Phil. 1:3-5 - Prayers

3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,
4 always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all,
5 in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.

Vs. 3 - “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,”

“I thank my God” - God, to Paul, was not an amorphous ‘thing’ that existed outside the known realm. God is real. God is present, here. God is personal. We have too easily adopted the Platonic idea (also Eastern religions) that the physical universe is real, and the spiritual universe is unreal. I do not mean ‘untrue’ or ‘false’. Because we cannot feel, touch, taste, or sense it there is an unknowable quality about the spiritual. Just because no one has seen God (1 John 4:12, John 1:18), and God is a spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth (See: John 4:23, 24) does not mean He is not real.

“In all my remembrance” - Paul’s ministry was not a ‘traveling salesman’ type, where he swooped into a town, had a tent meeting for a few days and then moved on. He stayed and provided discipleship for the new believers until he was driven out of town by enemies of Christ. Paul’s calling was to Gentiles. He did not ignore the Jews. He almost always started his ministry in a synagogue. The advantage of preaching Christ to Jews is that they understood the concept of God, the Spirit, and the Messiah. The disadvantage of preaching to the Jews was the resistance to ‘leaving’ Judaism for Christianity. They had to be able to know they were not blaspheming in converting.

The disadvantage of preaching Christ to Gentiles was they may not have any experience with a monotheistic faith. The advantage of preaching to the Gentiles was they had no barriers such as blasphemy to hurdle. Gentiles can be saved when we see our need for forgiveness of sin; when we see that we cannot work our way from our sinful nature to a perfect and holy God; when we open our hearts to Jesus.
The mission is much the same in America today as Paul’s to the Gentiles. We are living in a society that is vaguely familiar with God, the Spirit, and the Son. Modern man has many gods in his life, but not God. Some do not see the need for God, or forgiveness from sin. They do not see they could be “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of His Son.” (Col. 1:13)

Paul knew his ‘converts’ needed to become disciples - people who could live by faith, just as they believed by faith in Jesus Christ. This concern was always on his mind. Paul felt responsibility for ‘his believers’. Actually they were Jesus Christ’s believers. Paul was intimately involved in their coming to belief. Discipleship is a growing process. Christianity is not a snapshot, where everything is frozen in place for all time.
There is a beginning - believe and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.
There is a growing and maturing process - living for Christ daily.
There is an ultimate end - eternal life with Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit.

Vs. 4 - “always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all,”

“Always” - Every time he thought of ‘his believers’ - and they were always on his mind. If you have children, they are always in your thoughts, even when full-grown with children of their own. I do not know if Paul was married with children of his own. I think not. The believers of the churches, Galatia, Ephesus, Colossae, etc., were his ‘children’. He was with them when they were born again. He nurtured them in their spiritual infancy. There were ‘grandchildren’ also.
The idea that these children in the faith were growing in faith brought Paul joy. This is the abundant life Jesus told us about. In some ways, expressing thoughts on joy is difficult - so many of the words also relate to ‘happy’. Joy is not about “happy, happy.” Joy has the aspects of peace, of confidence, of contentment, of assurance of the ultimate end result. Happy is often based on circumstances. I am happy when Oregon State wins a football game. I am happy when OSU wins the college National World Series. I am not so happy when ‘we’ lose to the ducks (the team who’s logo looks like a toilet bowl). The happiness contributes to the joy in my life; it is not the joy itself.

“Prayer with joy” - We often think of “prayer with thanksgiving”, but not usually prayer with joy. Is it because we are usually asking for help from the Lord? We get the idea that Paul was not ‘straight-laced, sober and sad’ when he prayed. His absolute trust in the Lord moved his attitude in prayer away from, “I’m asking, but God probably won’t answer” which is a very ‘Eeyore’ type of attitude.
Our faith is limiting our prayers. Jesus said so. See: Luke 17:5, 6; Matt.17:20; Jam. 1:6, 7.

Vs. 5 - “in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.”

“In view of your participation in the gospel” - Boiled down, the sentence that makes up verses 3-5 is: “I thank God in joyful prayer for your fellowship in the gospel.” Anyone who committed their life into Christ’s care gave Paul joy. Various translation render participation as either fellowship, or partnership. I like either of those better. We don’t get ‘participation trophies’ for showing up. Christianity is not soccer for kids under 6. There are no prizes for just showing up. As we go through this letter we will see how much Paul appreciated the personal involvement of the church in Philippi in his ministry.

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