Mark Twain was the one who had the quote first, truth is stranger than fiction. I was thinking of that this week and studying this text. It's a great fictional illustration. Of course, it requires you to step into the world of who's and who will. and a green Grinch who couldn't stand Christmas time. Throughout the movements of the story, you get to the point where the aha moment happens. And the narrator says, and what happened then? Well, in Whoville, they say, that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day. And then the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of 10 Grinches plus two. Now, obviously, we know that hearts don't stretch. And if your heart does stretch the way that the Grinch's heart did, please seek out immediate medical attention. That is a serious medical issue. But if we recognize that in the Bible, the heart is the place that controls our thoughts, our emotions, our deep desires, and ultimately our choices, then this prayer that Paul prays really ought to give us a sense of the type of heart-stretching that he, and ultimately Jesus, is praying for us. Turn with me, if you would, to Philippians chapter one. I just wanna look at three verses, verses nine, 10, and 11 of chapter one. I'd invite you to stand, if you would, Paul writes this, 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. This is his word, let's pray. Great God, in whom we live and move and have our being, come now to this place, we pray, and move powerfully and mightily through your word. would it so penetrate our hearts that today would be a day that we are changed forevermore, never to be the same, because we have encountered the risen Christ. Do this, we pray, to your glory and our good. In Jesus' name, amen. So how is truth stranger than fiction? Grinches don't exist, contrary to popular opinion. What we wanna see this morning is how can our hearts really be stretched in the way that Paul is getting at here. So I wanna talk about three things. In order to see that, we have to dig into what Christ wants for you, why he wants it for you, and how you get it, okay? What he wants for you, why he wants it for you, and how you get it. So I want to look, first of all, at what exactly it is when we are looking at this text, when we're looking at what Paul is praying for the church at Philippi, what Paul is ultimately praying for us through the inspiration of the Spirit, what Jesus wants to do in us, in you, in me, what is that thing that he wants to do? First of all, it is that there would be overflowing love. Look at verse 10, verse 9, excuse me. And my prayer is that your love may abound more and more. Now, it is easy in Pauline letters to see the word love and insert the correct recasting of the definition that says, remember, love isn't a feeling, love is a verb, right? That's cool, that's not what we need to hear this morning, okay? The thing that we need to hear this morning is a little bit more confrontational than that. Because even in Christian circles, even when we get to the point that we go, you're right, love is not a feeling, love is an action. The problem is all of us, all of us reduce the action to a transactional mutuality. I give, I get. And we call it love, but that's not what Paul's talking about. Here's what I mean by that. Even in the most Christian formulations of love, we default to a sort of give and take. If we're married or in the family context, love is demonstrated in a mutual give and take, a reciprocity, a showing of affection that then gets returned in kind, okay? We still default to this place of defining for us what love is. And it's that formulation of love that gets us into an incredible amount of trouble. Because we expect reciprocity. We expect mutuality. That investment made is investment returned. And the problem is, that's not love. That's utility. That's usury. I give so that I get. And when that framework of love is operating in the back of your mind, or even in the front of your mind, when that framework of love is operating, it not only distorts our relationships with one another, for instance, you did all of this for me, now I have to do things for you, or I've been loving and loving and loving, when do I get loved in return? Right? I know you've never said that, this is just hypothetical. When that framework of love is operating, it inevitably creeps into our very understanding of what loving God should look like. Okay? Never mind that he's the God of the universe. Never mind that he sent Jesus. What ends up happening is we get into this mode of, I have been worshiping and loving and loving and worshiping and serving and serving. When do I get to cash in on that and get a little bit of help here? Right? Now let's be clear. In scripture, there are clear commands for us to enjoy the mutuality of one another. I'm not saying that that's not there. I'm just saying that that's not here. Do you understand the difference? For instance, in Romans chapter 12, Paul talks about that we should be devoted to one another in brotherly love, that one anotherness of scripture is a form of love. It's just not the type of love that Paul is praying here for us. The type of love that Paul is describing here is the type that costs much and maybe returns nothing. It's the type of love that may never get repaid at all. Perhaps there's no reciprocity in any measurable way and yet a love that is still gladly and generously lavished. Now we're getting uncomfortable. This is the love. This is the love that brought Jesus to the tree. This is the love that Christ had for us, has for us, and keeps on having for us. This is the love that costs much, and this is the love that Paul prays would be present in the church among you all, not just the exceptional few, and that it would abound more and more, that they would love and keep loving in this way. This isn't the type of love that he's talking about that gets returned to us in reciprocity. Not a type of love that creates a bartering mutuality. It's a type of love that gives and gives and gives and gives some more. And here's the thing. You and I are not able to love this way. We're not built to love this way. So how is it that Paul would be praying that this love would abound in us, and yet we're not wired to be able to do this? Well, we need to talk about that, don't we? It's what I said a few weeks ago in the closing of my sermon. It's that we can't love this way with our puny hearts. We need new hearts. But it's not just the gift that we need, it's the cost of the gift that we have to reckon with. Because we're great with being loved in this way. It feels fantastic. But when it calls for us to get up and actually love in this way, the cost becomes quite apparent. When we invest this way, when we love this way, it means giving up. It means giving up our rights. It means giving up the expectation of reciprocity. It means it is a very good likelihood that you will never, ever, ever be repaid in the way and in the manner in which it costs you. This type of love, here's the thing, this type of love that Paul is praying for has already been sparked in you, though. Remember that key verse in this chapter, Philippians 1, 6. Jesus, who began a good work in you, he is doing it, and he's doing it in anyone that bears the name of Christ. Anyone that bears the name of Jesus, this type of love is already at work in us. Now, see, normally, too, at this point in the sermon, Some of you who do love this way are feeling that sort of, ah, he's talking about me. And I'd be like, no, I'm actually not. I'm talking about all the others. But no, really, I'm talking about everybody today. So sorry, there's no escaping it. Because some of us would say, well, I can't take another thing on. I can't pour out any more. your loving well and your emotional internal core is dangerously low. And yet the teaching of Jesus here and throughout the rest of Scripture is that anytime you start to put boundaries or safety valves or fences around how we are to pour out ceases to be the type of love that Jesus is talking about. How many times should we forgive? Jesus was asked. Seven times? Surely that satisfies the extent of the law. And Jesus said, no, 70 times seven. When the teacher said, okay, but really, who is my neighbor? And Jesus says the parable of the good Samaritan. And the one who came by and gave up everything for the one beat up and bloodied on the side of the road was the one who loved his neighbor well. You see, any time that we would try to put boundaries or bounds or safeties around the type of love that we're called to see our hearts stretched to is still a love that has an off switch where we can shut down so that reciprocity can kick in or at least till we can get a break. Does it feel impossible yet? Do you kind of wish Paul had changed his prayer just a little bit? Well, of course you do. This type of love can only come in a daily, moment by moment, utter and complete dependence on God and Jesus. And this is the love that Paul prayed the Philippians would abound in more and more, but there's more. Not only was it a love that was given away generously and selflessly, but it's a love that was guided by discernment. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and discernment. So here's the thing. because this type of self-giving, self-sacrificing love sounds fantastic. We have to recognize that Paul was a little bit more specific in his prayer. It isn't where he stopped. He also prayed that it would be coupled with knowledge and discernment. See, if love, if formulated by the world around us, love should be blind, love should be accepting, love should never be confrontational, love should always be receiving. No? No. It's easy to err on one side or another, isn't it? Because some of us have promoted a posture of love that's just, Oh, you know, live and let live, love and let love, it's cool. Some of us, though, have been guilty about going to the other side, to the other extreme of nope, I'm gonna love them, I'm gonna tell truth, right? Truth, that's the way we love them. Well, sure. The old adage is that love without truth is destructive. Sorry, truth without love is destructive. Love without truth is deceptive. Truth given in love actually develops. It actually does something in us. See, if you give all truth but no love, that's really not caring for the other person. That's just caring for what's right. But love given with no truth also doesn't care about the other person either. You just want to avoid a conflict. But love given with truth, this is where God can do stuff. So why is it important to have this type of costly love, this type of really radical love? Well, it's the next thing. Why does Jesus want this for us? Why? Why does Jesus want this for us? And it's that so that, right? Paul gives it to us in the text in verse 10. So that you may approve what is excellent, be pure and blameless, be filled with the fruit of righteousness to the glory and praise of God. Okay, to approve what is excellent. All right, so because you have the ability to love in this way, you now have the capacity to approve what is excellent. This is the type of process, they didn't have Amazon reviews. or Yelp reviews, or personal shoppers in their day, what would happen is you would go to the court, you would pick up the product, you would look at it, you'd inspect it, or if you were buying an oxen, you would actually take the ox, hook it up to your plow, and see how well the ox could pull the plow, right? This approval process is wading through the paradox of choice, weighing the pros and cons after a time of measured consideration coming to a decision about what is the best thing. Now, we live in a world that is full of choices. Have you heard the term peak television yet? Okay, peak television, this has started to be thrown around by critics and people that study television. So, quick little web search in 2005, or 2015, 2016, between all of the various streaming services and cable channels and everything else, there were, in 2015 alone, 400 television shows of original programming. Now think about that. 400 shows of original programming. I'm lucky if I watch one show from last summer that I still haven't finished on my DVR. 400 shows, that's peak television, there's no way. It's such a crowded space, everyone's competing for who's got the best offering. We don't have the time or capacity to commit like that. So to approve what is excellent means that we have now, we are being more closely aligned to the heart of God, right? You've heard me say before, talking about loving the things that Jesus said is lovely. This is part of what that means. to be able to look at the myriad of choices that's out there and to approve what is excellent, to look and say, this is the right choice because this is the lovely thing that Jesus said is lovely. That's part of what he's talking about here in the capacity of our hearts to approve what is excellent. He goes on though and he says, for us to be able to be righteous, for us to be righteous. He says that he wants us to approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ Jesus. Okay? These are forward-looking words. Right? So these are words that look all the way down the line. But there's an expectation here that when Paul's praying this, when he's talking about how he wants this type of love, this type of heart-stretching, others-focused, self-giving, others-exalting love that he wants to see in our hearts, built up in our hearts, so that we will be able to approve what is excellent and be pure and righteous, this means that this type of love is also going to benefit other people through the purity and through the blamelessness that he's talking about here. So the words that he's using here are akin to the types of sacrifices that would be offered in the temple. But it's even more than that, right? The word blameless, the connotation of the word blameless here seems to have the sense of not offending or not causing someone else to stumble, right? It's not just so that your actions are blameless, but that your actions in the eyes of someone else would not cause them to stumble either. Paul also prays that they would be filled with the fruit of righteousness. Now we've heard Paul talk over and over again about the fruit of the Spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, right? This being filled with the fruit of righteousness is an image that we see over and over again in the New Testament. He's asking God to enable them to love each other selflessly and to deepen their unity with the peace of God, right? So when we actually do that thing in our corporate liturgy every week of the peace of Christ be with you and also with you, that's not just a fancy church way of saying, so go shake each other's hand and talk about the big game. It's a way of actually embodying this reminder that we are to be knit together in the bond of peace that comes through Christ. All this to the glory of God. The wonderful thing of why Paul and ultimately Jesus would want this for us is because when the great day comes, when Jesus returns as the triumphant king, the final result of his masterful spirit born work in all of us will be all to the glory of our triune God. God himself will get all of the credit for the glorious beauty that he has bestowed on us. So think about it. Paul's praying for them. Paul's praying for us that we would have within us a heart stretched by the love of the gospel. The type of love that asks, how can the glory of God be increased not just in my life, but in my neighbor's life? The type of love that would say, how can I best long for, work for, promote, give myself, give of myself, so that my neighbor will flourish. And not just my church neighbor, whom I pretend I like, but my actual neighbor, who I really don't like. Or my coworker. Or the person that just cut me off. or the person that made all of the wrong life choices and now are dependent on social service systems like Medicare, Medicaid, disability, where my heart churns and I say, I made all the right choices, but they're getting all the handouts. How can I actually then long for, pray for their flourishing, right? Because remember, as Christians, our objection isn't to social protection frameworks. It's that the government shouldn't be handing those things out. But it's not that those things go away, it's that the church should be the ones that are caring for our neighbors in the most sacrificial, in the most generous ways. But that's not the way our conversations go, is it? Our conversations generally go, it's my money, I worked hard for it, I'm gonna do with it what I want. Or it's my time, I worked hard to preserve it, I'm gonna do with it what I want. Again, it's that expectation of reciprocity. I worked hard, therefore I get to enjoy the fruits of it. I planned well, I get to enjoy the fruits of it. I made good choices, I should get to enjoy the fruits of it. That's not love, at least in the way that Paul is describing it. You uncomfortable yet? Me too. How do we get it? How do we get it? That's the third thing. Look at verse 11. All of this, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. Being filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. If you think back with me over the first 11 verses of this letter, Paul has mentioned the name of Jesus no less than seven times. He says it twice in verse one, then in verses two, six, eight, 10, and 11. In the verses that we'll study in the next few weeks, he mentions preaching Christ three times. In one of the well-known verses in Philippians, he'll say, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain. Later, he'll then tell that he has done away with all his past treasures to gain the one great treasure, the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It is Jesus, it always has been, always will be Jesus that will be the one avenue of answer for Paul's prayer for his church and this prayer for this church. What this asks of us is to recognize that things are happening beyond that which we can see. But the fact that we can't see them doesn't unmake their truthfulness. Through Christ, all that was his is ours, and all that was ours was made to be his. He made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. But as I've tried to stress over and over and over again in almost every sermon that I preach, And I pray that you'll hear me as I say it again here. Jesus is not merely your substitute. though He is, if you have put your faith and trust in Him. Jesus is not merely your standard bearer to show you what life as a human being made in the image of God is supposed to look like, though He is that as well. Jesus is also the source and the stamina behind the strength that you need to actually have this type of love spring forth from your life into action. If you think you can just ask yourself the question, what would Jesus do, and then summon from within you the ability to love in this type of way that gives everything expecting nothing in return, I have sad news for you, it's not gonna work. But, if your heart is tied in, in the very union that you enjoy with the risen and living Christ Jesus in the flesh, where you say, God, I cannot, but you have done. God, I can't love, but this is the way that you have loved me. God, I can't give, but you have the one that has given infinitely to me. Then you can start to. Only in receiving what God has truly done for you, only in dwelling moment by moment in that grace that he has shown you, can you possibly begin to have your heart stretched in this way? Because you have been loved by him, if you are in Christ, The source, the stamina, and the strength to love in this way has been poured into you, and not just once, but over and over and over again. The more that we discover and dwell in and deepen in our understanding of the love of God for us in Christ Jesus, the more our hearts are then enlivened by His love to live and laugh and love in this way towards God and others. To love in this way is not simply to jettison truth. But to love in this way is not to presume that truth alone changes us. Truth without love is destructive. Love without truth is deceptive. But love and truth brought together in and through Jesus is dynamic. It's powerful. It changes. It's the love after all that changed you and I. Because dear friends, when the cost is much and the return is small, if any, you aren't gonna be able to love this way. You need the love for God and from God in Christ Jesus to make your love abound more and more so that you might be filled with the fruit of righteousness. I don't love in this way. I don't come close to loving in this way. But I want to. Because it's the way that Jesus loved me. And so I need you to pray for me that God would enable me to love more and more in this way. That my life would be less about my agenda and more about His. And maybe we'd pray for one another. that our lives would be less about my agenda, my wants, my expectations, my wishes, my expectation of reciprocity, my desire for mutuality. And instead, not my will, but Lord, yours be done. Can we pray that for one another together? That's the prayer that Paul's praying for us. It's what Jesus wants for us. He wants it for us because that's how we were designed to live.