You need to find yourself in Christ if you are to find your way in life. And when you find yourself in Christ--as a slave, saint, and saved--you naturally become grateful. It is this gratitude, then, that becomes your controlling drive as you journey though this life.
In our passage, we see that Paul was grateful for the Philippians partnership in the Gospel. They were fellow partakers of grace, both in his imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the Gospel. When you realize that you belong to a great mass of people who, despite their rebellion, have become partakers of grace, it makes you grateful. And as you realize that even in your sufferings, God is working in and through you and the rest of His people to make His Gospel shine as light in the darkness, it makes you grateful. But who are you grateful to?
Paul was grateful to God and expressed it in prayer. After Paul begins the letter with his greetings, he immediately launches into gratitude to God: "I thank my God..." (v3). He recognizes that the same God blinded him and threw him off a donkey in order to bring about his salvation is the same God who "began a good work" in the Philippians. Their steadfast love and fellowship is possible because of God's good work in making them partakers of grace.
Only the glorious God of the universe, with immeasurable grace in Christ Jesus, could draw Lydia from amongst the women at the river into that precious relationship that now brings her life. Only the mighty God of the heavens could use hymns sung to His glory, as well as an earthquake, to rock the hearts of a Philippian jailer in his family and grant them life in His name. God uses the weak to manifest His strength. He uses the foolish to manifest His wisdom. He saves the worst of sinners, like you and me, to bring glory to His name.
And Paul gives God all of the glory for His precious work. He does this through prayer. In fact, prayer should become the default response to the believer who knows his dependence on God's grace. You do not need to pray if the only person you have to thank for your life is you. But if your utterly broken life is made who in God's grace in Jesus Christ, then you must express gratitude to God in prayer. If you are not prayerful, there is a good chance that you're not truly grateful. Yet, here is a point of comfort, being prayerful also makes us grateful. When we approach the throne of grace and recall the grace of God, it stirs our hearts in the same way the we see Paul's heart stirred.
As we survey the grace of God in Jesus Christ in prayer, we become grateful. And as our hearts fill with gratitude, we naturally express that gratitude in prayer. We get trapped in a vicious cycle of heart-expanding, life-transforming, God-glorifying growth! As we then grow in grace in which we now stand, our gratitude gives way to several other precious fruits of the Christian faith.
Paul's gratitude gave way to present joy, future hope, and overflowing love. As Paul lifts up his prayers of gratitude, they give way to joy. This is what recollection on God's saving work in Christ does for you--it not only gives you gratitude for that work, but joy in the present. Notice that I'm not saying happiness, which tends to rise and fall in conjunction with your circumstance. Joy--that deep-seated delight in God begins to become a constant, despite your circumstances. Thus, gratitude gives way to an enduring joy, regardless of whether you share in Paul's chains.
And gratitude gives way to future hope. Paul is sure that "He who began a good work in [the Philippians] will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus" (v6). Gratitude not only gives way to present hope, but in reflecting on God's gracious work in the past, you also gain assurance regarding His gracious work in the future. That's why in the Old Testament, God's people are constantly called to "remember" the God who delivered them from Egypt. In remembering His grace, they would be faithful in the present and trust in Him for the future.
God is not only the author of our salvation, but its perfecter. He does not change like shifting shadows and does not let anyone or anything snatch you from His hand. If you are caught up in anxiety or insecurity with regard to the future, remember what God has done for you once and for all in Christ Jesus (aside from every other way He has attended to you over the years!).
Finally, gratitude gives way to overflowing love. Paul yearns for the Philippians with "the affection of Christ Jesus." The affection of Christ Jesus drove Him to the cross. Now that affection, poured out by the Spirit upon the heart of Paul, makes him ready and willing to do anything and everything for those whom the Good Shepherd has welcomed into the sheep-fold. The more you reflect on what Christ did in your place, the more He transforms you by His Word and Spirit to become more like Christ. This affection that Paul feels is not only an imitation of Christ's affection, but an overflowing of that affection as it is being poured into Him. That then becomes the basis of our love for our fellow believers and for the unbelievers in our midst. We love because He first loved us.
So at the end of the day, Paul's life is marked by gratitude--a gratitude for the Philippians partnership in the Gospel, to God and expressed in prayer, and it gives way to present joy, future hope, and overflowing love. And now Paul is ready to find his way in life because He can rejoice in gratitude that He has found himself in Christ. Now, with gratitude for God's work for us in Christ, let us prepare to walk by faith and for His glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment