With the affection of Christ Jesus
“God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8).
Happy New Year! I am thankful and happy that today the first Sunday of the New Year 2014 all the Victory community brothers and sisters are able to come together here and worship God. This year, out church theme(motto) is “With the affection of Christ Jesus.” And the theme verse is Philippians 1:8 – “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” The New Year 2014, our church’s purpose is to love our neighbors with the affection of Christ Jesus. How shall we do that? We are going to receive instructions from the Scripture in 3 ways:
First, let us long for our neighbors with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Look at Philippians 1:8 - “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” When we say we love our neighbors with the affection of Christ Jesus, it means to yearn for them with Jesus’ love. Here, yearning means two things: (1) First, it means to have great compassion for them (Jere.31:20). God the Father who loves his children and delight in us sometimes speaks against us. That’s why his hearts yearns for us. But the Bible clearly says that “I have great compassion for him.” We must imitate our Father God who has great compassion for us. Like him, we should have great compassion for our neighbors. (2) Second, longing for our neighbors means that we envy them intensely (Jam.4:5). The Holy Spirit who dwells in us envies intensely. The same Spirit bears in us the fruit of love and enables us to envy for our neighbors intensely. Therefore, as we love and long for our neighbors we must do so with godly jealously. It’s like God is jealous of us. With that kind of godly jealousy we should be jealous of our spouse as well. Likewise, we must be jealous of our neighbors.
Second, let us pray for our neighbors with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Look at Philippians 1:9-11 - “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God.” What is the best thing that we can do for our neighbors? Do you think or believe that it is prayer? If we love our neighbors, if we long for them and have great compassion for them, what would we first do for them? Don’t you think that we would first pray for them? Wouldn’t we kneel down before God and earnestly pray for them? And when we pray for our neighbors, I don’t think we will just pray for them once. I am sure we will continually pray for them until God answers our prayers. When we look at Philippians chapter 1, we see that Apostle Paul did it. He always prayed for his neighbors, that is the believers in the Philippian church (v.4). It means that Paul always remembered the Philippian church believers (v.3) and always prayed for them (v.4). And when Paul was praying for them, he thanked God every time (v.3). And he always prayed with joy (v.4). The reason was because of their “partnership in the gospel from the first day until now”(v.5). Not only that, when Paul was praying for the believers in the Philippian church, he had confident (v.6). What was his confidence? Look at Philippians 1:6 - “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Paul had confidence in God who began a good work in the will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus because he is truthful and faithful covenant God. With this kind of confidence and thanksgiving and joy in his heart, Apostle Paul especially prayed for love (v.9). What kind of love is this? This is love that is in knowledge and depth of insight. The reason why Paul prayed for the Philippians like this was so that they “may be able to discern what is best” (v.10). Therefore, Paul wanted them to be pure until the day of Christ (v.10). He wanted them to be filled with the fruit of righteousness (v.11). We should also pray like this for our neighbors. We should for them to bear the fruit of love abundantly. As we do so, we should pray that their love may be abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. Thus, we all may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless so that we may be able to live the life that is worthy of His gospel.
Third, let us participate in the gospel with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Look at Philippians 1:5) “because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” Whenever Apostle Paul thought about the Philippian church believers, he thanked God. And whenever he prayed for all of them, he always prayed with joy (vv.3-4). The reason was because of their partnership in the gospel (v.5). It means specifically that the Philippian church believers supported Apostle Paul financially when he was in need. Moreover, they supported Paul’s mission with their prayers (MacDonald). As we face the New Year 2014, let us continually participate in mission. Let’s continually supports those missionaries whom we have been supporting all these years. Let’s continually support Pastor Chang Kim and his mission in China and Elder Peter Yoon and his medical mission in Philippines. And when we pray for him and Philippines, let’s also pray for Brother Harry who is now attending a seminary. Also, let’s continually support Mexico mission. Pastor and Mrs. Gomez, Deacon Manny and Deacon Victor and other brothers and sister in Christ have been serving hard and faithfully all these years. Let’s pray for them continually. Also, let’s continually support missionary Joseph Park and his family in India and Jon and Jan Wagoner in University of Arizona. In this New Year, our church will support two more missionaries. We are going to support Elder Gerald Suh and his wife and their mission to Guatemala. Also, we will support Pastor Altantugs and his church in Mongolia. Besides supporting all these missionaries, what we are going to focus on this year 2014 is evangelism. Let us reach out to our neighbors and our community people who do not know Jesus Christ. Let us pray for them and invite them to the church. Let us all put our hearts and prayers and efforts this year 2014 in evangelism.
With His love,
James Kim