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. (ESV)
If you are new to this reading plan, follow the instructions on the right side of this page or click here to read the "Why Just One Letter" introduction article.
Throughout
each month, we will post short articles to give some depth of
understanding regarding our text (see the archive links on the
lower right of this page for review). Today we will discuss...
The Affection of Christ Jesus
In our language, there is hardly any word that is used in as many different ways as the word LOVE. As one pastor points out, we use the same word to express our emotion toward our spouse and children as we do for our favorite food or sports team.
Obviously, or at least hopefully, you don't mean the same thing when you say you love your husband as you mean when you say you love pizza.
Today, we are looking at two things that Paul writes in this passage, "I hold you in my heart." And, "I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus."
This is the kind of LOVE that we need to understand before moving on to the next article, where we will look at Paul's hope that the Philippians' "LOVE may abound more and more."
The kind of Love that Paul is going to talk about is not a matter of preference like - I LOVE this school, I LOVE this soda, or I LOVE this song.
The kind of Love that Paul is going to talk about is not the fickle and fleeting love that is all too common in many relationships today where a couple LOVE each other only as long as it is exciting or mutually beneficial or as long a nothing better is available. Sadly, even in the church, we have bought into that cultural misrepresentation of love. It is a damaging counterfeit to the real LOVE that Paul is going to point us to.
The kind of LOVE that Paul is going to talk about - the kind of LOVE that Paul feels for his brothers and sisters in Christ - is "The Affection of Christ Jesus."
The Affection of Christ Jesus needs to be understood from two different angles. These two should never be separated if we want to see it change our lives, our church and our community.
The Affection of Christ Jesus was 1st a DEMONSTRATED LOVE and The Affection of Christ Jesus is 2nd a Holy Spirit EMPOWERED LOVE.
DEMONSTRATED LOVE
Jesus Christ is our standard setter for LOVE. We see in the Gospels a LOVE from Jesus that was patient, gentle, merciful, compassionate, selfless and sacrificially forgiving.
So, when we think about how we are to love other Christians - both here in our church and across the globe - we too must always strive to love each other with patience, gentleness, mercy, compassion, selflessness and with sacrificial forgiveness.
Think for a moment of ANY rift or hurt you have experienced in your church family. Can that hurt (or those hurts) be explained without recognizing a lack of Christ-like LOVE between the Christians involved?
But, we cannot leave it at that. We cannot see the Affection of Christ as ONLY a good and Godly example. We have to see it also as an ...
EMPOWERED LOVE
Jesus Christ makes it possible for us to LOVE in the way that he showed us by uniting us with Him through our faith in His perfect life, death and resurrection on our behalf AND then by sending His Holy Spirit to guide us, encourage us and empower us to love that way.
On our own - in our own power - there is a limit to our patience, gentleness, mercy, compassion, selflessness and sacrificial forgiveness. But, what is impossible with us alone is more than manageable for us when we operate by His power and by His design.
Paul got that early on and Paul not only wanted the Affection of Christ to control him, He wanted that Affection of Christ to control him in such a way that it became contagious - spreading like a virus among the churches he planted. That's why Paul writes several times in the New Testament about imitating his life example - AS PAUL IMITATED JESUS.
And, despite many times when some people would have thrown in the towel and given up on the messy people that make up the church, it was the example of Jesus and the Power of the Holy Spirit that motivated Paul to keep fighting the good fight of faith and to serve the church with all of his heart.
