To Be Known by LOVE

A Community of Faith, Love, & Hope PART 2

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I
consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the
fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippans 3:7-11

This is one of those passages where Paul is describing his own journey, who he was, where he’s been, how he’s
gotten here. Kinda begins w/ a strange moment of arrogance it appears - “look if anyone had it altogether w/out God it was me, if anyone earned the right to hang out with you, be loved by you, be in your presence, Paul was saying it was me.
Paul was a guy who gained political power, religious power,cultural power, this guy had really pulled together what some would say from a worldly perspective, a good life to live.
Here was this guy that had just about everything there was, then he speaks of this encounter he had w/ Jesus Christ and it changed everything he considered valuable.
The he goes off into this LOVE talk - about extra. love
This guy who was so self-righteous, a condemner of men,
begins talking about extra. love.

Love is one of those topics that is tough for us to get a
handle I think b/c it’s a word that we overuse or certainly misuse.
and it then loses it’s power

(family using words properly - HATE - dont say hate someone, you can profoundly dislike them, but dont hate people
and I can teach a whole slew of other descriptive words to use - I hate broc. and to hate evil as the bible says - well the word can lose it meaning. So we kinda reserve extreme language for extreme cases.
How about the word starving?)

We do that w/ everything and we do it w/ love - we love
everything - the brits love their tea, the french love their wine, the italians love their expresso, the swiss love their cheese, the Belgium's love their choc. the hillbillies love their nascar...

So the problem becomes we love our wives, but we love
fantasy football. could be a reason why there’s so much
divorce. we love things equally and improperly.

To be people who are known by love then we really need to know and understand exactly what that is and looks like.
Which drives us to the scriptures - if you have never read the bible, if you don’t really have a sense of what’s at the core of this story - it’s a story of love, of unconditional love, of
undeserving love, of unending, unlimited love.

What paul was saying was, “I was pursuing God in all the wrong ways, as far as legalistically i was there, i tried
everything humanly possible to connect to God and basically saying it didn’t work.

It can be a maddening thing - to try to do all the supposedly right things and left w/ this vacuum-us hole.
By the way, we can’t function well w/out love, so we look to and grasp onto any counterfeit we can find.
Back to what Paul told the Philippians,
7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord...

He says, this is it - just to know, just to be able to wrap my brain around the truth that Jesus walked into human history, and lived a perfect, sinless life and had flesh and blood just like us and allowed himself to be brutally crucified on this death-instrument we call a cross, to die as a perfect sacrifice for my sin and He arose so I could live - and that - to know that is enough to give up everything for.

Paul had found real love - it came in Christ - it came in the form of sacrifice and servanthood.

To be known by LOVE

“I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel. I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.
 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me. Philippians 2:19-30

As you read thru this section of the letter, it’s like Paul is coming to a close then he picks it up again.

Have you recognized in life that you have convo. that are not always right in line with the subject you started with?
Sometimes when you’re having a convo. w/ someone a word clicks your mind and you star talking about something else
or you’re talking about one person and then they remind you of someone else, and then that person reminds you of someone else - and usually the person listening what your saying doesn't really have a connection to what you started talking about but somehow they knew how it all pieced together.

I think this is one of those moments here while paul was writing this.
b/c in the vs. before what we just read he is speaking specific instruction and then all of sudden he starts talking about Timothy, and from Tim. he starts talking about Epaph. and beginning in ch. 3 he’s moved past both of them.

What’s happening here is Paul is writing this letter about
Jesus and he’s encouraging us to live in a manner of Christ and to desire a life modeled after Jesus.
In this discourse of writing about Christ and all He is and has done for us in great sacrifice and service - I think right then Paul’s mind began dominoing. Jesus the servant and then Oh yeah Timothy the servant and Oh yeah Epaph. the
servant - although we may not instantly see the connection, but what is sooo cool is that when Paul began to think of the great servant Jesus other people came to mind.

Now when it comes to God - He stands alone, and we cant even come close to that right. I think we’re all happy letting God be God - we realize He is far more talented and qualified than we’ll ever be so just let it be.

But if there’s something about God that he is willing to share, to give to me, to pass on then man I want that - and here it is
when Paul saw the servant heart of Jesus, the servant nature of Jesus -
I don’t think he could help it - his mind went fluidly to Tim. and Epaph. -
2 close friends thru whom he experienced the servanthood of God to his life and the life of others.

non religious - say help others out - serve

Even though it may fall under the umbrella of "the religious" it is not at all natural for us to move towards serving.
Serving w/in religion, w/in the church would seem to be a natural, but it’s not, and so when we see it we know
something special is happening.
When we experience the genuine servanthood of another human being, when someone places us above them, when someone sacrifices of their time and energy to do something on our behalf - it does something inside of us - it makes us wonder if we couldn’t be different as human beings.

We begin to see that maybe what it means to be connected to Jesus is something more than just being religious.
Wouldn’t it wonderful if that when someone thought of Jesus they couldn’t help but think of you.
B/c they can’t really see Jesus serving, but they can see you and me serving, they begin to see Jesus in and thru us.

“I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.” Phil. 2:19-22

- others above ourselves (sacrifice)
- prove ourselves (not a one and done)
- he has served

“But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me.” vs. 25-30

- others above himself (sacrifice)
- you don’t get better then serve, you serve to get better
It doesnt matter where you are you can serve today - “Im intersted in serving, I’m interested in helping, I’m interested in making a difference, but right now I’ve gotta focus on me, I gotta get me better 1st” - ever heard that, ever said that, ever thought that to God?
- Christlike service


To be known by love has nothing to do w/ how spiritual you are - how religious you are - how much doctrine and
theology you have stored up in your mind -
It is all about sacrifice and service
The mark of maturity and to be known by love is how willing we are to give our lives away for the sake of Christ and the sake of others - it’s being focused on eternity

So here’s Paul describing this encounter with real love - the sacrifice and servanthood of Christ - I thought of Jesus and Timothy came to mind, and Epaph. came to mind

How am I serving others?
How am I making others more important myself?
How am I giving my life away?