Opening Prayer
May the God of all grace perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle us (1Pe 5:10).
Text: Philippians 1:6–11
Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Devotion
There is a danger of falling, dear Christian, falling from grace and away from the Lord, – we don’t want to hide this fact. You are not yet at the goal, you can have many dangerous parts of your journey ahead. Balaam and Saul and Solomon and Judas and Demas as well as the forgiven servant in today’s Gospel are presented as examples to warn us, so that no one should fall into inattentiveness and false security. But there is a confidence and comfort of spirit with God, a fine assurance that He will keep us to the end, and that certainty we want to encourage in one another. What Paul says here and elsewhere about this, God wants us to hear and ponder in our heart. “Being confident of this very thing,” he says, “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Can God begin something and leave it half-done? Now God has begun the good work in you. “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a deposit” (2Co 1:21). “We are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1Pe 1:5). God will keep us in His fellowship and continually pour His love into our hearts. The fountain is always full. Its streams always flow through the Holy Church. He always creates thirst for it in our soul. By this means we shall grow, and our love shall abound more and more, ever richer, fuller, and stronger in the reality of life, in “knowledge and all discernment,” so we can shun all evil, “be sincere and without offense … being filled with the fruits of righteousness,” really filled with them, so that there is nothing else in us, “till the day of Christ.”
Such fruits “are worked by Jesus Christ,” not by you or me, but by Him, who is “the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness,” the eternal God (Rev 3:14). The Apostle says, “Just as it is right for me to think this of you all” – not just of one or another of you, but of you all. For I love you, so that “you are in my heart, to die together and to live together” (2Co 7:3), but this is Christ in me, Christ’s love and mercy, and who shall be able to separate you from that? (Rom 8:39).
With such expressions the Holy Spirit evidently wants to incite our soul to full confidence in God’s sustaining and preserving grace. We must acknowledge that we ourselves can do nothing, but entrust ourselves completely to God and rely on the power of His grace, completely assured of His faithfulness to complete the good work begun. Then we can speak the Apostle’s exhortation in this same Epistle: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phi 2:12-13). God does not stop working in you. God wakes in your soul the desire and need to pray and to struggle. God gives you ever new strength for sanctification and all good works. God gives you unceasingly the spirit of fear and the spirit of confidence. Therefore no one may say: “I don’t know if I can keep going.” But let each of you confess: I am “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in me will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” So “we resist the devil, steadfast in the faith” (1Pe 5:9) and fight – not sleep, but watch and fight “in the power of the Lord’s might” (Eph 6:10).
Closing Prayer
God, help us do this. Keep us from falling away from You. Keep us close to You, mighty God. Give us grace to say with Your Apostle: “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2Ti 1:12). Teach us more and more to acknowledge our own powerlessness and to rely only on You, our God. Give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in Your knowledge. Work in us the fruits of righteousness. Let us be filled with them until the day of Christ, to the eternal praise of Your name. Amen.
Hymn
Depart, depart, thou prince of darkness!
No more by thee I’ll be enticed.
Here is indeed a tarnished conscience,
But sprinkled with the blood of Christ.
Away, vain world! O sin, away!
Lo, I renounce you all this day.
And never let my purpose falter,
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;
But keep me faithful to Thine altar
Till Thou shalt call me from my post.
So unto Thee I live and die
And praise Thee evermore on high.
Rambach: Baptized into Thy name L 42:6-7 ELH 242:6-7; tr. C. Winkworth;
tune: O dass ich (Dretzel)