to sing the right songs. He committed to teach us hymns and he will sing one hymn every time he preaches.
Philippians is known as the Epistle of Joy. He mentioned joy and rejoice 16 times in this brief letter.
Epaphroditus travelled for 800 miles from Philippi to visit Paul. Acts 16 provided the background of Philippi.
Php 1:1-14 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons: (2) Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (3) I thank my God every time I remember you. (4) In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy (5) because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, (6) 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. (7) 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. (8) God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. (9) And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, (10) so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, (11) filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ–to the glory and praise of God. (12) Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. (13) As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. (14) Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.
Being in prison did not stop Paul from sharing the Gospel.
What are some of the reasons why we struggle with sharing the Gospel (Good News)?
- Don’t really believe the message. We know in our hear but we don’t feel the urgency that man are lost in eternity.
- Fear of men and inadequacy.
- Our lives are inconsistent with the message. Mahatma Gandhi said Christians are the reason he didn’t become a Christian. “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
- We have no vital experience of the fullness of the Holy Spirit in us.
Mat 9:37-38 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. (38) Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
The problem with soccer is with 22 players who are badly in need of rest and 20,000 spectators who are badly in need of exercise. There are not enough people doing the work.
It takes 50 Christian years to lead 1 unbeliever to Christ. On average, we have 175 members added to the church, of which 1/3 are conversion within DUMC. That makes about 60 people knowing Chris in DUMC a year. With the principal of multiplication, it takes 28 years to disciple the whole Malaysia and 33 years to disciple the whole world.
We often focus on what people are saved from but not enough what they are saved for and to. God has left the responsibility of sharing the Gospel to us. The man challenge of sharing the Gospel is us – we are somehow stuck in our Christian life, we are not growing.
Parents love to see their children grow. 75% of the video cameras are purchased by first time parents. While physical growth is important, we cannot neglect spiritual growth.
The word ‘disciple’ occurs 269 times in the New Testament. ‘Christian ‘ is found 3 times, and was introduces to refer precisely to the disciples. ~Dallas Willard
We are not only here to convert people but to disciple people. If we don’t grow, we go backwards. It’s never too late to grow. It’s also never too old to grow.
Php 1:9-11 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, (10) so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, (11) filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ–to the glory and praise of God.
1. Growth Prayer
a. “And this is my prayer; that your love may abound more and more.”
The word love here is ‘agape’, which means unconditional love. We are praying that our unconditional love may abound more and more, we love not because of but in spite of.
To look for someone who is compatible with us to love is selfish. It is saying we want to look for people who can meet our needs. We should instead look for someone for adaptability instead of compatibility.
Rom 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
That is agape love to the core. There is nothing lovable about us.
Do not make this prayer flippantly. We are not asked to like our enemies but to love them.
b. In knowledge and depth of insight
1Co 8:1c Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
While it’s good to build knowledge, we must always remember the foundation of knowledge / insight is love. We must apply our knowledge by our unconditional love to others.
In a sense, the church is like a large garbage dump – we accept things that others reject. Thank God, the church is more than a garbage dump, it is a recycling centre. What came in may come out new and perhaps even totally changed.
The more we read the Bible the more we find how to love people.
Parents do not apply the same discipline to all their children. God will give us insight in his Word different ways to deal with different people. We learn to understand people.
2. Growth Purpose
What is the result of this prayer?
a. “so that you may be able to discern what is best”
Good is the enemy of best.
What used to be a no-no 20 years ago has become accepted today, e.g. pre-marital sex, even same-sex marriage, abortion, co-habitat, being unfaithful (as long as the don’t get caught.)
A clinic in Subang Jaya carried out 20 abortions in a month.
We should not be moved with the time but rather move with the Word of God.
Question for young people: will you be able to discern what’s best for you? Or the job you should have? Or the kind of ethical decision to make?
b. “may be pure and blameless on the day of Christ”
“Pure” in Greek is eilikrines”. Defined as “found pure when unfolded and examined by the sun’s light.”
The word “pure” is also translated “sincere.” That word comes from the Latin sine cera which means “without wax” and comes from the world of pottery.
When we comes to Chris, the last thing we want to do is to show how spiritual we are. We are not to hide our ‘cracks.’
3. Growth Progress
How do we know if we are growing?
“filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.
Are we growing in the fruit of the spirit? Are we more compassionate, generous? The best way to measure ourselves is to ask a good friend, someone who is not afraid to give us honest feedback.
Laurence Gonzales did a documentary for CNN called How to Survive (Almost) Everything. He said that if we are doing something to help others, we transform ourselves from victims to rescuers.
In extreme situations, doctors and nurses have a higher chance of survival.
This is a Chinese proverb that makes Biblical sense.
If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody
When we are growing, there’s an outflow / overflowing of our heart.
Rom 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Col 2:6-7 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, (7) rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
1Th 3:12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.
We cannot overflow if there is nothing in us.
It is not something we try ourselves. We need the Holy Spirit. It is also something to do with the community of faith.
Conclusion
See a need, meet it. See a hurt, heal it.
Application Questions
- In the four possible reasons why you struggle with sharing the Gospel which is the one that is your greatest hindrance? In what ways do you think you can overcome this?
- Do you find it hard to love people in general? Why? How does verse 9 help you to love people more, in the light of the sermon, and the word “agape”, which means “unconditional love”?
- In the light of question 2, how do you think that help you to share the Gospel better What attitudes did Apostle Paul posses that in spite of his imprisonment, he thrived in advancing the Gospel, so much so that “whole palace guard and everyone else” (v13) came to know about Christ?
- Will you be conscious about doing give acts of kindness in the coming week and share in the next cell meeting what you did?Sahre especially what that did in training you to love people and moulded your heart towards sharing the Gospel. (See a need, meet it. See a hurt, heal it.)
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