Series: Letter from a Jailbird                                                                       Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon: The Power of Positive Linking                                                          August 13, 2006

 

THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING

 

Norman Vincent Peal wrote “The Power of Positive Thinking.”  This book was popularized by Robert Schuller and the Hour of Power.  If you ever go to the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County California, there are countless monuments to the potential of human positivity.  I have mixed feelings about the propriety of that message.  Somehow I don’t see Jesus’ – or Paul’s message being fundamentally about positive thinking.  The gospel starts with some very negative thinking.  But I am a believer in positive linking.  Today, in preaching from Philippians ch. 1, I want to talk about Christian Fellowship.  Since Christian fellowship is being linked together with other believers, I will call this the power of positive linking.  What is the power of positive linking?

 

THE CHURCH IN THE 3RD WORLD

 

There is an interesting social phenomenon that is often visible in the Third World especially.  Impoverished people who are converted, and become members of a church, will often begin to work their way up the social ladder.  Certainly not always the case, but it is a pattern.  Why?  Their destructive patterns of bad behaviors are minimized and even extirpated and even transformed.  They become a part of a positive social context.  Hard productive work and clean living are emphasized.  Family life is enhanced and encouraged.  Social skills are learned, responsibility is learned.  Education is often encouraged.  And also, importantly, positive social networking helps them to cooperate in the starting of businesses ventures.

 

Many countries like Mexico have a growing middle class – a middle class that is often associated with church attendance.  This is the power of positive linking, small business enterprises, and social progress.

 

LET’S PUT THINGS IN CONTEXT

 

Paul talks about the P.P.L. in Phil. 1:3-11.  But before we look at the passage, let’s just think about the book of Philippians generally.  Paul wrote this book from prison and has suffered terrible opposition.  He lives with the clear and present possibility that he will soon be executed.  Yet in the midst of Paul’s sufferings, the theme of the joy which God provides emerges clearly and remarkably.  One reason for Paul’s joy is that the church of Philippi is prospering in the midst of their opposition.  Another reason is that they are renewing their connection to Paul.  They haven’t forgotten him in prison.

 

Paul is writing the Philippians back after they had sent him – out of their great lack – a gift to help him in his imprisonment.  In those days, people in prison had to pay for their stay somehow, and the Philippians helped Paul with these expenses.  Paul is writing them back this thank-you note which also seeks to help them in their adversities.  He wants them to see their present situation through the lens of the reality of Christ.

 

In writing this letter, and talking about the incredible joy Paul has in the church of Philippi, Paul revels in this meaningful relationship they have come to know.  Paul cares about the church deeply and wants to see Christians focused on Christ, spirit-filled and unified in mission.  We find that Paul’s joy is not focused on how socially beneficial their fellowship is.  When Paul discusses fellowship, the emphasis is on personal transformation for service to God and life eternal.  “So that in the day of Jesus Christ you may be pure and blameless having produced the harvest of righteousness . . .” (v. 10).  Paul’s emphasis is on the church being the church as a witness to the victory of God in final redemption.

 

I AM CONFIDENT

 

In verse 6, Paul says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”  I find several things very interesting about this statement.  First, in all Paul’s passion for the church, Paul’s interest and confidence was different from our own.  We may not be absolutely confident that God is really at work in the church to bring it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ.  Our confidence tends to be more socially constructed – not theologically constructed.  Church is good for you, good for your morals, good for the community, etc.  We tend to think of church as a good, helpful, socially beneficial social institution.  Church is good for family and social life of any community.  These kinds of benefits didn’t interest Paul.  It doesn’t mean they are not real or meaningful, but just aren’t in the scope of Paul’s primary concern.  If that is all church is, we may as well call ourselves Rotarians or Kiwanis.

 

Paul saw the church as being something that was begun by God and would be brought to completion by God.  By the Philippians’ sacrificial giving to Paul, he knew they were truly connected to God’s eternal purposes – and those purposes would not and could not fail.  Paul was confident of this.

 

I think we lack confidence in exactly this area and we need to reclaim that confidence.  Look, if I didn’t believe that I’m really a part of God’s cosmic mission to overthrow the reign of evil and darkness in the world, I would get a real job!  If I didn’t believe that what we are doing today has eternal significance, I would do something else.  Church is all about God.  God started this institution.  God, through Christ’s death and resurrection, instituted the church.  That is the basis of Paul’s confidence.  God wants to use this humble and unimpressive human institution to accomplish his mission in the world.  If it has social value, wonderful.  It should.  But that isn’t the point.  It never can be.  Church must always remain about the glory of God, the kingdom of God, the mission of God in the world.

 

I wonder if we need to reaffirm our confidence in this truth.  Just think of how things must have looked for Paul.  The church was nothing.  They were nobodies.  They had no power, no influence.  Christians were yahoos from the backwoods who didn’t know the difference between Judaism and mystery religions.  But Paul believed – was confident – that what he was doing was God’s invasion of the dark satanic system of human corruption.  He believed that God was working through his preaching to extend the kingdom-building message of Messiah Jesus so that victory was achieved over Satan and God’s kingdom on earth would come.

 

Can you believe this?  Paul would not have been the least bit amazed that in the year 2006 there would be 50-70 Million Christians in China alone and 80 million Methodists.  We get the impression the church is dying out.  Look – did you realize that the biggest shifts in religion in the history of the planet have happened in your lifetime (if you are as old as me).  Those shifts are Africa and China which have experience mass conversions to Christianity.  In Africa, the last 50 years have seen increases from 10 million to 360 million Christians.  China is almost as amazing!  Bishops in Africa are absolutely worn-out by church-openings. 

 

I head a story this week of a minister who went to South Africa.  He slipped into a Christian service but word spread that a trained minister was present from the USA.  They were thrilled and called him to the platform and after a formal introduction invited him to lead the exorcism service.  Christianity is growing in Africa because people are healed by prayers in Jesus’ name and their demons are cast out in Jesus’ name.  The most popular Bible verse in Africa is John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.”  That means, you’re kids get to live and have enough to eat if you follow Jesus.  And that is the case – Christians help each other, pray, organize, and provide for themselves.  We spiritualize it to happiness or something.  For them it is very real and visceral.

 

Paul’s confidence in the church was well-placed.  I’m confident that God is going to build this church.  We’re a part of a world-movement people, that is about establishing God’s rule, tearing down the forces of darkness, and ushering people into the salvation God provides.  Because we live in a world of posh and pleasure, the gospel can loose its visceral reality.  Jesus wants to destroy the work of Satan in your life.  Jesus’ rule establishes you in a Kingdom where God’s plan for humanity is taking shape under the authority of the scriptures.  Are you confident of this?  You should be.  You need to be.  If you aren’t, there is little reason to sacrifice yourself for the institution.  But if you are, you should give your all.

 

KOINONIA FELLOWSHIP

 

The second element of this passage I would like to point out is Paul’s emphasis on Christian fellowship.  This appears in both verses 5 and 7.  The word in Greek is a very important one in Paul’s thought world; koinonia.  In v. 5, Paul says that his is constantly praying for them with joy “because of your sharing (koinonia) in the gospel from the first day until now.”  In verse seven he says, “It is right form to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me.”  Koinonia for Paul is so much more that what it has become for us: church-suppers, church-friends, etc.  Those things are important, but Paul’s sharing together was on a different order.

 

Sharing for Paul meant “participation” more than “association.”  Key difference.  Believers experience koinonia because they participate in the same spiritual life-changing realities.  Paul’s emphasis is a participation in something outside of one’s existence.  This is something you almost have to go to the 3rd World to understand.  There is no way to explain this – you have to experience it.  We don’t experience it, not because we are bad people or bad Christians, but simply because we live a pretty comfortable life.

 

Koinonia is a key reason why the church is growing in Africa.  Let me put it this way.  I listened to a message by Philip Jenkins this week – a professor in Religion at UPenn who has written much about the phenomenon of global Christianity.  God is going South and East, he says.  He heard a pastor in Africa talking to his congregation this way once.  “Why is it we love each other so much?  Why is it we love Jesus so much?  How is it we’ve come to have such beautiful fellowship together?  It’s easy.  Christ has done so much for us!  Most of you would be dead if not for Jesus!  Most of you have been healed of diseases by Jesus.  Most of you have had demons cast out of you in Jesus’ name.  Most of you have eaten food sent by Jesus’ people.  Of course we love Jesus!”

 

Do you think people who have experience church as something that has fed them, healed them, delivered them from Satan, etc. have any difficulty understanding fellowship?  Church is life to them.  That powerful experience transforms everything.  They read the NT and it relates viscerally.  They read Paul and the meaning is clear.

 

How do we, who have not experienced Jesus in those visceral ways, experience the kind of fellowship Paul is describing?  I’m not sure.  But I think it helps us to realize what we’ve lost.  Only when we’ve realized the loss can we start the road to recovery.  At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, I want to say that the Alpha Course can be very helpful in this regard.  It provides an opportunity for people to connect with the visceral side of Christian faith in ways we don’t often do.  It makes the Holy Spirit an issue – and the Holy Spirit for Paul is a critical component to koinonia; what gives us real fellowship is that we are all participating in this powerful, healing, delivering Holy Spirit together.

 

SPIRITUAL UNITY AND INSIGHT

 

Paul’s prayer for the church in Philippi is explicit starting in verse 9; And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless.  In the midst of this spiritual fervor, Paul is concerned that they stay spiritually and theologically on course.  He knows how much theological tomfoolery is available out there, and he challenges it in other letters.  “I want you to be unified and theologically sound, having the wisdom to determine what is best.” 

 

This is my prayer for this congregation.  Let’s make it our prayer.  Let’s stay spiritually and emotionally connected and committed to each other.  We’ve been otherwise.  Christian unity isn’t just being happy together.  It means being in a unified direction, theologically sound, biblically based, spirit-filled, missional in focus, grounded in wisdom, and moving forward.  Do you realize that this is Paul’s desire for our church today?  Can we make this our prayer?  God, make us a church with spirit-based koinonia on a divine mission to reach our world with the message of love, healing, deliverance through Christ!