In this segment of our series on “face-to-face” we are looking at the encouragement of Paul to the Church in Philippi.

These saints had financially partnered with Paul from the very beginning of his ministry. In fact, it was immediately following support they had just sent to him while in prison by the messenger of their church Ephaphroditus that Paul wrote this letter.

We find that the encouragement he wrote to them is essentially the same as that to the Ephesians and for the same reasons. These believers possessed zealous love for their fellow Christians, even other churches where Paul ministered the Gospel. Time and again giving to his support. Additionally they expressed loyal faithfulness to Christ Jesus their Lord. These two attributes were Paul’s stated reason for praying the following for them – “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, (10) SO THAT YOU MAY APPROVE WHAT IS EXCELLENT, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, (11) filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

As we will see next week in Colossians, the same appeal is made to the Father on their behalf due to very similar reasons.

This morning I did not preach from notes, but simply started off by offering an explanation of what we were covering and why. Then I read and provided teaching and commentary on the text – drawing out that which I felt was immediately relevant to us by the Spirit’s leading.

I knew I could go several places this morning and still be on topic, but honestly most of those places would have certainly been more correctional than encouraging.
So we began a small series within a series, exploring what Paul said by way of encouragement to the saints of Ephesus, Philippi and Colossae.

We began with Ephesians where Paul mentions two things – their continuing faith in the LORD Jesus and love for the brethren. He mentions this as the BASIS for his prayers for them in all three of the letters I mentioned above.

WHAT he petitioned God for was wisdom, understanding and enlightenment regarding Who God is, who they are destined to be and God’s power to bring it to pass!

To illustrate the need for such a prayer I mentioned Paul’s words to the church of Corinth in 1 Corinthians 13:12. That all of us, on our best and most spiritually clear days, are looking through a glass dimly. That has a large bearing upon the ‘what’ and ‘why’ behind Paul’s prayers.

I go into some detail about what the “glass” actually was (meaning the metaphor Paul used to illustrate this truth) and that “dimly” essentially meant an enigma, a riddle, something obscure to the understanding.