So if you don't already have it in front of you, please grab your Bible and open to Philippians chapter 1 a Couple weeks ago. We started we started looking at the introduction of Paul's letter here to the Saints in Philippi After the formal greeting of the first two verses where he tells them We started last week talking in verse 3 a couple weeks ago. It's a passage that's kind of a common opening section in many of Paul's letters after the formal greeting where he tells them how he prays for them. Some refer to these as prayer reports, or he's reporting how he prays for them. And these prayer reports often describe how he remembers them with thanksgiving to God. And they also inform them about how he petitions God on their behalf towards spiritual maturity in Christ. This letter to the Philippians is one of those letters that has such an introduction. It includes a description of Paul's prayers with those same two segments. The first, as we examined it a couple weeks ago in verses three through eight, is actually a rather extravagant description of his gratefulness, where he's thanking God for the partnership that he's had in the gospel with those saints in Philippi that he's enjoyed with them from the very beginning. Last week we pulled out verse 6 out of that section to examine it on its own, to discuss a reality that's true for us just as much as it was for those Philippian saints. All those who have been saved, the verse says, by God's sovereign initiative and grace, He's going to complete that salvation in them. He who began the good work of salvation in us will keep us in His grace and bring it to completion. at the day of Jesus Christ. And we can be sure of that, just as Paul was, because He who has called us is faithful. And for that, we should be most thankful in every joyful prayer that we offer to the Lord. But Paul's text here in the letter continues from that section of his thanksgiving to the petitions that he says he offered on behalf of the church there in Philippi. That second portion of his report of prayers begins in verse 9, and this is our text for this morning. It begins in verse 9. It's just three verses. In Philippians 1, 9 through 11. So read those with me now. It's 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. Lord, we thank you that we see here an example of the kinds of prayers that we need, the kinds of things that we need. It's far beyond the things that we might think about every day. are the circumstances of our lives, the things that we sort of see with an immediacy that's right in front of us, the things that concern the next few hours of my life. But these things, as we see, concern eternity. They're the deep, real, spiritual, meaningful things that we should have more in the forefront of our mind. Lord, I pray that you would use this this morning to show that to us, to help us to see that the great need that we have for prayers like these things in our life. Lord, I pray, even as we go through it, that you would hear our cry to you today, that you would cause this in each one of us, that our love would abound more and more with knowledge and discernment, that we could approve what's excellent, so that we would be pure and blameless for the day of Christ that's to come, that you would fill us with righteousness, that it would be the fruit of our lives on that day, all for the glory and praise of your name. We pray that you would give that to us this morning, help us to not only understand it, but to make it the reality of our lives and our focus and our prayers. Pray for these things today in Jesus' name, amen. So even before we look at the specifics of this prayer here in Philippians 1, I want you to consider what we're looking at first. When we look at a passage like this, we're able to read Paul's prayers. We see here what is therefore the foremost concern in his mind. And because they're written into the scriptures and inspired by the Holy Spirit, what we really see here in these published prayers is what the Lord himself wants for us. You understand that? Paul's writing this inspired by the Holy Spirit, telling them this is the way that he prays for them. And in so doing, he actually is praying for them and writing these things. But it's not just his desires. Paul, the apostle, is being inspired by God to write the things that God cares about. All of the Scriptures are that way, aren't they? This is a prayer that's breathed out by God on your behalf, on my behalf. And when we read these things, we consider that in all of the things that are seemingly so important in our lives, none of them are quite as important as what God has said should be our focus in a place like this. It's one of the great benefits we have in seeing Paul's prayers written out like this in so many of his letters. The important things in our lives are more than just our immediate circumstances. In these prayers, Paul was given the mind of Christ to express to us what's vital for us. I mean, especially if you want verse 6 to be true for you, Do you want the good work of salvation that God began in you to be continued and brought to completion at the day of Jesus Christ? Do you want that? Do you want Him to complete His work in you? You know, one of the ways that He does that is to make these very spiritual things realities in our lives. He does it in response to prayers like these. He takes these things and He uses them in our lives. Do you want to keep yourself from falling away from the faith? I mean, if yes, you need to pray the way that the Lord does. Pray like this so that He'll answer these prayers on your behalf. Don't you think that would be a wise thing to recognize? It doesn't mean that we never pray for guidance about decisions in our lives, we never pray for relief from pain and suffering, or we never pray for help to complete some project or accomplish some goal at work or school or something. We can and should pray for all of those things. In fact, the Lord says that He wants us to make all of our requests to Him, make all of your requests known, everything that you want, everything that you desire in your life, you should take to Him and pray. But our prayer should not be exclusively about those kinds of things, as these verses demonstrate so clearly. I mean, think about it. How many of the things that you pray for could you actually provide for yourself? If you put more effort into pursuing them, could you actually do it yourself? Are you praying for things that money can buy? That you can work harder and obtain? Beyond that, how many things do you ask for that are temporary? immediate stuff, things that will pass away before your life ends. I mean, it is probable that you can get that project done that you're praying about if you put your phone down for a while and get back to work. You can get the money you need to take care of some bill if you work more hours or get a second job or something. The Bible doesn't say that 38 and a half hours a week is the maximum that a Christian should work, does it? And the 40-hour work week is something recent, it's not biblical. You might even be able to make some meaningful improvements to your own health if you got more sleep, got more exercise, or ate differently. I know there are some things you can't change, but of those things that you can't change, how many of them are only temporary for this life? Think about it. Like illnesses and disease, there's diseases that I can't change by modifying my behaviors. But my health is still temporary, isn't it? No matter what I do, I'm still going to die. Unless the Lord should come back before then. Please come back before then. Right? That doesn't mean that I shouldn't pray for those things, but they shouldn't be the primary focus of my prayers. Because they're not those deep things that we see prayed about in the Bible. Right? It's not that I should never pray about things like that, but they can't dominate my prayers. That's what we see right in front of us in this example of Paul's prayer for the Philippians. The prayer is for spiritual things of eternal significance. Things that I cannot manufacture on my own because of my own limitations as a created being and a sinful creature at that. Notice here that Paul prayed for things that only God can accomplish, that only God can provide by His powerful grace working in us. This is like the things that we have in Jesus' teaching about how to pray in the Gospels. This is an example of how to pray, like the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. If you look at Matthew 6 and read how Jesus taught them to pray, you'll find that Jesus taught His disciples to pray primarily for the spiritual, eternal things that only God could accomplish. that we might hallow the name of God our Father in heaven, that His kingdom would come in this realm so that His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven, that He would forgive our sins and change us so that we will forgive those who have sinned against us, that He would not allow us to be tempted to sin but would deliver us from the schemes of the evil one, We need God for all of those things. All of those are spiritual requests. In that prayer, everything is spiritual except for one thing, give us our daily bread. We can and should pray for our daily bread, for His provision, for our lives in the world, but it's obviously not the primary content of what our prayer should be. I mean, consider yourself, how many of your prayers are consumed with daily bread? Give me my daily bread, give me my daily bread, give me this other daily bread, this other daily bread, this bread, this daily bread. Part of the work of my life is to go out there and get a job, and if I don't work, I shouldn't eat, and I won't have daily bread, and whose fault is that? Partly it's going to be my fault, right? This is one of those things. It's not that he tells us to pray for it. We shouldn't not pray for it. But it can't be the primary thing. It can't be the only thing. It can't be exclusively what we look at and say, what do I want today? And I go and I ask God what I want for today. It's not just that. Prayer's never supposed to be like that. Our passage today is a reminder that we have to set our hearts and our minds on the things above the common everyday stuff that normally consumes our lives. It's a significant part of becoming more conformed to Christ Jesus, to learn how to be concerned about the spiritual things in our lives and the lives of fellow believers, the things that the Lord himself demonstrates, he considers important because he put it in Paul's mind to write that down in the scripture as the example of prayer. I want us to keep that in mind as we work through the verses today. These words that Paul wrote in this letter are breathed out by God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, as the most important things we should be concerned to pray about. Paul could have written any number of prayers. With limited time and space, this is what the Lord gave him to write. And it's important, it's vitally important, not only for the ancient Philippians, but for us too. So now, with that in mind, look at the text. Philippians 1 verse 9. Paul says, it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. The first thing that Paul says he prays for them is actually the highest of all of God's attributes that we can possess in our lives. There are attributes of God that we can't have, are non-communicable, they say. His holiness is beyond anything that we could get, but there are other things. His omniscience, His all-powerfulness, all of those things are attributes of God that He doesn't share with us, but some He shares. Love is the highest of those. Love characterizes who God is. And in 1 John 4, 8, we read that God is love. He is the embodiment of love, and all of us who have been born again know His love. It's a love that Romans 5.5 says He has poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit whom He has given to us. His love in our hearts is not only so that we can know and experience His love, it's also so that we will begin to truly act in love with love as our motive, like God does. 1 John 4.19 says that we love because He loved us first. Love is the greatest of all the commandments, right? And in the love that He gives to us, He uses that love to instill in us the desire and the power to love like He loves. We love because He first loved us. It's the first and most premier of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5. Love is the Spirit-given attribute out of which flows our joy and our peace and our patience and kindness and goodness. Our faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, in many ways, are rooted and grounded in that first fruit of the Spirit, which has been poured out into our hearts, the love that God has given to us. It is the character that defines Him. God is love. We should notice that Paul's prayer for these saints in Philippi, the ones who have partnered with him in the gospel, is that their love would grow, abound more and more. In order for it to grow, what must be true about it? Well, before their love can grow, it has to exist. Right? It's there. They already have love. Where did they get it from? Well, they love because God first loved them. This is exactly what we've been saying. But they already have it. And so Paul's prayer is not that they would learn to love or receive the love of God, but that the love that they've already been given to them by God would increase more and more and more. That it would grow. That it would come to define them as people. Individuals. As it does God. God is love. Can anybody say Dorian is love? Not if you're saying you can't. Right? Insert anybody's name in there. Oh, some people are more loving and they have grown in love. And it's thanks to God that that could be the case. Lord willing, I'm more loving than I once was. It's not that hard to imagine, but if you knew me before. But this is what we want. This is what we get. We go to God and we ask Him that it's something that's given by God to us, and Paul's praying that it would increase. Now, the fact that it's given to us by God does not mean that that love is therefore out of my control. It's so often how the world understands love, isn't it? We fall in love. We fall out of love. I'm a victim of love. I just can't help it. It's an emotion that I can't control. People say this. I was going to try to find some quote, and I was looking around, and don't Google this, that you can't control who you love. Articles in the American Psychiatric Journal, all the way out to, I don't know, some actress lady who says people, everybody's got this opinion, but it's all the same. You can't control who you love. You can't control it, it just happens. It isn't something that you control. This is actually the excuse in countless divorces. I couldn't help myself. I just fell out of love with you and fell in love with this other person. In and out, I'm just the victim of love, being tossed around by this emotion that I can't control. But the reality is, is that's not love. I mean, it's lust or romance or some other thing, but it's not the love that Paul's praying would abound more and more in the hearts of the saints of these guys in Philippi, right? It's the love that God has for His people that He's talking about. And God is certainly not the victim of His uncontrolled emotions, is He? No, this is the love that God shows to us. It's agape love. It's a love of decision. Deciding to love. It's the exercise of the will to love. Not because the object of my love is so irresistible. but because I have, as an act of my will, decided to care for and show kindness to somebody else. Because I have decided to love them. That's the love that God has for us. Not because I'm so lovable, but because He, in His decision, in His will, according to His desire, has chosen to love me with that kind of love. That's what Paul wants to see abound more and more in the lives of the saints there in Philippi. That's the love that God has for his people. The result of the love that's poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that testifies to us that God has that kind of love for us. It's the love that Christians have for God. at least we're supposed to, the kind of love we're supposed to have for each other, at least in some measure. We know it from 1 John 3 and 4, that if I don't have this kind of love in some degree in my life, it is an evidence that I am not the child of God. Because every child of God, He changes in such a way that He instills that love principle into our hearts. It's very imperfect, it's not completed, but love is the evidence that God has transformed my heart. Like I said, it's not perfected in me. I'm still self-centered and a sinner who tends to love myself more than I love anybody else. And that is why Paul prayed. for those saints that they would abound more and more in love. Because they're not yet perfected, right? It hasn't happened yet. It's the same thought that Paul had in Ephesians 3, verse 18, where in that letter he wrote another prayer report to them and said that he was praying for them that they would have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. that they would be able to measure love, and all of its depth, and all of its width, and breadth, and height, and all the deepness of love, and not only to be able to know something about it, but to experience it, to know it beyond knowing. Right? That love that Christ has for us. The more we not only know the love, but experience that reality, that is beyond just our intellectual knowledge about it, the more we will want to be like him and the more we will grow in acts of love like his acts of love. This is absolutely what each one of us needs. That's why Paul prays so plainly for the Philippians that their love would abound more and more. This is not primarily a rebuke for them being loveless. But it's a prayer that God would give them the inner reality of His love so that they would grow in their love. And who did Paul want them to grow in their love for? Was it love for God that they needed to grow in? So that they would be more devoted to the Lord with all their heart? and all their soul, and all their mind, and all their strength? Is that the love He wanted them to grow for? The love for God? Or was it that they should abound more and more in the brotherly love? And the love even that they showed to their neighbors, lost or saved? Notice that Paul doesn't really specify in the verse, does he? There are debates that we could have back and forth about which it is. But at the end of the day, the reality is that these two are so inextricably linked to one another that there's no need to try to separate the two. Paul doesn't mean one and not the other. He means all of it, love, in the broadest, most unspecific sort of fashion. The application is, in both ways, to love God and to love our neighbor. We can't actually increase in our love for our neighbor without increasing in our love for the Lord, can we? And as we love and serve one another, it will actually cause the love that we have for God to expand. Like I said, they're linked to one another. And Paul wants all of it. He wants all of it for us. The Lord wants us to have all of it, not a little of this and not that. He wants all of it. This is as broad as possible, and it's on purpose. The answer, therefore, is unmistakably both. Paul's prayer is that their love for God, for His people, and even for the lost would fill our hearts and our minds to overflowing. That's what we should desire from the Lord as well. Why? Because we see Jesus is like that and we want to be like Him. We see Jesus is that way in His love towards the Father and His love to the people, the love to the lost, even the love He has for His enemies, which each and every one of you were at one point. We want to become more like Him and the love that He's shown us. There's more in the verse, isn't there? We not only read Paul's prayer for God to increase our love, we can also see that love has qualities that we need to look for. Look at what he tells us about the qualities of love, the characteristics of love that he sees as important in this. It's my prayer that your love may abound more and more. With what kind of qualities? With knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent. The love we want to see growing in our lives and in our church is not the misguided, nonjudgmental affirmations and celebration that the world wants us to exhibit. That's worldly love, right? I love people in the world means that I affirm their sin, I celebrate whatever they feel like they want me to celebrate. That's not love. It's not love when we merely validate somebody else, validate their emotions and feelings that are contrary to the demands of Scripture. That's unlovingly dangerous for the church to do that. But church after church up and down the street is doing that every day of the week. But it's not love. That's not what we're talking about. At the same time, we don't want to be judgmentally confrontive to the exclusion of loving those who live in sin, those with whom we disagree. Isn't there some middle ground? Of course there's a middle ground. It's love. Love is actually the middle ground. Love is not the extreme of accepting everything under the sun. Neither is love smashing everything that stands opposed to me. Love is the middle ground. Love is the path that Jesus walked, the one that he tells us to walk on. There's two examples in Revelation 2. Two churches. Of the seven churches to which Jesus wrote letters in Revelation 2 and 3, there's two of them that demonstrate the extremes. The first church that he writes to in Revelation 2 is the church in Ephesus. And he commended them for their confrontation of the falsehood, commended them for confronting false teachers and for confronting immorality, yet he rebuked them for what? Because they had lost the love that they had at first. Too extreme. There's another church later in the same chapter, the church at Thyatira. He commended them for their growing love, for their growing faith. But he had this against them, that they were tolerating the falseness of Jezebel in their midst. They weren't confronting things by the truth. Those are the two extremes. And we want to be somewhere in between. We want to have the best of both. A growing love that is with knowledge and all discernment. Which is what Paul prayed for these saints in Philippi, isn't it? Knowledge, this word knowledge here is actually a compound Greek word, epignosis. Gnosis is the Greek word for knowledge, but adding the prefix epi sort of intensifies the concept of knowledge. It makes it something like deep knowledge, advanced knowledge, full knowledge. The New American Standard Bible translates it into English as real knowledge, the true truth, the reality of all things. That's not just moral knowledge or religious knowledge, but it is specifically in the Bible the knowledge of the truth that has been revealed by God. It is God's revelation. Where do we find God's revelation? In the Scriptures. It's specifically that, the truth of the Bible, the truth of what's in the Word of God. We read in places like 1 Corinthians 13, 16, speaking and defining love, Paul says that love never rejoices at wrongdoing but always rejoices in the truth. We have to know the truth about who God is and what Jesus has done for us so that we can love him in truth. Jesus taught that to the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter 4. He said to her, we must worship God in spirit and in truth. It's not just an excited emotionalism in worship, but it is in the truth, the revelation of God, the things that He's revealed to us that we must worship Him in. Truth is of tremendous value in the Christian life, because without it, we can be pushed around by every wind of doctrine and dragged away from God by the ideas of the world around us. Without truth, true truth, full knowledge, epignosis, without that, we have no foundation. So we have to be students of the word, testing everything by the scriptures. That's what the Bereans did, right? They're more noble than the rest in Acts chapter 17. Paul said that the Bereans met with him every day and they checked everything out by the scriptures. That's what we have to do. That's the idea behind the other word here, discernment. That your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. At the end of verse 9, their love must be with real knowledge of God and all discernment for every circumstance." That means it's not just gaining knowledge, it's not just filling our head with facts. Paul warned us in 1 Corinthians 8, 1 that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The knowledge with love, love with knowledge, put it however you want. is focused on God and on His purposes and His will. It's not focused on me and me getting more, more, more knowledge, more, more, more education, me being smarter than the next guy. That's not what it's for. The purpose is so that I can be discerning. It's not just about gaining knowledge. But I need discernment to know how to apply the knowledge that I'm being given in a way that lovingly builds people up rather than puffing up my own pride. In Hebrews 5, verse 14, there's a verse there that's sort of classic in this that the writer of Hebrews says that there are those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Constant practice. I have to constantly be taking the knowledge that God's giving me, and I have to be practicing about how to use it. I've got to know how to apply it to what's good and what's evil. Constant practice in that without becoming proud. That's love with knowledge and discernment that Paul is praying for, that he says that we need to pursue. But I want you to notice something else. It's not just being able to recognize good from evil. It's also to discern what is best among several good choices as well. He addresses that with the first phrase in verse 10, so that you may approve what is excellent. This is a particular kind of testing that is actually often necessary in the Christian life when we're considering options. I have some decision to make, but there's more than one option that's not sinful. What should I do? How do I figure it out? How do I know which is the best among several good choices? I want to do the best because I love the Lord. I want to please Him. How do I figure out which option is the most excellent? Consider having a hundred bucks. I got a hundred bucks. There's a few options about how I could use a hundred dollars. I may need to spend some of it on food for today or else I won't eat. But perhaps God has put someone in front of me who needs it more than I do. Or perhaps there's some wisdom in saving it to prepare for some larger purchase that I need to make. Maybe even one that will benefit a larger group of people for a longer period of time by putting the money in the bank and turning $100 into $1,000 so that I can invest in something bigger and more meaningful, more helpful for more people. You see, there's all kinds of options, right? My choices with $100 are not only keep it or give it away. I have more options than that. And I need to figure out which one is the most excellent option. How do I do that? How do I decide? I need to contemplate what I know from the scriptures while I'm considering how these different options may be more or less loving in a way that Jesus would want me to be loving. That kind of discernment is only possible through diligent pursuit of knowledge that is motivated by my love that is increasing to be more like the love of Christ Jesus. This enables me to choose and approve what is excellent if I'm motivated by love that's based in knowledge and discernment. That's a wisdom that really needs divine intervention, isn't it? I mean, no wonder Paul prays like this, right? If that's the goal, I need God's help more than I knew. I've got to figure out from amongst a variety of different good choices which one is the best, what's the most loving, what'll prove my love for Christ more, my love for other people, what'll be the most helpful. I need help in all of this. No wonder Paul prays about it. I need God's divine intervention in this. Notice that this means that there are goals in prayer beyond Paul just hoping that the Philippians feel more loved by God. That's not what he's talking about, is it? We could read it that way. I pray that you would know more that God loves you more. That's not what he's praying for really at all. The goals of his prayer demonstrate that. We should be pursuing increasing love so that it will result in more loving actions on our part. And that is exactly the direction of Paul's prayer. He didn't just pray that our love would abound more and more for the sake of feeling more love in our hearts, but that this increased love in our hearts would spill out into our lives so that we can choose, even from good choices, the most excellent way according to the knowledge and discernment that we get from the Bible. Now, that's one goal. There's another goal in verse 10. The rest of verse 10 says, So to be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. We talked last week about the day of Christ. It's the same day as the end of verse six, just a few verses earlier, the day of Jesus Christ, right? It's the day of the Lord, the judgment day, when Jesus Christ will justly condemn those who do not love him to eternal destruction for their sins. And on that same day, he will simultaneously reward those who do love him. Those who trusted in His death on the cross to pay for their sins. It's the reward that was in view in verse 6 and it's the reward that's in view here in verse 10. That day when Christ will complete the salvation that He began as a good work in the heart of every saint. He'll bring it to fruition, right? And because we love Him and long for His appearing, we want to be ready for that day. I want to be ready for that day, pure and blameless as verse 10 says. That should be my desire. I want on that day to be pure and blameless. Why? Because I love the Lord. I'm longing for that day. I want to be ready. What's that look like? To be pure and blameless. The ESV English version translates that first word as pure. But if you happen to have a New American Standard Bible, you'll see that they translate the word into English as sincere, which I actually appreciate now that I learned what sincere means. The English word sincere is not actually a Greek word. It's from a Latin derivation. But it's two Latin words, sin and sera, C-E-R-A, sincera. And that means without wax. Got it? This will make sense, I think. In the ancient world, pottery was like a big industry, making pots and things. And when they were making fine pottery, It was very thin, very fragile, kind of like modern-day China, a little bit. It's easily broken. And sometimes, or perhaps often, when they made that thin, fine pottery for some sort of a showpiece in a home, some beautiful something, for whatever use it was, they would take that and put it in the fire and fire it in the kiln, and sometimes it would crack. We would get a crack in this fine pottery. They would take it out, and the dishonest merchants would take it over to the workshop, and they would make this colored wax. And they would take the wax, and they would fill the crack with it, and then they would paint over the top of it. and then bake the glazing on. So what you have is a pot with a crack in it, with a piece of wax in there, so that when they put it on the shelf to sell, it looks fine. Everything about it looks okay. All right. And it's super expensive. It's fine porcelain, it's fine china, whatever it is, right? And so this is what they would do. Of course, when somebody would take it home and they'd put something in it, it leaks. Why? Because it's cracked. Eventually, maybe not right away, and they take it back and say, you sold me a cracked pot. No, it wasn't a cracked pot, you cracked it. You see how that would go. Well, the honest merchants wouldn't do that, and they would put on the sign on the shelf, this group over here is sincera. It's without wax. It's not cracked. It's not broken. Nothing's covered up. It's sincere. It's pure. This is a good pot. Buy this one. And that's how the merchants would do that. People buying stuff would learn eventually that they could go into the shop and take the pot, and before they buy it, they would hold it up to the sunlight, and if you held it, you could see the light come through the crack because the wax wouldn't block the light. And so they learned to look for the pots that were sincera, sincere. Paul tells us that we need to be like that. We need to be sincere. We need to not be hiding things and covering stuff up. That's the purity that Paul is referring to in verse 10. Not only that we're unblemished or without defect, but that our defects aren't covered up and hidden either. Right? Concerning our lives, it doesn't mean that our lives will be perfect. We will always be scarred with sin in this world. But we have to be sincere, not disguising our imperfections to deceive others. James Montgomery Boyce said it this way in his commentary. He says, God's love will not flow through a Christian whose life is a sham. Hypocrisy will stop the flow. Fortunately, however, we may also say that God's love will flow through an honest Christian, no matter how marred the vessel. Paul says, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. Moreover, Boyce said, we look forward to the day when what has begun on earth with all its imperfections will be made perfect in heaven. There will be sterling examples of God's fine workmanship on that day. That's the goal, isn't it? To be one of the sterling examples of God's fine workmanship on that day. Purity on that day with sincerity until then. Sincere. Paul says that the prayer is for purity and blamelessness. Purity speaks to the integrity of my character and blamelessness speaks to how my character causes me to treat you. It's about how I treat others. Paul said it a few different times in his letter to the Corinthians that he didn't want to be a stumbling block to any for the sake of the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 10, 32, Paul wrote, give no offense to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the Church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Paul wanted to live his life in this way, that he didn't want anybody to be able to blame him for their failure of being saved. At least not justifiably blame him. And he wanted that and he did that because of the love that he had for them. Everything he did, he says, was for their benefit, not seeking his own advantage in the dealings he had with them. I mean, it would have been easy, even understandable, right, if Paul had used his notoriety in preaching the gospel to secure for himself some kind of comfort. He even says that the preacher should be able to provide for himself because of the preaching of the gospel, right? Should support ones as these. But Paul didn't want that. Paul was beyond that. He didn't want that at all. He didn't want there to be any reason why anybody could blame anything on him. He wanted to be blameless in the eyes of those he preached to. Of course, his enemies fabricated all stuff, all kinds of stuff against him, brought charges against him every chance they had. But none of those are going to hold up in God's courtroom on that day of judgment, are they? I mean, in fact, those accusations will be used against them. Those who hurled those kinds of accusations, false ones at Paul, their end on the judgment day will be just as those who hurled similar insults against Jesus. Those become the accusations against them. But it makes me ask, are there going to be any just accusations against me on that day? Think about it. Anybody going to be able to blame you on that day? Justifiably? Bring something like that against you on that day? Now, in order to minimize that, we need to pray to God that He would allow His love to abound more and more with all knowledge and discernment, so that we'll be found pure and blameless on the day of Christ. That's the goal of love that is ever-increasing. So that we can properly approve what is excellent, and so we can be pure and blameless. And one more thing in verse 11. There's one more goal. and to be filled with the fruit of righteousness that come through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." The phrasing here is interesting. In the New Testament, we're more accustomed to reading that we need to bear fruit. It's more of a command, right? That we should concentrate on living our lives in such a way that we would bear the fruit. That's not the way the verse reads, is it? That we would be filled with the fruit of righteousness. To say it that way is to view this from the perspective of that day of Christ. That day when everything is complete. The day when we're pure and blameless. On that day, if we're in Christ, we will be filled with all the fruit of the righteousness of our lives. We're no longer in the position of being required or commanded or requested to bear fruit, but we have borne the fruit, and now it is what fills our lives. Of course, for us to stand on that day full of the fruit of righteousness, we have to be living our lives righteously now, today, in order for that to be true later. I have to be bearing that fruit. It's not like they're disconnected. There is no more righteous life than the one that has lived in love for God and love for our neighbors. That is loving every person that God puts into our lives, whether friend or enemy. Loving as Christ loved and gave himself for us. There's no greater love, Jesus said in John 15, than that someone should lay his life down for another. And that was absolutely Paul's prayer to God for the saints in Philippi and everywhere, that our love would abound more and more in knowledge and discernment. It's a pure love that's based on the truth, that pursues righteousness as God defines it. Don't you know it? That can only come through Jesus Christ. See it there in verse 11? We can tend to overlook a phrase like that in the middle of verse 11. The only possible explanation for my life being filled with the fruit of righteousness is for it to be in the power of Jesus Christ. I'm still a sinner. Not like I used to be, but depraved, deceitful, deceived, proud, arrogant, all kinds of stuff. I'm a sinner who mostly cares for myself by nature. I would never grow in love for God or anybody else without Jesus working that into me. Changing my heart, teaching me with knowledge and discernment how to be more like Him. It's for that reason that all of this is, that last phrase in verse 11, to the glory and praise of God. I mean, that's the ultimate purpose of Paul's prayer, isn't it? I pray that your love would abound so that you would be a glory to God, so that you would bring praise to God. He prays for those saints in Philippi that they would bring glory and praise to God because everything in their growth in love, their deepening of knowledge and discernment, their purity, their blamelessness, and their righteousness, all of that came through Jesus Christ. So the credit for any success in those pursuits is rightly given to God alone. You see it right there in the prayer, don't you? We discussed it last week in verse 6. It's God who has begun the good work in us. And if it is ever going to be brought to completion on that day of Jesus Christ, it is only because He finished what He started. That is the only reason. It's all the language of completion in the prayer, isn't it? Look at it. It's all about things being completed. Love growing in knowledge. Love growing in discernment. So that we will be pure. So that we will be blameless. So that we will be righteous on that day. That's the goal. That's the goal of the prayer. And it's what our prayer should be consumed with. I mean, this needs to not only become the pattern of our prayers, but as it is the pattern of our prayers, it needs to become the pattern of our lives. Right? As God answers our prayers for these things, we should see these things becoming more and more the reality in our lives, and only God can do that. That's why we should ask Him. But He reassures us here that He will certainly do it as we pray for it, as we ask, as we seek. Right? You seek to be like this, oh, you'll become like this. You knock for that door to be opened with more love for Christ in your heart, oh, there'll be more love for Christ in your heart. You ask Him for more opportunity to love people and more desire to do it, oh, you'll get it. Right? Only God can do these kinds of things, and that's why we pray and ask Him. As He answers those prayers, we will worship Him in acknowledgment of what He has accomplished in us and for each of us. I hope you see this in the last phrase, that I should not only praise God for what He's doing to increase my love and the fruit of it in my life, I should be praising God for what He's doing in your life, too. God deserves all the glory for whatever fruit of righteousness He fills in our lives with and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord for it. Ask Him for more of it. And we have not arrived at the day of Christ just yet. And so, if we want more love blended with discernment, we need to keep asking for it. God will give it to us if we ask. And in this world that we live in today, don't you feel like we need love more and more? I mean, real love. Not the kind of love that the world misunderstands, misrepresents, seeks in wrong ways, with wrong motives, all over the place. It's only through God that we can love like Christ loves. So pray therefore without ceasing that God will cause our love to abound more and more for his own glory in Christ Jesus. Amen. Lord, we pray just this thing, that you would cause our love to abound more and more, that we would grow in the love that we have for you, that you would give us more knowledge, more experience of who you are, and better discernment about how to use the truth that we're learning. Lord, I pray that you would teach us even how to approve what is excellent, how to make choices, and how to do things, and how to spend our time when we have multiple options that seem good, but which one is the best? Help us to learn how to do that with seeking to know how to love you better in all of those things. I pray, Lord, that you would help us in these things and that you would accomplish these things in us, that we would become pure and blameless, that on that day we would be filled with the fruit of righteousness to the glory of Christ in His name. And for your praise, Father, I pray that you would do these things in us, that we might give you more of the glory, all of the glory, for all of these things being worked in us. I thank you for the example we see in Paul. Help us to follow it, not just in how we pray, but how we live. Do these things in us for your praise and your glory. Praise you for doing these things through Christ Jesus, our Lord. It's in his name we pray. Amen.