Call to worship:
97 Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is ever with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for your testimonies are my meditation.
100 I understand more than the aged,[h]
for I keep your precepts.
101 I hold back my feet from every evil way,
in order to keep your word.
102 I do not turn aside from your rules,
for you have taught me.
103 How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104 Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.Psalm 119:97-104
Gathering Video
Questions for reflection:
What does Paul show us about prayer?
How does the gospel shape community?
What are the metaphors and encouragements given toward growth?
Corporate Prayer:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, the power and glory forever
Amen
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Notes//Quotes//Slides:
Philippians 1:3-11 - Karen
Every other ethical system calls us to the costly effort of becoming what we are not. But in the full salvation already bequeathed to us in Christ, the new nature is already ours, waiting for expression, poised for growth, until its potential is triggered by our obedience to the word of God - Alec Motyer
“A striking feature of this verse is the way that Paul stacks up the words for all and always. The rhetorical impact is strengthened by Paul’s use of alliteration (each word begins with the letter p) and by a play on words with similar sounds (pasē … pantote … pasē … pantōn). This serves to spotlight “the all-inclusiveness of his prayer … None of the Philippians Christians for any reasons whatever was excluded from the apostles’ love and concern” - Dean Flemming
“I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce.The Resurrection is the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled.” JRR Tolkien
“Paul’s confidence is not in the Christianity of the Christians, but in the God-ness of God, who is supremely trustworthy, able, and committed to finish the work he has begun” Markus Bockmuel
“God is always good and I am always loved. Everything is eucharisteo.” Ann Voskamp
Acts 16:11-15
“We are not to reflect on the wickedness of men but to look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, an image which, by its beauty and dignity, should allure us to love and embrace them.” - John Calvin
“We must understand that God does not "love" us without liking us - through gritted teeth - as "Christian" love is sometimes thought to do. Rather, out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it. The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what he is to the core - which we vainly try to capture with our tired but indispensable old word “love” - Dallas Willard
“The word affection (splanchna) originally referred to the inner organs (heart, liver, lungs), which were seen as the seat of human emotions. In the Gospels, it expresses Jesus’ heartfelt compassion toward others. Here Paul says that he loves his dear friends in Philippi with the same affection that Christ has for them. At the same time, Christ loves the Philippians through Paul. This testifies to a “three-way bond” of love between Paul, the Philippians, and Christ” - Dean Flemming
What God desires from us, he graciously forms in us as we grow in our love for him. Ruth Chou Simmons