Philippians Part 3

We come back again this week to Paul's letter to the Philippians. We will be moving through this book together for some time until we have finished it. I have mentioned already about how encouraged I am to be looking at this together with you because this letter was written to a young church in a lively urban setting. To be sure we are separated by time, the cultural and political situation is very different from ours in some ways but similar in others. But, two questions that Paul was concerned with are two questions we are very concerned with: (1) how to follow Jesus in faith and repentance in the Christian community and (2) how does one follow Jesus as a good citizen of one's broader community, working for the common good, while understanding one's fundamental loyalty to be to Jesus and one's citizenship to be registered in that domain? It could do us some good to stop for just a moment here and note that these questions ought to give us pause on a regular basis. They are questions that should stimulate our prayers and imagination. But if we are honest we will admit that we all too often show a certain dullness to what God is doing and yearns to do in the church for the world; and, we betray that dullness by not lingering prayerfully over these and other important questions which Paul and the other New Testament author's ask and answer in their application of the gospel to our mundane lives. It is this sort of dullness that Paul wants to guard against among the Philippians, thus he starts with prayer. It is instructive and encouraging to find Paul praying for and encouraging this church before he enters into the body of the letter where he offer a good deal of challenges. It demonstrates that Paul understood the importance of prayer and of modeling prayer for the community. It also shows that he knew that praying for the community would place him in a properly humble posture - the only posture appropriate for a minister to assume regardless of the occasion.

The next Sunday or two we will be looking in some detail at this short prayer but this week we just took note of one thing: Paul's use of the prayer to remind the Philippians of the awesome and weighty work of God in which they are participants and partners. Their participation in the gospel is for the praise and glory of God, a reminder of the weighty and awesome life to which we are called in Christ's kingdom. Now, for a few thoughts about motivating God's people by reminding them that their salvation brings glory to God.

In this context we understand that God is glorified when the gospel brings forth the fruit of the world to come. God is celebrated and glorified because he has shared his glory in glorifying those who have followed Jesus in faith and repentance: their lives and their fruit are the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. I point this out because there are some who talk about God's glory in terms that almost make God sound like he has an ego to be satisfied. Some, for instance, say that everything God does is for the foundational purpose of bringing glory to himself. Many of these folks go so far as to say that God brings glory to himself when he consigns people to hell because his justice is satisfied and his glory is honored in their condemnation. This is not the place for a lengthy excursus but it needs to be pointed out that this way of thinking about God's glory is what happens when theological arguments are allowed to run roughshod over the heart of the gospel. Behind the gospel is the God who shows his love by adding glory to his people and his creation through Jesus' work.

Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar at Asbury Serminary, has some helpful remarks about this topic from one of his blog entries: "I was recently reading through the proofs of a new book on New Testament Theology, and it was stated that the most basic theme or thesis of NT theology is --'God magnifying himself through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit'. There were various nuances and amplifications to the discussion, but the more one read, the more it appeared clear that God was being presented as a self-centered, self-referential being, whose basic motivation for what he does, including his motivation for saving people, is so that he might receive more glory. Even the sending of the Son and the work of the Spirit is said to be but a means to an end of God's self-adulation and praise. What's wrong with this picture? How about the basic understanding of God's essential and moral character? For instance, suppose this thesis stated above is true-- would we not expect John 3.16 to read "for God so loved himself that he gave his only begotten Son..."? Or again if this thesis is true, would we not expect Phil. 2.5-11 to read differently when it speaks about Christ emptying himself? If the Son is the very image and has the same character as the Father, wouldn't we expect this text to say--'who being in very nature God, devised a plan to glorify himself through his incarnation' if God really is so self-referential? In other words I am arguing Christ, the perfect image of God's character, reveals that God's character is essentially other directed self-sacrificial love. God loves people, not merely as means to his own ends, but as ends in themselves..... Or re-read Hosea 11 where God explains that his love for his people is not at all like the fickle, self-seeking love of mere human beings. But rather God keeps loving his children, whether they praise or love or worship him or not..... Let me be clear that of course the Bible says it is our obligation to love, praise, and worship God, but this is a very different matter from the suggestion that God worships himself, is deeply worried about whether he has enough glory or not, and his deepest motivation for doing anything on earth is so that he can up his own glory quotient, or magnify and praise himself..... I like the remark of Victor Furnish that God's love is not like a heat-seeking missile attracted to something inherently attractive in this or that person. Rather God's other-directed love bestows worth, honor, even glory. Notice exactly what Psalm 8.5 says--God has made us but a little less than God (or another reading would be, 'than the angels') and crowned human beings with glory and honor. Apparently this does not subtract from God's glory (see vs. 1) but simply adds to it. God it would appear is not merely a glory grabber, but rather a glory giver (Ben Witherington from his blog).

I bring this up because I do want to make the argument that Paul is reminding the church that the end, or telos, of salvation glorifies God. Furthermore, I want to argue that this ought to motivate them and us to take more seriously the work of the gospel of which we are partners and in which we participate as we follow Jesus in faith and repentnace. But I want our motivation to come from a celebration of the God who displays his glory by giving himself to others so that through his son we might be a harvest of righteousness.

Questions for discussion:

1. What role should prayer play in our lives, particulary in reference to our tendency to grow dull to the weightiness of the gospel?

2. What sorts of patterns of thinking lead you to become, in the words used above, dull towards Christ's glorious work in the world? What helps you turn from those patterns of thinking?

3. If you had to explain to someone who was not a Christian why we believe that glorifying God is important, what would you say?