It Is Right For Me To Think This of You All

Introduction

Well, no jokes today, no stories of Alabama, just this. I thank my God. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making request for you with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 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.

Inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.

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 in all discernment, and that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense to the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and the praise of God. This is the day we’ve not been looking forward to. And I started to say, I apologize, but I don’t really apologize. I’m going to have a difficult time this morning.

I’m working on it. I’m taking testosterone boosters. So hopefully that will help. But right now, I’m dealing with it.

And so I thought I would let the Apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit speak for me. And so I thought what to say on this last Sunday with you after almost eight years of laboring together in the gospel. I can think of no better words than what Paul said to a congregation of God’s people who obviously meant a lot to him. You can hear it, you can feel it in those words, can’t you? As Paul in his swan song, near the end of his life, wrote to this congregation and said to them, It is right for me to think of think this of you all. And it’s right for me to think this of you. And so I just want to borrow the words that the Holy Spirit gave Paul and to say to you what he tried to say to them.

1. I Thank You for Your Fellowship in the Gospel

He said, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. And so I just want to leave you today by thanking you, and thanking God for you. Like the apostle Paul would say to the church at Philippi, I thank you for your fellowship. He said, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.

I thank God for every remembrance of you, and I thank you for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. It might be that Paul has specifically in mind in that one use of the word fellowship, the idea of their financial support of him. In chapter 4, he would use it in that way. Philippians chapter 4 and in verse 15, he would say, Now, now you Philippians, you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving, but you only. Now, Paul’s fellowship with those Christians at Philippi wasn’t limited to that, but he was certainly thankful for their monetary fellowship, for their support for him in the preaching of the gospel.

The apostle recognized that he would have been unable to do the work that he did if not for their financial and their otherwise support of him in the preaching of the gospel. I recognize that as well.

And I know the jokes abound that I only work one day a week. But I also know the truth of the matter is that I couldn’t do this without your support, financial and otherwise. That the sacrifices and the giving and the generosity that you’ve shown have made it possible so that I could devote my life to God’s word, to studying his word and to praying about his word and to presenting and preparing and presenting Bible class lessons and sermons, and you made that possible.

When he said, I have you in my heart, and I thank God for every remembrance of you. He wasn’t just talking about money. When he says, I thank you for your fellowship in the gospel. It was more than just a financial transaction. And it has been for us.

Fellowship literally means joining together or sharing together, and we’ve done that. We’ve shared.

We have laughed together. You know me, you know that’s one of my greatest delights is laughing, helping other people to laugh. But we’ve shared in tears. We’ve wept together. We’ve wept together in the waiting rooms and in hospital room. We’ve wept together in the funeral home. And in each other’s home, and in this building.

So that we would have those to weep with and to rejoice with. And I thank God that He put us together so that we could laugh together and we could weep together and that we could worship together. That’s the highest form of fellowship is that when we join our hearts and our minds and our souls together in adoration to our Father and to His blessed Son to His Holy Spirit. And we’ve done that together. And through some weird twist of fate, we did that apart for a while, didn’t we? Remember when about five or ten of us would come here to the building and dress up and broadcast worship services just over the internet, and then we would get back together for our Zoom studies. We fellowship the best we could.

And I thank God for you.

2. The Need and Importance of Love

Simply stated, we cannot overemphasize the need and the importance of love. Do a Google search this afternoon. Ask AI or some chat bot that you might know about. How many times does the word love appear in the Bible? You may or you may not be surprised by its frequency. You’ll read about God’s love for mankind. That’s really the whole story of the Bible, isn’t it? There wouldn’t be a Bible if it wasn’t for God’s love for us. You’ll read about man’s love for God and how God seeks that. We don’t know why He wants us and wants fellowship with us and wants us to love Him reciprocally, but He does.

If any comfort of love, that a wonderful expression. Any comfort of love. Love is the most comfortable of all the emotions and the expressions of life. If there’s any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. And simply put, and maybe too simply put, you’ve done that for me. You’ve given me love, and with it you’ve given me comfort. But Paul also spoke for us when he said in verses 9 through eleven, that when I think of you, I thank my God for your faith.

3. Your Faith Would Remain Until the Day of Jesus Christ

And more in knowledge and in 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 the praise of God. As the Apostle Paul was about to leave them in the most permanent of ways, he would say, I thank God for you. I thank God for your fellowship. I thank God for your love. But he said, I want your faith to continue. I want your love to abound. I want it to grow, but I want your faith and your works of righteousness to keep on. He knew that his relationship with them had been altered by the many miles that separated them and was going to be permanently altered at his death.

But he says, my prayer is yes, a prayer of thanksgiving to God for you, but it’s also a prayer on behalf of you that your faith would remain until the day of Jesus Christ. And I want you to know that every day, I’ll pray for you. And I’ll thank God for you. And I’ll pray that your faith may continue until the day of Jesus Christ. Because when our time here on earth is over, by the grace and the mercy of God, we enter into those pearly gates.

Conclusion

I want to see you. And so on behalf of Deedra and myself, we say thank you. Thank you for letting us into your homes and into your church and into your hearts. Thank you for putting up with us and listening to my repeated stories and corny jokes. And my feeble attempt to present the most beautiful message that’s ever been delivered. And I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. For it is right for me to think this of you all.

And whether you’re a visitor or a regular here or a member here, you need to know this. If you never got to know Ken and Deedra Chapman, you really haven’t missed much. And I hope this is not the case, but if you never see us again, that’ll be okay. But if you don’t know God, and you don’t have fellowship with him, and you’re not experiencing the love that he and he alone can offer, and you don’t have an abiding faith in him, then it wasn’t a waste of time for the last eight years. Your whole life has been a waste. God puts you here for a purpose. To love one another, to serve one another, and to love and to glorify him. So may your love still abound more and more, and your may your faith increase.

And maybe today we can introduce you to that God and to that fellowship and to that love and faith that means everything to you. Can we help you in that journey of faith, that journey of love and to that wonderful fellowship this morning? Can we introduce you to our Father, to our Savior, to our Redeemer. As together we stand and as we sing.