How to Love the Church When We Can’t Be Together

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:3-11

This is a unique time in the lives of many Christians around the globe. There are many of us who have taken for granted the certainty of gathering freely with the local body of Christ. A dangerous virus, a national state of emergency, stay-at-home orders, the cancellation of church meetings for the foreseen future. This can be quite the shock to our system! But I am not naive enough to think that this is the only reason anyone has or will not be able to meet with their church.

Some Christians are soldiers, deployed far from their families and their churches, others are persecuted and in hiding, many are incapable of attendance because of illness, weakness, the lack of a vehicle, or living in a nursing home, still others are serving time in prison. This last point sticks with me because several of Paul’s letters are written from a jail cell.

The book of Philippians is primarily a letter of report to encourage the worried believers of Philippi. He constantly thanks them for their concern and for their aid while he is unjustly imprisoned while assuring them that this has been good for the gospel. The famous “To live is Christ, to die is gain” is another assurance that even if this takes Paul’s life it will have been worth it to advance God’s gospel.

What may help us in our forced separation however, can be found at the very beginning of the letter. In the first chapter, Paul lays out what it’s like to be away from the local body of believers.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy…

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart…

For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

One thing is for sure: Paul loved the church as much (maybe more) when he was separated from them as when he was with them. They say “distance makes the heart grow fonder” and that proved to be the case for Paul. While he was away, he longed to be with them and that love led him to remember and to pray.

We might ask of ourselves whether we are secretly glad for the break from our congregation or if we are indifferent, or if we only feel slightly inconvenienced, or, like Paul, if we are heart-broken and yearning for them “with the affection of Christ Jesus”. As Jesus loves his Bride the Church, Paul loved and longed them too. Do you?

Before we go any further, I want to be very clear about one thing. I have a love-hate relationship with application dealing with emotions, affections, and longings. The reason I love them is because Christ does not want simply our actions but our hearts. There is not a square inch of our lives (including our attitudes, our longings, and our desires) that Christ does not claim as His own. So I do love applications aimed at the affections, but I worry about them as well.

If you resolve to change your own heart, you will fail. “Fake it till you make it” leaves us with a whole lot of faking and very little making. And so, let me be clear, the response to conviction over our heart is not a mere resolution to fix ourselves. It is dependent prayer and earnestness and confession to God, that He might in His grace move us to love what He loves.

A worthwhile digression is still a digression, so let’s move on.

The first lesson Paul teaches us about being away from the body is that we must love and long for them. The second, is to remember them. No one is more guilty than I am of “out of sight, out of mind”. It can be so difficult to maintain relationships once they move from face-to-face to screen-to-screen. Yet, Paul stands as a wonderful reminder of remembrance:

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you…

…because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

…for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

For Paul, remembrance goes deeper than being a “good texter” (whatever that even means) but is a time for him to reflect on the joys of doing ministry together. Paul remembers how the Philippian church worked with him for the good of the gospel of God. He remembered the joys of sharing in God’s grace as adopted brothers and sisters and he remembered their faithfulness and love in his imprisonment as well as in his ministry.

Now is the time for us to reflect on the fellowship we are deprived of. The joy of serving with other lovers of God. The warmth of friendship and partnership. The wonder of fellowship in the blood of Jesus. Loving the people of God should lead us to remember the grace of God in them and to give thanks.

This last point should be obvious, but there are a few obstacles still to face. If we want to love the Church while away from the body, we should long for them, we should remember the grace of God in them, and we should pray proactively for them.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy…

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more…

One obstacle we face is that we view prayer as a reaction. Some of the best men of prayer I know have absorbed this truth and embody it well. Prayer was never intended to be exclusively reactionary, it was meant to be proactive as well! Prayer is not merely a means of avoiding danger, evil, illness, car crashes, and job loss. It is the means by which we call upon God for the good as well as for safety from the bad.

Look at the points that Paul prays for the Philippian church:

And it is my prayer that:

• your love may abound more and more,

• with knowledge and all discernment,

• so that you may approve what is excellent,

• and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

• filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ,

• to the glory and praise of God.

Paul prays for their spiritual health, not because they are at risk but simply because he wants them to continue in faith! His prayer is for love among the saints, for knowledge and discernment, for good teaching, for purity and blamelessness, for good works of righteousness, and for their lives to glorify God. This isn’t anything new for Paul, all of his letters contain proactive prayers for the churches he knew to grow spiritually and glorify God.

So, while we are apart.
While we long for each other.
While we remember the joys of being sons and daughters of God together.

Let’s pray for more fellowship. For greater love. For discernment and wisdom in what is true. For purity. For righteousness. For the glory of God.

And let’s pray that we can be together soon.

Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.
I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.