First part of Sermon LXIX. for the Twenty-Second Sunday after
Trinity.
Phil. i. 3-11. St. Matt. xviii. 21-35.
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another;
as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.—ST.
JOHN xiii. 34.
THERE is something peculiarly gentle and affectionate in St. Paul’s
Epistle to the Philippians; it is marked throughout with what we might
call brotherly affections. So much was this the feeling of St. Paul towards
these converts that we find him receiving support from them when he would
not from other Churches. “Even in Thessasalonica,” he says, “ye sent once
and again unto my necessity.” And full of interest is the account, in the
Acts of the Apostles, of his sojourn with them; it was with them that on
the Sabbath day he went out of the city by a river side, and sat down and
taught them. They witnessed his being beaten with many stripes, and thrust
with Silas into the inner prison. What a thousand tender recollections
must he have had of them in all his painful travels; of his first and early
stay with them; of their first knowledge and love of Christ, that wakening
of the soul to things eternal like the first streaks of morning; what sympathy
in their mutual afflictions and trials; what love and joy at their common
deliverances, as when the angel opened the prison doors. Dear to him indeed
must have been all his thoughts of his beloved Philippians, like the smiles
and tears of an infant to its mother, who had borne so much for it. What
hopes, what fellowship of prayers! All this is expressed in the opening
of this Epistle.
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, (always in every prayer
of mine for you all making request with joy,) for your fellowship in the
Gospel from the first day until now; being confident of this very thing,
that He Who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ: even as it is meet for me to thin/c this of you all, because
I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in. the defence
and confirmation of the Gospel, ye are all partakers of my grace. For God
is my record how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.
Blessed Paul, a stranger and a captive in the great heathen Rome, the
hearts of other men at such a time, when about to suffer and die, will
turn to their home; but thou hadst on earth no home but in the hearts of
these thy first children in the faith, “thy beautiful flock” by the still
waters. But the light of the angel in thy midnight prison at Philippi was
not so calm and bright as is the love, in the midst of thy bonds and imprisonment,
which breathes throughout this sweet and Divine Epistle. Easy were thy
chains and light thy sufferings when prayer bound thee more and more, in
the tender mercies of Jesus Christ, to the objects of thy care and love
with such hope and repose. And here we may observe, that earnest
prayer for the salvation of others fills us with a good hope that they
will be saved, which may account for that strong confidence in their final
perseverance which the inspired Apostle here expresses in the midst of
his prayers, and longings, and thanksgivings.
This Divine love of brethren united together in Christ is well likened
to a golden chain let down from the very throne of God; for it not only
binds more and more one with another, but also at the same time lifts up
and draws all together more and more towards Heaven. Thus these kind Philippians,
with their worldly means, and their sympathies and prayers, were aiding
St. Paul, and thus made “partakers of” his “grace ;“ and he, at the same
time, by his most prevailing intercessions, was increasing in them more
and more every spiritual blessing. For thus he proceeds, after calling
upon God as the witness of his affection for them:
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in
knowledge and in all judgement: that ye may approve things that are excellent,
that ye may be sincere and without offence, till the day of Christ: being
filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto
the glory and praise of God. These last words of “fruits by Jesus
Christ unto the glory of God” are even as our Lord Himself had said, in
those His last discourses, in taking leave of His disciples, “He that abideth
in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” And again, “in
this is My Father glorified, that ye bring forth much fruit.”
And this brotherly love to each other of them that are found in Christ,
this bringing forth much fruit in mutual affection and forgiveness, on
account of the love of Christ, is nowhere set forth in a more striking
manner than in the parable from St. Matthew in this day’s Gospel.....
.... (for the second part, on the
Gospel.)
