4. “Slowing and Simplifying Our Lives” (Philippians 1)

In a talk a few years ago at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, the sociologist, Hartmut Rosa, said this about the speed of modern life:

“One very curious but consistent fact about late modern life is that almost irrespective of their values, status and moral commitments, [people] feel notoriously short on time and tirelessly pressed to hurry.  Individuals from Rio to New York, Los Angeles to Moscow and Tokyo feel caught in a rat-race of daily routines.  They are possessed by the fear of losing out, of being left behind, of not being able to catch up with all the requirements they feel obliged to meet.  No matter how fast they run, they close their day as subjects of guilt: they almost never succeed in working off their to do lists. Thus, even and especially if they have enough money and wealth, they are indebted temporally. This is what perhaps characterizes [most accurately] the everyday predicament of the overwhelming majority of [people] in Western capitalist societies: Amidst monetary and technological affluence, they are close to temporal [bankruptcy].”[1] 

In other words, we’re running ourselves into the ground with our busyness. We are piling on debt with regard to time.  Picture the “to do” list like a credit card statement.  We just keep swiping the card of time adding more and more to do. The debt is rising, and our bodies can’t bear the cost. Regardless of what you believe or value, he’s saying we live in a restless, busy, guilt-ridden world.  There may be less people that feel guilty before God, but the guilt of failing at life and the fear of not doing life well is ever present.  We are afraid of failure, of missing out, of not keeping up.  We feel guilty for not doing enough, not being enough, always feeling behind and stressed out. Is there a way out? Is there a better way to live?

This morning we’re going to specifically focus on chapter 1 verses 9-11 of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where through Paul’s prayer, we can see a vision of a better way. First, look at the text with me and consider the logical flow of what Paul is praying. In verse 9, Paul prays that we would grow in love, love that is wise and discerning.  The point of growing in this kind of love is that we would know what really matters, what really counts. From this wisdom shaped love that helps us know what really matters, that would produce a life in us that is sincere (pure and blameless), focused toward the goal, that is, the day when Jesus returns and ushers in the fullness of his kingdom.  He prays that as we grow in love and live toward that day, that through Jesus we would be filled with the fruit of righteousness all to God’s praise and glory.  There is a way to slow down and simplify our lives.  There is a way of learning what really counts, what really matters, and living a life of wholeheartedness, a life that is fruitful.  And that life is found in Jesus and formed in us as we grow in love. 

You see, one of the problems of modern life is there is no clearly defined idea of what the good life is.  In our pluralistic world where people believe and value many different and contradictory things and where there is differing opinion about what is right and wrong, there’s no clear “good life” to pursue.  If you asked 100 people “what is the purpose of life?” you’d get all sorts of different answers and probably many that would say, “everyone has to figure that out for themselves.” We’re left to figure that out. It’s up to us.  But because there’s no clear way or path to pursue and we’re trying to figure it out, we try and fill up life with as many things as possible, as many experiences, opportunities, projects, things so at least maybe one day we’ll get somewhere and feel full… or we at least hope we will.

There’s a movie that wonderfully pictures for us a life lived toward various goals where, in the end, the main character discovers that the life truly worth living is found in self-giving love.  Many of you know that Erin and I were at Trinity about 15 years ago when I was a grad student at Wheaton.  And one February, we just had to watch this movie and because this was around 2010 we were looking for the DVD, and we looked all over.  I called up various stores until we finally found it at a Best Buy in Lombard off 38.  It is a philosophically rich movie from the 90’s, staring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell – yes, I’m talking about none other than, “Groundhog Day.” The basic plot of the movie is you have this guy, Phil Connors.  He’s a cynical and selfish person.  He’s a weatherman who must go to Punxsutawney, PA to cover the Groundhog Day festivities and he’s quite grumpy about it.  He ends up in some kind of time loop, where every day he wakes up and its Groundhog Day.  Groundhog Day all over again.  He lives this day repeatedly, according to some “experts” on reddit he ends up living almost 34 years in the time loop. 

As he lives this same day over and over again, you see this character living toward various ends.  He’s trying to make life work, he’s trying to find happiness, and initially he pursues things like money, sex, and power, three categories that various people have used to describe what drives our modern world, things that we’re often led to seek after, but that don’t ultimately deliver on their promises of happiness and fulfillment. To pursue money, he robs a bank, has all the money he could want. Sex, or pursuing pleasure, he realizes that he just learns enough information about people. If he learns where someone is from, what they like or are passionate about, he can pretend to be the perfect match and can manipulate his way into a relationship with them.

In pursuit of power, because he lives the same day he develops a god-like omniscience, knowing all things. The one thing he can’t get in all these is love. He can’t get real relationship. About halfway through the movie he realizes that he desires his coworker, Rita (played by Andie MacDowell). At first, he tries to go after her by the same tactics he used on other women, amassing information and trying to use that to win her, and it all utterly fails. She wants nothing to do with him. It’s only as he is able to learn to love others, to spend his days giving himself in love for others, that he actually finds life and experiences real love. To find life he has to have the right goal and he has to become a certain kind of person. 

In this prayer, Paul who knows the Christians of his day, just like people in our day, can be living toward all sorts of various ends and all sorts of different goals. He prays oriented to the ultimate goal: the Day of Christ.  You see that mentioned in v. 10 where Paul prays they would be “pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”  But you can also see it in v. 6 where Paul wrote, “He who began a good work in your will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” You see, in Jesus, God has come into this world.  He came and defeated death and sin and evil by dying on the cross and rising again.  This is the gospel; the good news of what Jesus has done.  He has brought a new way of life, and new way to be human. As we are brought into right relationship with God through Jesus and made more and more like Jesus, we await the day when Jesus will return, and the fullness of his kingdom will come into this world.  This is the reality we’re meant to live toward. And Paul sees the goal and he prays that we would grow in love.  He prays that we would grow in love so that our lives have clarity.  He prays we would grow in love so that our lives are fruitful in Jesus.  Let’s consider these two things, as we look at this prayer.

Paul prays that we would grow in love so that our lives have clarity.  Look with me at the text:

⁹ And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more,”

In 1 Cor 13, Paul’s famous chapter on love – the first thing he says about love is that, “love is patient.”  Love isn’t in a hurry.  It doesn’t rush.  It isn’t busy and frantic.  It is slow.  We can all probably think about times when we’re feeling rushed, when we’re busy, when we feel stressed out by everything going on.  Aren’t those often the times when we find ourselves failing to love?  

Love isn’t efficient.  A relationship can’t be hacked.  Becoming a person of love can’t be optimized mechanically, like a computer.  Love takes time. If the modern world is pushing us in the direction of more speed and living at a faster pace with constantly busyness, we must recognize that it is pushing us in the opposite direction of love. And as Paul writes and prays here, love is not primarily a feeling or affection.  Growing in love is about becoming the kind of person who lives in the world with loving action and deeds.  Love is about character.

In the context of Philippians, the love Paul is talking about is that which participates in this mission of the gospel, the good news of Jesus.  Look at v. 5 – This is what Paul has been thanking God for: that these Christians in Philippi are true partners in the gospel.  Look at v. 7-8 – Paul and these believers are bonded together through shared love and partaking in grace and mission together. Read the rest of Philippians and you will see this is slow and hard work, because it means working with other people, and loving other people, considering others and their interests, not just your own.  It means not just going at your own pace, but living a pace where you can stand with others in mission, united around the good news of Jesus.

Paul prays v. 9 that our “love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment.” This isn’t sentimental love. This is love of God and love of others that has been formed by experience and understanding.  This is a discerning love that intuits how to act and behave and live in a way that builds up and loves others well.  Just like loving people requires slowness, growing in this kind of love slow and gradual. 

I remember in my years working with college students in campus ministry, how often students would come wanting guidance for their lives.  They were often deeply afraid of messing up their lives.  They wanted to be able to live well, to make good decisions.  They might be trying to figure out what to do with their life or career.  Sometimes it had more to do with a problem, a hard situation in their life, a struggle, or some problem in a relationship.  And think about yourself, when you are in a difficult situation, or when you’re faced with a difficult decision about the future. What are you looking for?  So often what they wanted was a technique.  What are the three steps I can do to figure out God’s will.  What are the four steps to fixing this relational problem.  And I remember thinking, especially considering passages like this one and other prayers in the New Testament, that what the Bible holds out as the answer so frequently is not a technique, but it is to become a different sort of person.  It is to become and grow into a person who has been formed by love and wisdom.  A person who has been formed by trusting God and hoping in God. We have to change and grow.  We have to give ourselves to the slow work of being formed by love. It would be easier if there was a technique, and I didn’t have to change.  But it appears that what God is interested in is that we actually grow and change and become different people.

Maybe I’m trying to get more out of this movie than is there, but I wonder… why is it, that when Bill Murray’s character Phil Connors starts to live his life in the direction of love, one of the seemingly random things he does is he begins taking piano lessons?  It’s genius. See, unlike technique that doesn’t require any change in you, playing an instrument requires practice, and the practice doesn’t leave you the same. It is an embodied act that literally changes your brain. You become a person who plays the piano as connections between your brain and muscle memory are made, as music on a page translates to fingers, as sounds you hear are connected to finger movements and chord shapes. It’s slow, it’s hard, it’s a bit awkward, it requires a diligence and not giving up when you hit a roadblock… it’s a lot like learning to love. 

But this is why this is so important? If we want clarity in our lives we must be formed by Love.  Look at the logic of these verses. In verse 9 Paul prays that Christians would grow in love… V. 10 “¹⁰ so that you may approve what is excellent, “Which is to say – so that you might know what really counts, what really matters.  We said last week that sitting at Jesus’ feet relativizes and transforms how we relate to culture values.  We saw it in Mary’s life. There are so many things that our culture values and that it will push us to value. What if you could have clarity?  What if you could be formed by the love of Jesus such that when you look at your life and all the different parts of your life; your work, your commitments, your relationships, you had real clarity about what matters? 

You see, slowing down and growing in love helps us to simplify our lives.  To check certain things that maybe we care about, but aren’t ultimately important.  Or to have things or people brought to our attention that really matter and that we really must invest in. Paul prays that we would grow in love so that our lives have clarity.  He prays we would grow in love so that our lives are fruitful in Jesus. 

 He prays v. 10 that we would “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.”

He prays that our lives would bear fruit. Fruit is metaphor used throughout the Scriptures.  Fruit doesn’t come from nowhere. Notice this fruit is that which comes “through Jesus Christ.”  This isn’t fruit you can fake or produce by your will power. Fruit also doesn’t come instantaneous; it must be cultivated.  Paul prays that our lives would grow in wise love, that understands what really matters so that we would live wholehearted toward the coming day of Christ and through Christ live lives that are truly fruitful.    

If you were to continue reading through Philippians you would come to chapter 2 where Paul writes of what Jesus Christ did; how he didn’t cling to his privileges, he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, he humbled himself to the point of death by crucifixion. All this we’re meant to see and conclude that this is what God is like. The deepest and strongest impression as you look at the cross is meant to be. This is what God is like. He is the God of self-giving love. 

And yet in that very passage the whole point of Paul writing these things about Jesus was to say to these Christians, and to us, this way of life, this way of thinking, this way of self-giving love, this is to be the pattern of your life. This way of thinking, this vision for life that Jesus lived is yours too through faith in him. 

If this is what God is like, if what Jesus did in his life and his death truly showed what God is like, if self-giving love is at the heart of God, then to know God, and grow in Jesus is to learn this way of love. You see, there is a new way to be human in and through Jesus. There is a way to be like God in all the ways you’re meant to be. And yet, this fruitful life isn’t something that just comes naturally or without any effort. This way of thinking is yours if you believe in Jesus.  But it is something that has to be lived out and worked out; worked out in life, worked out in the community of God’s people.

This is why Paul in Philippians 2 not only writes about Jesus but holds out two other examples – Timothy andEpaphroditus.  Not people who were sinless or perfect, but people whose lives are growing in love and being filled with the fruit of righteousness. The fruit has to be cultivated.  It grows through a life of love, of knowing God’s love, of dwelling in his love, of learning the way of Jesus.   

 N.T. Wright, in his fantastic book, After You Believe, tells the story of Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Roman Catholic priest who died in 1941 in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.  Prior to Auschwitz, Kolbe had served at a priest in occupied Poland.  His church and the local community helped to hide, feed, and clothe some 3,000 Polish refugees, about half which were Jewish.   In 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo and eventually taken to Auschwitz. During his time at Auschwitz, Kolbe was known for his calmness, his faith, his love, and care for others.  Following a prisoner’s escape, ten men were randomly selected to die by starvation as punishment.  One of the men, upon hearing he had been selected began to weep for his wife and children who were also with him in the camp.  Kolbe stepped forward and offered himself in the man’s place.  He went to his death calmly, ministering to the nine other men.  After two weeks of starvation Kolbe was still alive and was killed by lethal injection.   

Wright comments, Kolbe “was doing something [that was] the climax of a life spent in giving himself away, in following Jesus…[When that moment in the camp came…] He didn’t have time to think, [but] he didn’t need to.  The thinking had been done a long time before, and the second-nature habits of self-giving love had been ingrained in him as a result.  The moment came; the decision was made.”[2] Here was a man who had learned the way of love, who’s life had been shaped by and oriented to the way of love, by 10,000 mini-decisions throughout his life that shaped him into the kind of person who is “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.”  Here was a man whose life that embodied what is at the heart of the universe: God’s self-giving love. 

The Good news of Jesus is that not only has Jesus died and risen for you to forgive you and make you right with God.  The Good News of Jesus is that right now there is a better way to live, a life that is formed by love. It’s only the kind of life we could ever hope to live because God started this whole thing in us through the work of his Spirit and God who started this work will bring it to completion.  That’s what Paul has just reminded these believers in Philippi in v. 6.   Even while we are called to work out this amazing salvation given to us, at every step of the way we can only do so because God is at work in us.  And this is again, why we’re doing this series “Habits for Love” – we want the right ideas and beliefs about Jesus given in the Scriptures to be things not only in our heads, but lived out and worked out in our lives, which means in our schedules, habits, and practices.  Growing in this way of love will help us live with a greater clarity and will help us live fruitfully as we learn how to be a new kind of human in Jesus. 

In our Habits for Love series, we’re in the part of this shared community project where we “Attend to Grace.” Last week in Sunday school and in an email, we introduced a way of practicing prayer that was meant to help you process your day in light of God’s presence, goodness, and faithfulness in your life. Today in Sunday school and then again in an email that will go out this Tuesday morning, we’re inviting you to try engaging in a practice of meditating on God’s word.  Geoff’s going to be leading that and sharing more how you might engage in this practice of slowing down with Scripture, seeking to listen well to Jesus. This is the remedy to a busy, chaotic, stressed life.  As we learn to slow down with God in prayer and Scripture, as we learn to rest in him, as we learn to drink deeply of his grace, rooted and grounded in his love, we will be able to live lives of greater clarity, oriented toward Jesus, hopeful and fruitful in and through him. 

[1] “Two Versions of the Good life & Two Forms of Fear,” presented to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, November 8-9, 2017.

[2] N.T. Wright, After You Believe, 270.