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." - Philippians 1:9-11
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Today we focus on what may be the most straightforward part of these prayerful statements by Paul: "that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ." To understand and grasp what Paul is saying here, we need to be clear about what he is not saying. In today's world, the words "sincere" and "without offense" could take on different meanings than what Paul was trying to communicate.
Sincerity today is equal to being "real". To be real is to have a raw openness of both depravity and holiness in our lives. It does not take into account what is best for the ones being exposed to your realness; it is too concerned with being completely open about who we are that it looses any sensitivity to how it will effect our fellow man or God. It ends up being a selfish intention. I am not saying we should not open up to our fellow men about our failures and struggles. I mean that as we do open up, we do so to mend our severed relationships and to confess our depravity. What I have found in my generation is that to be real means to merely show all sides of ourselves unashamedly - there is no confession or repentance. This is a great disaster and insult to our fellow man.
"Without offense" could be easily confused with what we call today as "tolerance". Tolerance, today, means not just to respect others beliefs but to affirm others' beliefs as true as if someone believing something validates it as true (Hitler would love our era). This is not what Paul is referring to here. Nor is Paul trying to say to never be on someone's bad side. We all know that you can be on someone's bad side for being loving and caring. Paul is talking about something much more straightforward here.
Paul's words her may be too straightforward for some of us to grasp. Sincerity merely means to live without falsehood towards God and man. As Jesus said, "Let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' be 'no.'" Moreover, at the heart of living sincerely is the requirement to treat others as they should be treated. Meaning that we esteem our neighbor and God because to be sincere means to live in truth. As we said above, it does not mean to live openly without shame, but to live honestly in truth.
In the same way, "without offense" means just that. We are to live in righteousness. To live as we should so that no one can take offense to us. If we have committed wrongdoing we are to become peacemakers and ask for forgiveness. But I must repeat, this is not living in a vacuum where the highest law is to not offend anyone. To be without offense, is to have no moral grounds against you. Paul is talking about when we offend the humanity of our neighbor - not the depravity of our neighbor. Therefore, we live in righteousness in order to live without offense before God and man. If man is take offense of you, let it only be because who have been in the right and not in the wrong.
This is straightforward living: to live in sincerity and without offense before God and man. It is possibly to simple for us to grasp and live out. The simple truths are the hardest ones to accept and live with many times. So today and this week let us live straightforward with our neighbors and God. Let us be sincere in word and deed and without offense in our relationships. If you are in wrong with someone, make it right. If you have lived insincerely with someone start living honestly with them. In all things let us not celebrate or accept our depravity this week but rejoice in our humanity and the redemption God has given us.
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