Philippians 1:7-11 • Abounding Joy
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
It really is strength and encouragement that God is giving us in His Word. Let me take you there, Philippians chapter 1, Philippians chapter 1, as we will be considering verses 7 through 11, really following on last week's message where if you listened, you would hear people asking you a question of the Apostle Paul afterwards, "How dare you say that about me?"
But that's usually how we respond when we hear an insult.
Last week the Apostle Paul said of all of those who gather in Christ's church through faith in Him, "You are saints and there is a sound of wonder that comes from us.
How dare you say that about me?
I know my sin, my weakness, my flaw. How can you call me one who through Christ Jesus is holy before God?" Is that right?
Paul answers in verse 7, "Let's stand and we'll read together the Word of God as the Apostle Paul defends his choice of words." Verse 7, "It is right for me to feel this way about you 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."
Let's pray together.
Father, if it's right for the Apostle to feel that people that he loved could be saints before you, made holy not by their work but by the work of Jesus, and from that would come an abounding love that deepens and stretches and helps others.
It's that love that we want. It's that knowledge that we want to have.
So we pray that you would give it this day, help what was said so long ago to have fresh meaning even now that we might abound in love and deepen in understanding and have that fruit of righteousness that truly is a blessing to those about us for the sake of Jesus in whose name we pray. Amen.
Please be seated.
What would you want the most for those that you love the most?
I think I could answer for my wife because I've heard the way that she answers questions that we have had on occasion in our family when our children have begun to introduce us to someone they are thinking about marrying.
And for those that my wife loves the most, she has questions that speak about her priorities and her desires for her children. The first question that Kathy will ask when one of our children is talking about someone they are thinking of spending a lifetime with is this question.
Does that person love the Lord Jesus?
More important than career, profession, money, personality, does that person love the Lord Jesus? Now to some ears that will sound just like prejudice or bigotry.
But what actually is driving that question is revealed in the next question.
Kathy will sometimes say to young people who are struggling with should I marry this person or not and maybe that person has said, "Oh I love Jesus," knowing all the time that that's what we want to hear.
That there is something deep in the heart of our child that needs to answer yet a further question, revealing themselves to themselves.
Kathy asks the next question.
And when you are with that person, is your relationship with Jesus better?
That's a different question.
It's going just beyond kind of the minimalization that we sometimes will do to our own relationship when we're with a person, we recognize that we feel tormented or tempted or anxious or even God ignoring. But they're a Christian so it's okay to actually recognize what God wants for His people is that oneness of being so that the person I am with loves Christ the most important thing in our lives as much as I instead of us being on two different paths. We're on one path, we are one in spirit and heart. And so Kathy dares to ask the question, when you're with that person, does your relationship with Jesus improve?
It's actually that that is driving the Apostle Paul here as he speaks to those that he loves at Philippi and he wants their relationship with the Lord Jesus to be wonderful and actually begins to disclose his own heart in verse 9. What does Paul want for these people? He actually says in his prayer, he says, "It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment." That word for abound means to be in excess.
And Paul uses a present tense verb which means he wants it to keep on going. Some of your translations actually say it that way. I want your love to abound more and more as though it's ever increasing. There's to be this super abundance of love. Curiously, the Apostle doesn't say whether it's for other people or for the Lord himself.
And there's wisdom in that in that the Apostle knows that the love that comes out of us, whether it is horizontally directed toward other people or toward God himself, if it's healthy, it has an ultimate source. We love, said the Apostle John Y., we love because we love. Because he first loved us. And it's the perception of the greatness of his love for us that is actually going to create an abounding love in us, both for those that God loves here on this earth and for God himself. And that abounding love is what the Apostle so wants for those at Philippi, that there would be this unity of heart with those who are in the church, but also a unity of heart with the Savior itself.
But it is not just without any understanding. After all that, love is being revealed first in human expression so that we'll get a taste for it. The Apostle Paul begins to talk in the early verses of the same chapter of God's love through his own love, expressing it in the way that he feels.
Verse 3, "He remembers the Philippians and gives thanks for them all."
Verse 4, "He prays for them all." Verse 5, "He commends them all for their generosity, in particular that they kept supporting his ministry when he left the church and when on mission, these people continue to say, what you stand for is so important, we're going to keep supporting your work for the sake of the gospel."
Ultimately, Paul says he has expectations for all those who are at Philippi. He says in verse 6, "What God, work God has begun in you, I expect him to bring to completion until the day of Jesus Christ. I think there are great things ahead of you." And that notion of God being at work in people that the Apostle loves is just saying, "If God loves you, then I representing him should be expressing that."
You know, whether you're a pastor or a parent or a teacher or a friend, it's just a little reminder that people know Christ's love through us, that our abounding love is something that we express. And the way that Paul is about to do it is just so special in terms of understanding what the love of God is for us as Paul is making it plain. In verse 7, where I began this morning, the Apostle Paul says, "It's right for me to feel this way about you." And the reason it's right is because he said, "I hold you in my heart."
Now, if the Apostle Paul was an Olympian getting up on the awards stage, he would be getting the heart sign right now, "I hold you in my heart. You are dear to me." Right?
Except the reasons he's going to give go a lot deeper than that. Why do I hold you in my heart? Verse 7, "Because you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are partakers with me of grace, even in my imprisonment." The word that you have in your Bibles for imprisonment is just the Greek word for chains.
You are partakers with me of grace, even though I'm in chains. And that word partakers, some of you will recognize it, it's the word koinonia, which we often use for just fellowship. But Paul puts a prefix on the front of it to say this binding fellowship that we have. "I'm in chains bound to a Roman soldier, but at the same moment, I am bound to you in being partakers of grace, that we are together in this provision of God for us, which is His grace. And the way that I know that you are partaker is even in my imprisonment. You were supportive of me in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. We are under this cover of grace. You know about me," says Paul. "I was a persecutor of the church. I murdered people because I thought it was right for the sect of religion that I was following. And now I'm in chains in Rome. This is a matter of shame in my past and a matter of shame in my present.
But you're in grace with me.
You're shackled to me even as I'm shackled to this soldier. We're in grace together as though this grace is covering us, and you're partakers with me of that grace. Because I know things about you too. I know one of you was a Roman jailer. I know one of you was a Greek businesswoman. I know one of you probably was a fortune-telling slave girl.
And yet the grace of God has enveloped us, and we're partakers together of this wonderful expression of the love of God. And I'm feeling that from you because you could have walked away. But instead, while I'm here in Rome defending the gospel and confirming it, the fact that you're still with me, that you didn't get out from under the covers when I got in trouble, is saying that you too think this gospel is real. I'm risking my life, but you're risking your reputations and keep supporting me. And I know that what it's saying is you're confirming the reality of the gospel too. And when you support and when you say that you believe in this grace and you're helping me spread it and you're standing with me in it, then we're partakers together.
And you're actually proclaimers of it together with me by your willingness to stand firm. And so, Paul says, verse 8, it's just so wonderful.
"God is my witness. I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus."
That word "yearn" is just the word that means pants. I'm panting after you, but it's with the affection of Christ Jesus. You have loved Christ, but here in an amazing statement, here is Christ's love for you as though He is panting after you with affection. That's what I'm sharing with you. It's not just my love for you. It's Christ's love for you that I'm expressing.
You know in the Old Testament, some of you will know that verse from Psalm 42, that as the deer pants for water, so my soul thirsts for you, O God. In the Old Testament, it's the psalmist panting for God.
But here is Paul saying that Christ pants for us. I yearn for you with the affection of Christ Jesus. As though there is this, it almost sounds sacrilegious, it's not respectful enough, that Christ is panting for us so long as for the depth of relationship that we begin to sense how great is His love. And that's not just sentiment.
It's not just something that's supposed to sound sweet on Sunday. What the Apostle knows is when you begin to believe how great is God's love for you, you begin to love Him greatly back.
And that's actually the foundation of the Christian life.
After all, what is the greatest commandment according to Jesus?
The greatest commandment is that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And where does that love come from? We love because He first loved us. And so here is Paul, the Apostle, speaking for Jesus, saying, "I'm just loving you with the affection of Jesus. I'm panting for you, but if that's what Jesus is doing, that's how great is His love for you and that's going to stimulate in you a wondrous, strong love itself. And the reason you and I need to know that is because we're just human.
And being human means we will do precisely what we love the most.
So if Christ's love for you is filling you with affection for Him, then you'll want to walk with Him. You'll want to please Him. You'll want to know all those things in life that satisfy Him. And the reason that's important is because ultimately it will satisfy you the most.
Anything that is second to Christ is actually second best for your life.
And so the Apostle Paul is saying, "Listen, I want you to know how great is Christ's love for you. I'm expressing it to you, but it's actually just His love for you.
Because when you have that love, you will have the foundation that you need for decision-making and difficulty in your life."
Just two weeks ago, it's hard for me to actually put myself in that setting. I was in China ministering to a large group of house church pastors.
And often in those situations, I feel humbled. Who am I to teach you? Your lives are so difficult. Your circumstances so hard. I need to be sitting at your feet and learning from you.
And yet I'm there to teach, and so I teach. And it's interesting the conversations that you can get into as a consequence. After one of those talks, a young pastor in training came to me.
And he said, "I'd like to get some advice from you."
There's a young woman I'm thinking about marrying.
I'm thinking, "I'm not going to tell you anything."
But he went on, "She is a Christian, and she comes from a Christian family.
But she does not want me to be a pastor.
Because she knows if I become a pastor, our life will be full of suffering.
Should I marry her?"
Now I'm really thinking, "I am not going to answer this question."
We talked for a long time.
And when we finally got to the end of the conversation, I asked Kathy's question.
I can't tell you what to do.
But I need to ask you this.
Does she bring you closer to the Lord Jesus?
He said, "I thought you said you weren't going to tell me what to do."
I said, "I'm not." But ultimately I recognize that is the question.
If your life is full of suffering, whatever it is, if you're with someone that is one with you and heart and mind, you will endure that. But ultimately the reason you can both endure it is because you know the affection of Christ Jesus. And God is talking to you about the affection that He has for you. Because ultimately you must know that the affection that He has for you is going to create such love in your heart that you will put His priorities first. And if you put His priorities first, if He is first, then you get what is absolutely best for your life. That's actually God's intention.
That He's not saying, "You love me first and then I'll make things difficult and awful for you." No, He's saying, "You put me first and because you know how much I love you, I even pant in affection after you." You know that whatever you face, whatever you do in my namesake, is ultimately what is best for you. And that's my intention for your life. That your joy may abound. And it does when your love for me abounds so much that you actually be making those choices and those decisions that are based upon that love. It's not blind love. It's not love without a purpose. And so the Apostle says, "Listen, I'm praying for you not only that your love may abound,
but ultimately that your understanding may deepen." Did you see that in verse 9? He said, "It's my prayer for you that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment." This love that's to abound is not abstract. It's not ethereal.
The Apostle says, "I want you to love and have this love abounding with knowledge and discernment."
If you're really going to love somebody deeply, you have to know something about them, who they are and what pleases them. And so Paul says, "If you're really going to be loving the Lord deeply with a love that abounds and loving His people with this abounding love, then you need to know who God is and what He requires. That's just part of knowledge." And so we do a lot of that in this church, don't we? We say, "What does the Word of God say? Who is God and what does He expect?" And that's not just rules, it's relationship.
If you love somebody deeply, you want to know who they are and what pleases them. And so the Apostle then says, "And not only do I want you to have knowledge, I want you to have discernment.
Knowledge is about acquiring information. Discernment is about using it well."
And so the Apostle is saying, "I want you to have discernment about who God is and what pleases Him." It's not enough to say, "Well, I love God and I'll do whatever I want to, my own destruction or to His defamation." No, I want discernment to know who God is and what pleases Him. And so I want to search His Word and find out what He requires and what He understands. Because one of the things that's so sad in the church is you meet people first who say they love God but don't seem to have much knowledge.
Or secondly, people have a lot of knowledge and not much discernment.
Paul will just in a little bit say that what he's ultimately after is the fruit of righteousness in our lives. That's that fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
It's so sad at times when you find people in the church who are filled with knowledge
but not gentleness, filled with all kinds of understanding but not self-control.
Sometimes in the church we find people whose knowledge swells their heads and hardens their hearts and Paul is saying, "That's not what I want for you. I want the knowledge that is discerning of how you might be that person who is peaceable and kind and gentle and faithful." All those things that are part of the fruit of righteousness being in your life. It is not enough just to know. I want discernment that comes in such a way that verse 10 will actually apply to you, so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
This understanding is of knowledge and discernment and ultimately so that you can approve what is excellent.
That word approve means to assess so as to properly judge.
It's actually a word in the Greek that is what a metallurgist would do. How do I test the metallurgist to see if it's pure and right, what grade it is?
I'm praying, says Paul, that you can test and discern what God's will is so that you can approve what is excellent, what is actually best for you. And by the way, it's not just rules again because if you actually follow the language of the apostle, he's actually saying, "What I want that is best for you is actually what gives you a fantastic engagement."
Now you won't see that if you don't interpret the words as they're intended. I want you to be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
That there is ultimately a great wedding feast ahead when Christ returns, when He will claim His bride, the church. And until that day, the apostle's saying, "I want you to be abounding in love." And the way you're going to be abounding in love is by knowledge. Yes, you needn't know what the word of God says, but discernment so that ultimately you're testing and approving this isn't just kind of abstract knowledge. It's not knowledge you put on the shelf, but as you are going through life, you're discerning and making choices for what is absolutely best for you so that your engagement is fantastic.
That this life until the return of Jesus Christ, when He claims His bride, is a wonderful, wonderful engagement. What is absolutely excellent?
We don't think of it this way much anymore. The early church fathers sometimes talked about baptism itself, that when we mutually acknowledge before one another and the world, "I am a sinner in need of the shed blood of Jesus Christ." And what it means to be a Christian is to acknowledge this to the world. And I show that in my baptism. The early church fathers said that baptism was a sign of our engagement to be the Lord's. Isn't that wonderful? That I'm engaging with the Lord. And you know what happens in that engagement period? You're finding out about another person so that the fullness that God intends will be absolutely even more wonderful.
Some of us in this room were here just a few weeks ago for a wedding.
And after the wedding, as the different rows were being dismissed and there was some time, they began to show the slides of the bride and groom's engagement period. You've been in those weddings, right, where they show the slides? And you know, everybody's all smiles, right? So you see the wonderful people and places that have occurred in the year, you know, prior to the wedding, all that engagement time is just beautiful and wonderful. And we celebrate that. This is a fantastic engagement. And now they know each other well.
But reality says we know if that engagement was really doing its work, yes, discovered wonderful people and places and things, but in all likelihood there were some tears and trials in that period as well.
Because that was part of deepening that relationship and creating dependence on one another that would be absolutely essential to the future of holding together through the hard times in a broken and fallen world.
And so with the message of the wonder of all the good things, that engagement period is actually that where we test and approve what is excellent for all that God intends. And that is actually what he is saying here, that we are intended by this discernment, by this knowledge of who God is, to be making choices so that ultimately this engagement period prior to our wedding ultimately with the Lord is a fantastic engagement where we are deepening our relationship with God. We're learning greater and greater dependence. And that's actually part of its purpose. And we need to be reminded of that in a community even now where we celebrate a lot part of us in a joyful atmosphere of worship. And we know there are others who are experiencing fears and sorrows about layoffs or terminations. And we wonder how all that fits together in an engagement period. And the reality is every single one of us in this room will experience not only the joys but at some time the tears. And we wonder if God really loves me, why am I going through this? Why is my family being stretched in this way? And we actually say, this is part of the engagement period where I'm learning that my joy is not just based upon what happens. My joy is not based on my circumstances. My joy is based on the grace of God who has covered me with all of his affection, knowing the worst about me, and says, "I am securing you until the day of Christ Jesus so that you would have knowledge to face that and discernment in facing not just the good but the hard. I'm going to have you test and approve what is excellent, what is absolutely the best thing for you because anything that is not of Christ Jesus, anything that puts him second is actually second best for you." And so we go through this life, this engagement period, being stretched at times, rejoicing at times, but all of it is about deepening, deepening, deepening a relationship with the Lord Jesus for whatever the world holds for the security of what heaven holds.
And that reality and that goodness is what the apostle is after when he ultimately says to us, "What do I want for you? I mean, what does Jesus want for you? What do you most want for those that you most love if you're God?"
Paul answered that as well in verse 11.
He prays that these Philippians would be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God, to be filled with righteousness, that there would be this right path that God wants us on, this reflection of His beauty and goodness, not just the sense of rules again, but what would it mean to be right with God and to live in such a way that His goodness and His fruitfulness would be in your life? I mean, some of you are parents and you know exactly what I'm talking about when I say what we really want for our kids. What we really want is a fruitful life, that there would be this particularly if God is calling them into marriage, that there would be someone with them that united their hearts to their heart for Christ. And what flowed out of that was fruitfulness, a life for God that was a blessing, that all those things that we talk about with such passing care about the fruit of the Holy Spirit that love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness would be in their hearts and they'd be united to that person.
And we know that somehow out of all that would come wonderful fruit that would not just necessarily be financial, wouldn't necessarily be in position or prestige, but it would be wonderful for their lives, that there would be that fruit of righteousness that they would experience. And when Paul says that this fruit of righteousness is coming, he's so much dispelling the wrong notions that people have about the name on our front door, that we're a grace Presbyterian church and people think, well, grace is all about, you know, doing whatever you want. I will forgive you later.
So you don't get it. Paul the Apostle says it's the grace of God that teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions because God's got a better way.
He means for us to enjoy the fruit of the Spirit, the flow of fruit that is to come into our lives as we are walking after Him.
This grace, this righteousness is not just our position, it's our practice because we believe that out of this living for God, there's actually the greatest wonder and joy that happens in the Christian life.
But now we're scared.
If I'm supposed to be pure and blameless in this engagement period, up until my wedding to the Savior ultimately, if God is expecting me to test and approve what is excellent, I have only to look at the weakness and the faults and the frailty in my life to wonder if I have passed the test or even could.
And so that's why it's so important that we learn that this fruitful life for which the Apostle is praying, verse 11, comes through Jesus Christ.
Two things being said here. One is that the blamelessness comes because of grace, that I'm covered with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But secondly, this fruit of righteousness is through Jesus Christ. You know, this is the same book in which the Apostle will say these words, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
Now he's saying, "I want the fruit of righteousness to be in your life through Jesus Christ." This Jesus Christ is yours by the work of the Holy Spirit. He now indwells you. He who raised Jesus from the dead now exists in you so that John will say greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. The resurrection power of Jesus Christ is in you. So what the Holy Spirit is revealing to you of the requirements of God, he is giving you power to fulfill. That is not what Satan wants you to believe. Satan wants you to look at the requirements of Scripture with knowledge and discernment and say, "Well, that's beyond me.
I can't do that. What God is revealing to my heart is no way I can do.
I've got this affliction. I've got this addiction. I've got this pattern. I've got this practice," whatever it is, "there's no way I can change." And the Apostle is saying, "That is a denial of the gospel. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The fruit of righteousness is through Jesus Christ that I believe is a matter of faith that God will equip and enable me to face the things that are dragging me down, that are causing sin in my life, that that's actually hope for my life, that the belief of the believer is, tomorrow does not have to be like yesterday.
Real change is possible. And the reason it's possible is I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Yes, I'm being called to understand there is a fruit of righteousness, which is not just about rules to understand. It's about connecting our hearts to the king of the universe who pants after us, who longs for the best for us, and says, "I want you to be able to test and approve what is excellent," not because he's just trying to keep you on the straight and narrow, because he actually desires what is excellent for you. What is that fruit of righteousness that is the blessing to every believer to know I'm walking in the path of God and this is where I find my deepest joy. That's what God is providing for us. And so he provides it for us saying, "I want you to have this righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ and then the greatest promise of all so that you would be to the glory of God the Father through Jesus Christ, that whatever God is doing in you would be to the glory and the praise of God."
It's just precisely what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount, that if we were to walk in His ways, men would see our good works and praise our Father in heaven.
You forgave the person who did that to you?
You love the person who's failed you in that way?
You are going in this path even though everyone else you know is going that path and leaving you behind?
You are willing to love despite your own hurt.
Who is your God?
Who are you following?
Who is your Father?
It's what's supposed to happen that the very life we look at as being accursed when it is lived out of joy in relationship with God becomes actually that song of praise to the Father.
I didn't know it could happen, but God was using even my hurts and my pain and my failure covered by His grace to teach a world about the glory of His care.
Is it real? Does it still happen at all?
I want to read to you an email I received from one of the elders in this church recently
as he talked about a life that many would have thought of as a curse that has become a song to the praise of God.
The elder writes this word, "I met this young woman at a youth event two years ago.
I was trying to reach out to a teen whose face was hidden by her hair and she was hiding other things with her arms covered by long sleeves.
Just trying to break the ice with her I said, "Tell me something about you I don't know."
She answered, "Both my parents are drug addicts and locked me in my bedroom while they had their drug parties.
I would bang on the door for hours for someone to give me food and to clean me up."
That got our elder's attention and he offered to listen.
He writes, "For the next two hours she shared about her hurts, her feelings of worthlessness, her suicide attempt three months earlier, her cutting and her sexual abuse at a fall party at school by older students.
She had been removed from her parents' home but that did not remove the pain from her life.
She raised her sleeves and showed me dozens of cut marks on her arms.
God brought His truth through my faltering voice as I told her of God's unfailing love for her.
Scripture upon Scripture somehow came out of my mouth. Through many tears she poured her pain out to me and to Jesus.
God flooded into her heart and the new creation began. I encouraged her each time she saw her scars to have them be a reminder of the scars on Jesus' body which He had endured for her."
That was two years ago.
Two weeks ago she shared her story with 40 of her peers saying that now every day is precious.
All others connected with her pouring out their pain and she gave them hope in Jesus.
And then when the meeting was all done and people were leaving and it seemed like it was all over, she spoke up and she said, "Wait, I forgot something.
Something really important I have to say to you." And then she said to all of her peers and friends, "I want you to know I have forgiven my mom and dad and all those who hurt me."
Then writes my friend who inserted these words, "I'm now writing this to you with tears.
Amazing.
Beautiful.
Redeeming. Love."
Paul says, "I want you to be a pounding in love so that you may know and be able to discern what is absolutely best for you." And when that happens, people will praise God through Jesus Christ work in your heart and life.
It's what we pray, it's what we hope, it's what we celebrate knowing this, the fruit of Christ's grace is a life once cursed, transformed into a life of praise.
God took a curse and made it a song.
That's what He most wants for those that He loves.
Like me.
Like you.
Let's pray.
Father, teach us the beauty of what it means to be able to call our God, Father.
The one who loves us so much, he will tell us sometimes what we don't want to hear in order to deepen a relationship with our eternal groom.
The one who is making His church His bride and in this wondrous, awful engagement period
is deepening a relationship with Him so that the world may sing the song of His grace and learn it through us.
So give us knowledge and discernment and fill our lives with the fruit of righteousness
that people might see what's in us and say, "Who's your father?"
And we would tell them the one that sent Jesus.
Grant this grace in and through us, we pray, for the sake of our hearts and those our lives touch. So we pray in Jesus' name, amen.