Philippians 1:3-11 | Encouragement after the newness has worn off

Sunday Morning | September 7, 2025 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

Paul’s words in Philippians 1:3–11 offer encouragement for a church that may feel weary after the newness of faith has faded. He begins by leading with encouragement, combining gratitude and prayer as he continually lifts the church before God, reminding them of the assurance that their salvation is a gift of grace, not their own effort. Paul then affirms their partnership in the gospel, highlighting that they are not alone in their mission but share in God’s work together. Finally, he delivers a charge, calling them to let their love be guided by truth, to keep pursuing holiness, and to bear fruit that reflects the Spirit’s work in their lives. In these words, we find strength to keep going, knowing that God will complete the good work He has begun in us.

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Transcript

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Good morning, Valley View. It's great to be with you in the book of Philippians. It's always great to start a new book of the Bible to dive in into a new book. There's something about starting something new that brings excitement, freshness. I remember when we lived in Arkansas, there was this lady in our neighborhood who raised goats, and once a year she would come out to the neighborhood pool and all the kids would be there at the pool. And then she would always wait till they all had to take a break from swim and go out to the playground. Then she would let all her new baby goats out there in the field right around them. And of course, baby goats. I mean, there's few things more adorable on earth than baby goats prancing about and falling down and tumbling on one another. And every kid is just like, mom, dad, we got to have one. And we're like, thanks a lot, lady. If your house gets toilet papered, I'm not saying it was me, but we might have some stuff to talk about. It was so hard to say no, but I don't think a single parent walked away with a baby goat. Because here's the thing about baby goats very exciting, very new, very adorable and fresh when they're baby goats. But what happens to baby goats? They grow up and you come home and they're chewing on your Greek New Testament or something, like they're tearing up the whole house and they become dinner after that. Shortly. When they're new, when they're young, it's exciting, it's fresh. But then and you know how this goes in life, things start out new, exciting, fresh. But then they become routine and they become stale. They become old. They become something I gotta do now, and I'm not sure what I was that got me excited about it to begin with. That happens with animals. That happens with relationships, that happens in our spiritual life. We're going to see today in Philippians chapter one, if you have a church Bible that will be on page 921, if you if you don't have a church Bible, slip out anytime and grab one, those are free for you. We have those out in the lobby. We're going to see Paul addressing a church that has maybe stumbled into this situation in life where the newness has worn off, because when Paul came to Philippi it was exciting. He brought the gospel. You had Lydia’s conversion. You had the jailer's conversion in the midst of an earthquake, excitement, newness. But now he's writing to them ten years or so later. And things maybe aren't as fresh and new and as exciting as they used to be. In fact, now there's infighting and quarrels. Does that? I don't know if that ever happens in church or not, but Paul knows I've got to bring some encouragement in the midst of the weariness when the newness is worn off. How do you bring a fresh approach? How do you bring the encouragement to wake up, to be revitalized, to find that joy again? Yeah, it looks different. But how do we wake up to the joy we have in Christ again, anew, afresh? We're going to see Paul do that in three main ways here in Philippians chapter one, we're going to start looking at verses three through five. The first couple of verses here, and look at this first way he inspires the church. Let me read these and then I'll tell you what that is. Philippians chapter one verse three I thank my God in all my remembrance of you always and 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. So the way Paul begins to address this issue, this need of the fact that life has become stale, the church maybe has become routine. Life has become not as exciting as it used to be, not as exciting as it started out, he begins when he comes to them to address this, keep in mind they're a young church. Ten years is not that long for the life of a church. How does he start with them? How does he begin? He begins by leading with gratitude. That's a starting place. Notice he doesn't come in scolding them. He starts with encouragement. He starts with gratitude. He starts off with, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. He begins by just showing them that he is so grateful for them. Now, there's a there's a reason for that. More than likely, Paul is writing the letter as a thank you note for a gift they sent to him for his missionary work through another guy. We'll talk about further on in the series. He shows up later in the book. His is a path, for that is a Paradise. Would have been the God who brought the gift, the financial gift to Paul. And so he's writing them a thank you, thank you for contributing to my ministry. When we served in missions, one of the things we learned early on, they told us this phrase and they said, you better stick to it because it's true. Anytime you get a gift before you put it in the bank, you need to write a thank you note. They said thank before you bank because if you don't, if you bank it, you'll forget to write the thank you note. You just will. Life moves on, but make sure people who take time out of their life, they could have gone out to eat. They could have done something else with that money they sent it to you. Make sure they know how grateful you are. Write them a thank you note. Take the time. Do that before you bank it. And here Paul is starting with thank you. Thank you for partnering with me. I'm grateful for you. But Paul doesn't just stop there because any thank you note is not just only a thank you note. It's also an opportunity to encourage. It's also an opportunity to teach. It's also an opportunity to share. Here's what God has been doing. Here's what we've seen happen on the mission field. Here's other areas where I need prayer. And that's what Paul does. He starts with gratitude, but he also gives them encouragement. And there's two ways in particular here that he is encouraging them spiritually to grow. And the first is prayer. Just look back at verses three through five and you see him over and over again. Mention how many times he's been praying for them. That's basically the gist of those whole first few verses. I think, my God, in all my remembrance, always in every prayer, making prayers with joy for you. I'm praying. I'm praying a lot. I'm excited about praying. I'm grateful for you, and I'm praying some more. He says it over and over again. He's telling them that he is praying for them, but he's also telling them about the importance of prayer, how critical prayer is to the spiritual life, how critical it is that those who are in Christ be bathing their spiritual life in prayer. It's absolutely essential. It's absolutely central to our spiritual life, our spiritual journey. And so Paul is emphasizing this with him. Pray. Be about prayer. I remember early on in ministry there was a guy who was a neighbor that Julie and I had gotten to know this couple, and he and I had gotten connected, and they started to help support us in the ministry work we were doing. And I remember one day he pulled me aside, and this was really one of the first guys in ministry. I remember doing this. He pulled me aside and said, John, I just want you to know that I pray for you every single day. And I like man, you do that for me every day? You take the time, every day to pray for me? That was so overwhelming. It was so moving that someone would take, even give me a thought and a good one, and let alone pause and pray in the midst of all the other things I could do. And by the way, I hear that from many of you, not just me, but for the church. We pray for Valley View every day, and it is such an encouragement. And so for Paul to write that to the Philippians, and I am praying for you, and I can't pray for you enough. That's a great way to begin with encouragement. But now look at the second way he encourages them here. The second way is through assurance. Look at verse six and what he says here. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. So yeah, here's ways I want to encourage you. You need to be praying. I'm praying for you. You need to be praying. But also be assured that Christ is at work in your life from the day he began, and he will complete it. He goes back to the beginning... He reminds them, God stirred something here in you at the beginning. And by the way, Paul was there with them at the beginning and he says, I know God is going to complete it. God is going to continue it. God is going to do something great in your life, even if you have slipped into a season where you don't feel that anymore, where you're not sure, and that this happens all the time. In fact, I'm guessing a few of us have this experience in here. You come to know Christ, it's exciting. It's new, you're pumped up. You can't read the Bible enough. You can't go to church enough. And then all of a sudden, a few months down the road, a few years down the road, you notice, okay, that sin I always struggle with, I'm still it's still lingering. I thought I'd be done with it forever. I thought I'd never sin again. It was so new and exciting. So now I'm wondering, am I? Am I even a Christian or not? Anybody ever been there? Anybody ever had that struggle? Yeah, there's more hands up than not. It's pretty common. We think everything in the newness and the excitement, everything now will be perfect. And then the struggle comes and we go. So what does that mean? Was I even a Christian to begin with? And Paul is reminding them he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. He began the work, not you. That's the starting point to remember. A lot of times I think we struggle with assurance because we think we did it. And so since I think I did it when I don't perform, then I think I've lost it. But he did it, not me. That's why I put Ephesians chapter two in your notes. By grace you have been saved through faith. Is it is a gift from God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. It's not because of something I did. He he gave it as a gift. And he doesn't go around just taking gifts back. That's that's what we do. That's how we act. So we expect him to act that way. We called that. I don't even know if you're allowed to say this anymore, but I was a kid. We called that the Indian giver. I don't know if you remember that phrase. We don't we don't use that anymore, apparently. In fact, I looked I looked up on Google what you would use now instead. And I don't even know why we use that. I didn't know any Indians. I don't I never had that experience. I just I guess you heard it. In fact, they probably would say that they were the ones that had things taken from them. They probably would think, you've got this upside down. I asked Google, what should we say instead? How should that? Here's what Google said. Wonderful AI giving us great solutions in life. Try using descriptive terms like a person who takes back when they've what they've been given that that didn't ring. That's not doesn't have the same ring as just a two word phrase. But that wasn't nearly as funny as I thought it would be, by the way. But AI didn't help us at all. Point being, that's how we act. I want to take back what I've given someone. I want an edge. I want to make sure that I come first. That's not who God is. And he who has the power to begin a work in your life, he has the power to see it through. He assures them of that. And I think this is really important for Valley View in this day and age. Look, he began a good work here. He is the one who brought this church together. He did it through prayer, through a little old lady sitting on a porch across the street. He's going to continue that work here if we continue in prayer, if we continue to listen to him, if we continue to submit our lives to him, he'll guide us. He will. It's not about us, it's about him. I think the key to seeing him move at Valley View in the coming year will be through our commitment to prayer, and that's why this week I'm going to do a 6 a.m. prayer meeting here at the church on Tuesday. I don't know that we're going to do it every week, but I feel like God has been putting prayer on my heart, and many others have said, I feel a burden to pray. We're going to meet in the chapel, which is right through those doors over there. You can get there from the third Street exit. It'll be open. I'll have some coffee and we're going to pray. It's going to be a prayer meeting, not a share meeting and not a devotion meeting. I'm not coming with the sermon. We're going to pray. It's going to be 90% prayer from six, maybe to seven. Come join me. And if you can't make it, that's fine. If you. I know some of you that some for many. That's too early, for some that's too late. You're already working. Pray when you can. Pray at six, wherever you are. Briefly. But if you can join us come Tuesday morning, this Tuesday in the chapel, we're going to pray and we're just going to ask God to move in our church, move in our community, stir in our community. And God, if you would move, help us to be a part of that. Give us the wisdom to know, you-- we can't make the Spirit move. The wind blows where it wishes, so the Spirit does as well. But I hope, I pray that we're available. That's my prayer. So this is how he starts with him. He starts with gratitude. He comes in. Thank you, thank you. Now what's the second way? He comes alongside them in the midst of the weariness, in the midst of having lost focus and excitement, how does he try to stir them up and awaken them? Look here at verse seven. Verse seven and chapter one. 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. So he comes to them and reminds them, and affirms them, that they are partners with him in ministry. He affirms their partnership. And as I mentioned, when we served as missionaries, when I wrote that thank you note, one of the things I wanted to make sure that came clear was, I couldn't do this. We couldn't do this without you. We couldn't serve in the mission field without your contribution, it wouldn't be possible. You really are partners with us. How can we pray for you? We know you're praying for us. We desperately need your gifts. And we are so grateful. And Paul wants them to hear you are partners with me. He says you are partakers In verse seven, earlier in verse five he says, we are in partnership in the gospel. We're in this together. But notice a couple of things he points out about their partnership. Notice some of the ways they are partnered because a partnership isn't just all the glory of seeing God move on the mission field. Notice what he said about their partnership back in verse seven. He said, you are partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment. They're partners with him in the hard times. The Christian life isn't just all glorious moments. His ministry to them began in prison. I mean, within a few days of him being in Philippi, they threw him in jail. You are partners with me in that, you were there with me through that. You have stuck with me. And he's writing to them from prison now, likely in Rome. He's still facing challenges. And he says, you are partners with me. Because more than likely, if they threw him in prison when he'd just been there a few days, think of those he left behind who would come to know Christ. What did they face? What hardships? What challenges did they face? They likely endured that as well and are continuing to endure that. And yet they've stayed faithful. They've remained faithful because here's what he says. You are partners with me in my imprisonment. But also, he says in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you're partners with me in my hardships. But yet you stayed firm. You stayed engaged. You've continued to defend and confirm the gospel. Those two words were used prior to the New Testament as more of legal terms used in legal proceedings. That word defense is the same word where we get it sounds like the word apology. If you've heard of Christian apologetics, which it doesn't mean we're apologizing for Christianity. It means we're defending the faith. How do we step up and tell others about some of the roots, the background, the reasons why you should believe in the faith? So there's the defense and then the confirmation was used as more like a legal oath of a validation, a confirmation that says, this is true. You can trust it. This person does believe it. He's good to go. And those are kind of two sides of a coin in terms of engaging with people around the gospel. In fact, I asked everyone this last week to be praying for the church every day this week and, and many of us raised our hands and I heard from a number of you throughout the week. This is a verse God has put on my heart. This is the way I've been burdened to pray for the churches. And it was an exciting week. There was a lot of conversations happening around prayer. This week I want to ask you to just pray for one person. We don't have to. It's great to pray for the whole church. Now let's narrow it down and pray for one person and in particular, pray for someone who is far from God right now. Maybe they're. Maybe you think they're not super far. Maybe they're close. But someone who currently doesn't know him isn't following him. And here's what I want you to pray. Pray that the doors would open for the defense and confirmation of the gospel. The defense side is more of the removing obstacles. Think of before you were a Christian, you had some problems with Christianity. It could have been people. It could have been beliefs. You had some obstacles that had to be cleared out of the way for you to even be open to it and pray for that person. God, what obstacles are there to them coming to faith? How can I be a part of removing those obstacles? Would you remove those obstacles? Pray for that person every day this week. God, would you open the doors to their heart, to the gospel and then would you confirm it in their lives? Would you validate it? Would there be a moment where, just like when you fill in your email address and login information on a website, and then you get a text with a code that you got to put in to prove it's really you that it says, yes, this is true, this is right, this is fully validated, this is fully confirmed. We want that day in their life where the gospel is fully validated, confirmed in their life, 100% rooted. All this week, pick that one person and just pray for him every single day. Pray God, would you move? Would you defend? Would you confirm the gospel in their life? That's part of the partnership with them in the gospel, they're partners. He sees them as partners. That's an encouragement. Don't you love hearing that when someone who you think is older, wiser, more mature spiritually says to you, you are a key partner with me, that's a huge encouragement. He's grateful for them. He's thankful for them. And then the third way he's going to come alongside them in the midst of the weariness when the newness has worn off. Finally, he's going to give them a charge. He's going to give them a blessing, a prayer, an appeal. But he's going to land in these last few verses with the charge, here is something I want to leave you with. And of course, he's got more to talk about. But here is something that I want to impress upon you in terms of how to move forward. Look at verses eight through ten, 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. So he gives them a charge here. He gives it in three parts. The first is that you would love with truth, love with truth. You can't love apart from truth. Love and truth have to be connected. You can't separate them. We all learned in middle school that you can't define a word by a word, so you can't say, love is love that has no meaning. That is emptiness. You have to use other words to describe a word. You can't separate the word love from the truth of what it means to love. And he uses words specifically here love more and more with all knowledge and discernment. Now, I'm sure you've had these situations where you had the knowledge of a situation, but not insight. That word discernment can be, translated as insight. It can also be translated as intuition. You've had knowledge of a situation, but maybe not fully aware of what's really going on. I had a lunch with a guy once. Nobody here is in another state, but he asked to meet, marriage was falling apart. I wanted to talk about it, and I came. I came ready to talk about it. Came with lots of ideas. How can we man? What can you do? How can you try to get this thing back on track? How can you pursue your wife and love on her and everything I threw out, every idea I gave to him, he was like, I don't think that'll work. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Idea after idea, and I'm thinking, I'm not sure that he's really interested in trying to make this work. I had knowledge of the situation that their marriage was struggling, and so I just said to him, I think I misunderstood the purpose of this meeting. I thought you wanted to work on your marriage. What I'm hearing is that you're done. That am I now perceiving that accurately? Yes, John, actually you are. I wasn't here to try to fix it. I was here to tell you it's over. Oh, well, now let's talk about that. Now that I have both knowledge and insight, let's talk about that because I love you too much to just let you continue down the road of following your heart. You need to love with truth, and the way you're going right now is denying truth. It's avoiding God's plan for your life. It's abandoning his plan. And I'm not saying there's not times where marriages do struggle and need to be separated, but in his situation, he was going his own way and abandoning truth. And that is not loving to ignore that just for the sake of friendship and relationship. And those are important. And it takes great wisdom to know how to do that. There are times to speak up. There are times not to. I'm I'm not getting into all that right now. But you understand you can't have love apart from truth. The two go together always. And so he reminds them. This is my charge to you, love. We should be known as loving people. The church should be known for our love. There's a great quote from an early Roman emperor. He was trying to turn all of Rome back to the pagan rituals. Christianity had come in and he didn't like it, and he wanted to turn them all back to the old Roman gods. But he noticed this about the Christians who were still there, still lingering. He said this it is disgraceful that the Galileans, that's the phrase they would have used. Jesus of Nazareth, or from Galilee. The Galileans support not only their own poor, but ours as well. All men see that our people lack aid from us. I don't like the Christians. I don't want them around. And yet they're meeting the needs of our people better than we are. People we should be known as loving. People in our community should know they love Jesus and they love others. Well, I don't agree with them, but man, they are loving. But it's always connected to truth. Ed Childers was a member here for many, many years. He was a youth leader when I was, when I was a student here at the church. And this quote he used has always stuck with me. He said it in reference to unity, and I think it applies to love. He said, unity at the sake of truth is not unity. It's heresy. Unity is not the goal. At the sake of truth. Unity at the sake of truth is not unity. And love at the sake of truth is not love. It's abandonment of the gospel. And that's not where we want to be. So he charges them to love with knowledge, wisdom, insight. The two have to be connected. Now look at the second thing he says to them. He said, you may approve what is excellent. Oh, he said, love may abound more and more knowledge and discernment. Verse ten, so that you may approve what is excellent. And the implication here is to keep pursuing holiness, keep approving what is excellent, because he says so, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ by proving what is excellent. You're prepared for the day of Christ. You're growing in holiness. You're growing in purity. You're you're growing in the place of being blameless and ready for his return. And then lastly, the third charge he gives them here, verse 11, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. This last charge is for them to be continuing to bear fruit, keep bearing fruit.

Galatians 5: 27:10

22-23 is a great passage. That's the whole fruit of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things there is no law. We need to be bearing fruit in our lives. We need to be bearing the fruit of the Spirit. But we also need to be bearing spiritual fruit in the lives of others. And I think the way to do that is walking by faith. We have coming up on October 12th, we have our fall festival. Some of you know it as our chili cook off. Yeah, and that is a great day for us to bring other people to church. In fact, I'm calling it our fall Faith Festival. Come by faith. And what I ask you to do one of three things for that festival. And we don't have to say fall Faith Festival to those outside of the church, but internally, that's going to be a day of great faith for us. For some of us, it's trying some of the chili. That's the step of faith. That's our hot chili contest, by the way. We'll get to that. We'll talk about that later. I'm the judge of that. Some of y'all weren't very nice to me last year, but it's still fun. Fall Faith Fest three steps of Faith I want you to take one is to invite someone to come. It could be that person you're going to be praying for every day this week. Maybe it's someone else. Take a step of faith to invite someone. That's a great day for someone to come new to the church, because there's a nice festival afterwards with games and food, a great time to connect. The other would be, maybe you're in a life group and you know a few friends who come to church sporadically or regularly, but they're not in a life group will take a step of faith to invite them to a life group. Just ask, hey, have you tried out a life group? Come to ours because I'm grateful for anyone who comes to church, but your growth is going to be limited by your depth of connection. And if you're not in a regular small group with the other Christians who will help sharpen you and come alongside you, you'll only grow so far spiritually. And so it's for your benefit to get connected into a life group. And maybe that's the third step of faith for some. Maybe you go, you know what? You're right. I don't know if I have the courage to invite anyone, but I'm going to try to take the step of faith to check out a life group on October 12th. That's all. That's about a month away. Let's all be praying for that. For that to be a big day of a step of faith for all of us to just watch God move. Let's see what he might do. Let's pray leading up to it every week. Let's be asking him, God, would you move? Help us to take a step of faith. Who might you put on my heart to invite? The reason why he says all this and we breezed over it real quickly in verse ten, so that you may approve what is excellent. And so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. The reason why we pray the reason why we have a burden for the community, the reason why we want to walk by faith is because there is a day of Christ. There is a day he is coming. We don't know when that is. Every generation thinks it's right away. We don't know, but we need to be ready. As if he were coming today. He will come. He will return. Are you ready? Listen, the point Paul is trying to make to them is to wake up. You slipped into a spiritual malaise. But wake up. Listen, we don't have forever. He could come at any time. Be awake, be ready. Walk by faith. It's true for all of us. It's true for me. Every day I got to be walking by faith. It's too important for us not to. And he comes to them with the encouragement. Walk by faith. Pray. Trust that he's going to move. I believe he what he began here, the good work he started. He will be faithful to complete it in the coming days. Now I'm going to pray to close up the sermon. I got a couple of announcements to make, one about the budget, and then I've got a couple to present to you as new members. So stick around. I want you to hear that, but let me wrap up the message in prayer real quick here. Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you that Paul was burdened to awaken the church in Philippi and God, would you wake us up to the movement of your Spirit? Would we be able to hear your Spirit in all that we do? Would you guide us, help us to walk by faith in the coming days? Help us to be burdened in prayer? Would every day would we pour over the name of a person in prayer? Would we be looking forward to inviting others and we would be bathed in your word and all that we do? We love you, Jesus. Amen.