Praying with Joy
I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. 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. It is right for me 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, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:3-11
Please think about your prayers for your friends. What is the substance of your prayer? Do your prayers focus on physical needs, spiritual needs, or both?
Paul writes to his friends in Philippi while he is imprisoned in Rome. His memories of them and their time together warm his heart, and based on his personal knowledge of who they are in Christ Jesus, he trusts that they are continuing to share the message of the gospel to others, and this give him joy. He prays for his friends and even while in prison, his prayers are filled with joy.
Luke describes a glimpse of Paul and Timothy’s time in Philippi, and through the brief account in Chapter 16 of Acts we see them interacting with people who likely were active in the church there. Way back during his first missionary journey, Paul received a vision from God of a man asking Paul to come to Macedonia. Paul, Timothy and Luke immediately traveled to Philippi, the main city of Macedonia. After a few days, on the sabbath, they left the city and went down by the river where people gathered to pray. They prayed and talked to people there, and as Lydia interacted with the men, God opened her heart and she heard the gospel and believed, and she and her household was baptized. She invited the men to stay in her home in Thyatira, and they did.
One day, as they walked to the place of prayer, a slave girl started following them. She had a spirit of divination within her that allowed her to make money for her owner by fortune-telling, and she followed them shouting, “These men are slaves of the Most High God who proclaim to you the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17). For days she followed them shouting the message, which was accurate, but annoying. Eventually Paul commanded the spirit to leave the girl, and it obeyed, destroying her earning potential.
The girl’s owners were angry, so they asked friends in power to arrest Paul and Timothy and they did. Paul and Timothy were in jail praying and singing hymns. Around midnight, a violent earthquake shook the jail, opened all the doors, and unshackled their chains. When the jailer awoke, he saw the open doors and, assuming the prisoners had escaped, pulled his sword to kill himself, but Paul called to him. The jailer wanted to be saved and he met Jesus and he took the men to his home and fed them and cared for their wounds and his entire household was baptized.
These were the sort of folks that likely made up the church in Philippi. Paul and Timothy knew them. They were friends with shared stories and experiences. So when Paul writes, “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now” he really knows them, and he knows and trusts that they are continuing to share the gospel of Christ Jesus, because he knows who they are.
Paul is in prison, and he constantly prays with joy. He says he feels joy because his friends share the gospel with others. We know from other places in Scripture that joy is connected with an encounter with God (please see last week’s devotional), and we know that Paul was truly plugged in to Jesus. He knew Jesus and Jesus knew him. Even evil spirits knew Paul to be a man of Christ (see Acts 19:15). Paul’s friends in Philippi were the fruit of his effort, or really, the fruit of Christ Jesus’ effort working through Paul. Paul was called to serve God by preaching the gospel of Christ Jesus to Gentiles (see Romans 15:16), and his friends continued his mission and carried it forward while he was in prison. And Paul rejoiced over that fact.
So Paul remembered his friends and prayed for them with great joy, and at verse 9 he writes,
And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11
Paul prays for his friends’ spiritual condition. He prays that they will continue to be filled with Christ’s love so much that His love overflows from them, with knowledge and full insight so that they might continue to be pure and blameless – Christ’s love, knowledge and discernment revealing themselves through their pure heart, blameless interaction with others and efforts producing “the harvest of righteousness through Christ Jesus for the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11).
Paul rejoices because they are continuing to reach out to others telling the gospel of Christ Jesus, and he prays for his friends to continue growing in Christ Jesus and to continue producing fruit as a result of their relationship with the holy One. He prays for their spiritual condition.
I invite you to consider your prayer life. When you pray for your friends, what is your prayer? We often focus on physical needs, which are temporary. Please consider Paul’s example and expand your prayer to focus on matters of eternal significance such as their spiritual condition, their relationship with God through Christ Jesus, and the harvest of righteousness produced through their efforts for God’s glory. May it all be for God’s glory. Amen.