“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:3-8)
Here is a simple outline that I have constructed to guide us through these verses:
- Paul rejoices in the past (1:3-4)
- Paul enjoys sweet fellowship in the present (1:5)
- Paul has confidence about the future (1:6)
- Paul yearns for them with the love of Christ (1:7-8)
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I thank my God…
Prayer was a vital part of life for Paul, just as it was for his Lord. In this way he emulates Christ, the One “who ever lives to intercede.” If the Philippian jailer was a member of the church in Philippi (as we might well presume), it must’ve brought back wonderful memories to hear Paul’s praises to the Lord written from a Roman prison cell. It had been this same attitude (when Paul and Silas sang praises at midnight in the Philippian prison) that had resulted in the jailer and his family coming to know Christ.
Paul’s ecclesiastical letters are full of praise and thanksgiving to God. In fact, of the seven churches which Paul addresses in the New Testament, Galatia is the only one for which he does not give thanks in his introduction. (i)
Indeed there is quite a marked difference between Paul’s opening words to these two young churches. To the Philippians, he wrote “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you” (1:3), but to the Galatians he wrote “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel” (1:6).
I wonder which would be Paul’s words if he wrote to me today? Would he write “I thank my God for you”? Or would he have to write “I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you”?
And then there is this lovely divine title which is found twice in Philippians – “my God.” I have appreciated it as an expression of faith, belonging specially to those who have experienced the reality of God in their lives through trials.
Think, for example, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Worship the image which I have made… if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” (Daniel 3:15).
What was their response? “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.” (3:17).
This is the God whom Paul has come to know through his trials. On the road to Damascus, he had recognized Christ as Lord, but now in the prison he has come to appreciate him as “my Lord” (3:8). Perhaps even as a young Jewish boy, he would’ve learned about the God of his fathers and the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and other great men of faith; but now Paul himself has now become himself a man of faith and through his sufferings, has come to know “my God”. (ii)
…upon every remembrance of you
Paul had nothing but good memories of the believers in Philippi. The New Translation renders this verse in a way which I think is more accurate, “I thank my God for my whole remembrance of you.” Whenever Paul thought back over his many memories of the saints at Philippi, there were no memories that caused him sorrow. Rather every memory brought him joy and caused him to thank God for them.
I have lately been convicted by the small amount of thanksgiving that I offer to God in relation to my requests. I was convicted by the words of Matthew Henry:
Whatsoever is the matter of our rejoicing ought to be the matter of our thanksgiving. What we have the comfort of, God must have the glory of. (1)
Mr. Henry’s point is this: If you have anything that has brought you joy in your life today, you ought to be thanking God for it. It is a shame if we let even a single day go by without praise to God for his many blessings seen in our lives.
…Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy…
And yet, even though the memory of these saints caused Paul to give thanks to God, he still realized that there was a present need for today. We cannot rely on past successes to sustain us in the future for God. When it seems that we are at our best and brightest, it is then that we ought be most dependent upon God in prayer. No enemies in the Christian life are more subtle than pride and apathy. We ought to pray for each other continually and intercede for each others lives before the throne of God. Again I think of something Matthew Henry wrote,
“The best way to remember our friends is to remember them was at the throne of grace.” (2)
How true! We need to pray for each other. This is a work that any believer can do (and every believer should do). Consider Paul. He had plenty to think about in regards to himself, and yet he was praying for others. Even though he was bound in chains and forsaken by many of his friends, yet his thoughts are filled with others. He has the mind of Christ and as he prays for others his heart is filled with joy in spite of his circumstances.
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Paul rejoices in their present (1:5)
…For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now;…
Yet, not only did Paul have the memory of the past to fill his heart with joy. He also enjoyed their fellowship in the present. This thought of fellowship is a major theme in the book. In fact we find the word for fellowship (κοινωνία) once in every chapter of the book:
- In chapter 1, we read about “the fellowship of the gospel” (v. 5)
- In chapter 2, we read about “the fellowship of the spirit” (v. 1)
- In chapter 3, we read about “the fellowship of his sufferings” (v. 10)
- In chapter 4, we read about the fellowship of giving (v. 15)
I truly believe that if we truly enter into these four aspects of fellowship, it will do more to promote unity among believers than all the committees and organizations in the world. I have earlier mentioned that a good, simple definition of the word “fellowship” is the phrase “joint participation.”
The believers in Philippi, like Paul were not mere bystanders in the faith, they were participants in the work of Christ. I wonder how much I know about true fellowship today.
…Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:…
Perhaps we might ask, ‘Where did this spirit of fellowship in the gospel amongst the Philippian saints come from?’ Paul identifies the source. It came from God Himself.
God was the one who began a good work in their lives, just as He has begun his glorious work in each of our hearts. And because it is God doing the work, and not man, Paul has every reason to be confident that it will one day be completed. The source of this assurance has nothing to do with the Philippian believers themselves (iii). It is a confidence in God, not men.
I myself find great encouragement in this thought. Even though we no longer have the apostle Paul among us, we still have the same God. And since it is God that does the work from beginning to end, there is just as much potential for Him to use my small life for his glory as there was when he began to work in the life of this great apostle. There is a wonderful security in the truth of this verse.
But we should not take that security as an excuse for laziness because if anyone is tempted to become complacent, he has not read the verse closely enough. It says that God is determined to do a good work in each one of us. He has a purpose for us, a plan for our lives, and we ought to be engaged in fulfilling this plan by the power of his spirit.
I appreciate the range of Paul’s mind when he considers this great work. He sees it as something which began on “the first day” of their salvation (1:5) and which will continue until “the day of Jesus Christ” (1:6, 10).
This again is a wonderful thought for me. Some days I am so frustrated by the lack of progress that I make in divine things, but then I remember that the work will soon be completed by God. I will be perfected at the day of Christ.
That is really the meaning of this little word “perform” (ἐπιτελέω). It is the same word used in Galatians 3:3, “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”
Here in Philippians we have here the answer to that question. It is not the flesh that will perfect the work, but rather the One who began it, God himself. And when will he perfect it? In the day of Jesus Christ.
I must admit I find it difficult to precisely set the bound of this day, but I notice that whenever we read of it, it always carries with it the thought of the believer’s responsibility in view of the soon appearing of Christ. It has seemed to me that the primary thought involved is that of the Lord’s coming again and of our review before his judgment seat. One day every one of us must stand before the Lord and give an account. This is a great fact and we ought to live our lives in the consciousness of it.
We cannot forget that God is at work in the life of every true saint. This is a truth that I have sought to appreciate this week. It doesn’t matter whether I like or dislike my fellow believer or whether I agree with them or disagree with them. God is still at work in their life. And even though we may be at different stages in this great work, we are both “his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works”. When I realize that God is perfecting my brother in Christ, surely I will be exercised to pray for him with this end in view.
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Paul yearns for them with the love of Christ (1:8, 9)
…Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace…
It should come as no surprise that there is both a right (”meet”) way and a wrong way to think about other believers. Paul identifies the way that he has thought about them in verses three to six as being the right way. The wrong way is to have a critical spirit, a proud heart, or a jealous attitude towards my brothers and sisters in Christ. The right way is to rejoice in them, praise God for them, pray for them, and have confidence that God is working in their lives.
This attitude comes from a genuine love and care for them. Many other translations render this last phrase “because you have me in your heart”. I think the context shows that both thoughts could be true. Paul and the believers at Philippi loved one another and this was the root from which their fellowship grew.
…For God is my record how greatly I long after you in the bowels of Jesus Christ…
Paul now calls on God as a witness to testify to his great love for the saints. This little phrase “how greatly I long after you” is very interesting. The word is made up of two words: ἐπι (’epi’ – G1909) and ποθέω (’potheo’ – “to yearn”). Interestingly, the word ποθέω (potheo) is never used on its own in the New Testament. It is always accompanied by the intensifying preposition ἐπι (epi) which gives it the stronger meaning of a passionate longing. [The same intensifier is used in the word 'knowledge' in the next verse].
The believer ought to be a man filled with intense feelings and longings for the interests of Christ. Each one of us has things that we passionately long after.
Some long after physical and material things like money, health, a career, pleasure, or travel; but the true child of God should passionately long after spiritual things like other saints (Romans 1:11; 2 Timothy 1:4), our home in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:2), or the Word of God that we have been given (1 Peter 2:2).
This little word is also the same word that is used in James 4:5 where we read of the Spirit of God passionately longing over the saints. So we see in Paul’s life the result of the Spirit’s work. He has learned to passionately love the saints that God passionately loves. (iv) In the use of this word along with the phrase “the bowels of Jesus Christ” we see the melding of Paul’s heart with the heart of God.
And is not this your desire and mine? …to learn to love what God loves and to hate what God hates; to value Christ and his interests above all other things; and to learn to love His people with the same love that He himself has for them. All this can be ours when we learn “the mind of Christ.”
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This article is part of the “Fridays in Philippians” series of synchroblogs.
Footnotes:(i) Romans 1:8; 1 Corinthians 1:4; Ephesians 1:16; Colossians 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 1:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:3;(ii) Romans 1:8; 1 Corinthians 1:4; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Philemon v. 4(iii) In fact, this word (πείθω- G3982) is used in many of Paul’s church epistles to express his feelings of confidence in the work that God is doing (Romans 15:14; 2 Corinthians 2:3; Galatians 5:10; 2 Thessalonians 3:4).
(iv) Paul will again use a form of this word in 4:1 when he speaks of “My brethren, dearly beloved and longed for…”
(v) Other noteworthy translations of this word “bowels” ( σπλάγχνον, G4698 – splagchnon), are the tender-mercies of our God (Luke 1:78) and the inward-affection (2 Cor. 7:15)
References:(1, 2) Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Volume 6, pg. 724
(3) Warren Wiersbe, Be Joyful, pg. 23
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