Love May Abound
Download MP3Well, good morning everybody. Good morning. You'll get warmer if you talk back, I promise. Well, it's it's a pleasure and a privilege to be with you all this morning, especially those that are are out here at the deck. If you're watching at home, I hope you're at least watching outside, so we might share in these sufferings together.
Jeffrey Heine:But it is a It really is a joy to be opening up God's word together with you. We're we're continuing our study, of the Apostle Paul's letter to the Philippians, which we started last week, looking at the first seven verses. We're gonna pick up in verse 8 this morning. The Apostle Paul was a disciple of Jesus, who started a church in the city of Philippi. And since leaving that church to start more churches, he's been arrested.
Jeffrey Heine:And this letter was written by Paul while in prison, most likely in Rome. And you'll find this letter to the Philippians in the New Testament in your Bible. And so if you can find Romans and or Corinthians, keep going just a little bit further. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. It's a brief letter, but we are gonna be spending the next couple of months walking through, all that God has for us in this letter to the Philippians.
Jeffrey Heine:We're gonna be in Philippians chapter 1 starting in verse 8. And, as you find it, either in your Bibles or it's in your worship guide, it's also in our worship guide that's on our website online. You can find it there. And as you find it, I just want to say that as I studied this passage this week, I had many thoughts and emotions regarding what we have seen in our country. And I wondered how these words, written in a different country, in a different culture, in a different millennia, how will they speak to us here and now?
Jeffrey Heine:But if we believe that these are the words of God, then we can find lasting truth and peace today. We can find hope. I'm convinced that no matter what we face, what cares or questions or emotions we may bear, the word of God will always be the most relevant word to our souls. Because only that which is eternal is sufficient to speak into our present need. So let us go to God's word honestly and humbly with our cares, our questions, our needs, and hear from the eternal word of God.
Jeffrey Heine:So let us listen closely for this is God's word. Philippians chapter 1 beginning in verse 8 through 11. 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 prove of 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.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that by your spirit, you speak to us today, That no matter what we are experiencing, your truth comes to us to comfort us, to change us, to conform us to be more and more like Christ our lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, you love us. Help us to love you that we may abound in your love more and more. Help us to understand your scriptures today and respond with all that we are to all that you are. So speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. Like a lot of new parents, I bought numerous books about parenting when my firstborn came to be with us. Books about development, books about discipline. And to be honest, I finished only a handful of those books. But one book that I did finish, that was especially valuable, it was valuable for one concept, that it offered.
Jeffrey Heine:The book is called The Coddling of the American Mind and it was written by Greg Lukanoff and Jonathan Haidt. And the concept in the book that was so deeply impacting for me in my thinking over the last few years is this. The parents' goal is not to prepare the road for the child, but the child for the road. We cannot curate, control, or contain what the road of life will be like for our children. Instead, we can help to cultivate in our children what they need for the untamed, uncontrolled roads ahead.
Jeffrey Heine:We cannot prevent disappointment, so we must help prepare the child for disappointment. We cannot prevent sorrow, so we must help prepare the child for sorrow. We cannot prevent failure or injury or meanness or injustice, so we must help prepare the child. Paul sees the Philippian church, which he helped establish as his spiritual children. Their pastor, Epaphroditus, has come to visit Paul in prison.
Jeffrey Heine:And during his lengthy visit, the 2 of them catch up on what's going on in the Philippian church. Their pastor shared an update on all of Paul's spiritual children in Christ. And in light of what he hears, both good and bad, Paul writes this letter. Paul's words in the letter are not only pastoral in tone, they are parental. And Paul knows that he cannot prepare the road for his spiritual children, what they will face.
Jeffrey Heine:He cannot prevent disappointment, sorrow, persecution, or suffering. He cannot keep away false teachers who will try to lead them astray with lies. So Paul must prepare his children for the road ahead. And he does so chiefly in 2 ways. 1st, by praying for them.
Jeffrey Heine:And secondly, by explaining to his children what he is praying. In the first few sentences of his letter, Paul expresses his deep affection for the Philippian Christians. He says that God is his witness. He yearns for his spiritual children in Philippi. He goes to as far as to say that he yearns for them with the very heart of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Here translated, likely in in your Bibles, affection. The the Greek bears a physiological meaning of a person's inner core, what today we would call the heart. It's out of the very heart of Jesus that Paul yearns for the Philippian Christians. He shares with them about his deep care by telling them that he prays for them every time he thinks of them, every time they come into His remembrance, He prays for these spiritual children. And that's a tender and caring remark.
Jeffrey Heine:Have you ever had someone share with you that they are praying for you and you know they actually mean it? That's a powerful way to show care for someone, to sincerely pray for them. And further, you can show your care by letting them know of your earnest prayers. This is an essential hallmark of Christian fellowship, praying for one another. It's because Paul loves God and loves his brothers and sisters in Christ that he prays for them.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you pray for your brothers and sisters in this faith family? Do you regularly pray for these people around you today? Paul is demonstrating a key aspect of our fellowship in Christ, and he easily could have left it at that, simply saying, I miss you and I'm praying for you. But Paul goes on. He gets specific.
Jeffrey Heine:He tells the Christians in Philippi what he is praying for them. Look with me in verse 9. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. Paul says that he prays that their love would abound more and more. And once again, Paul could have left it at that.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray that you would have more and more love, but Paul doesn't stop there. He goes on, and in verses 9 through 11, it makes up one long run on sentence in which Paul descends further into the specifics of his prayer. The British theologian Ralph Martin once wrote of these verses, this run on sentence, quote, almost every word must be carefully weighed if the greatness and range of the prayer is to yield their richness, end quote. As Paul descends into the particulars of his prayer for the Philippian Christians, we must go with him weighing every word so that the greatness and range of his prayer will yield their richness for us. One thing I often do in studying a passage of scripture, particularly the letters in the New Testament, I diagram out the verses.
Jeffrey Heine:And I have, albeit rusty, but but still I have a graphic design background. And for the last 20 years or so, my preferred method for diagramming a passage is to use Adobe Illustrator. I start out with one sentence and slowly break it apart, word by word. And this week, as I looked at verses 9 through 11, this run on sentence of Paul, describing his prayer for the Philippian brothers and sisters, The sentence began to look like a staircase descending further and further down. It struck me how rich and beautiful it is to get into the specifics of our faith in Christ in prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:And prayer is one of the most valuable places to get specific. We do not worship a general, vague, nondescript God. Because of God's revelation in his written word and supremely through his son, Jesus Christ, we have both the capability and the cause to get specific. Part of maturing in our faith in Christ is learning how to get specific. Getting specific requires learning how to descend into the particulars, to descend in thought like a deep sea diver holding their breath.
Jeffrey Heine:And like breath, you have to hold your focus, hold your attention and move from the surface of the general and get down into the specifics. And that's not easy to do. But Paul gives us a beautiful example here in this letter to the Philippians. He doesn't merely pray for a general, vague, nondescript love. He gets specific.
Jeffrey Heine:And 1st Paul says, it is my prayer that your love would abound more and more. And he's talking about agape love, a gracious love comes from God. God prays that this God given love would abound in the followers of Christ. He prays that the Christians of the church in Philippi would be overwhelmed with an abundance of gracious love for one another and for the Lord. And he gets even more specific about this God given love.
Jeffrey Heine:He prays that this love would bear with it knowledge and discernment. He doesn't pray for a generic love or an ignorant love, but a knowledgeable love. A love that knows the Lord and can discern what the Lord desires. In verse 10, he goes on to see to say what this love achieves, what this love does, the very purpose of this love. So back at the start of 9, we'll kind of keep starting back the tape at 9, because that's where this run on sentence begins.
Jeffrey Heine:And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so so that you may approve what is excellent. And so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Paul says that he is praying for this specific kind of love so that these Christians would approve of what is excellent. This love has knowledge and discernment It gives Paul's spiritual children and every follower of Jesus the ability to know what is excellent. The Greek here means to carry through, to go to the farthest to what is greatest.
Jeffrey Heine:He's saying that that you would know what is ultimate in life. So, he says again in verse 10, so that you may approve of what is excellent and so be pure and blameless blameless for the day of Christ. Paul is saying, I want you to abound in a God given love that understands and discerns what is greatest in life. I want you to have a love from God that helps you know what is holy. This God given love is inextricably tied to God honoring holiness.
Jeffrey Heine:Abounding in love leads to abounding in holiness. Abounding and living for what is greatest in all of life. Because if you abound in that God given gracious love, this love which knows what is holy, you will be living in such a manner that you would be joyfully ready for the day of Christ's return. You will be ready for Christ's return because you are already living into His holiness and joy. Paul goes on.
Jeffrey Heine: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. Verse 11, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Abounding in this love means that your life is filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus. Your righteousness, Paul says, does not come through your good choices or your holy behavior. Your righteousness comes through Jesus Christ because Jesus has made you righteous through his righteousness.
Jeffrey Heine:That means your righteousness bears fruit. His righteousness bears fruit in your life. His righteousness shows up in your living. Your good works of mercy and holiness and justice are the fruits of Jesus' righteousness in you. When you abound in this God given gracious love, the agape love that knows and discerns what is greatest and holy, and you live in that holiness and you bear the fruit of Christ's righteousness, you will be ready for Christ's return.
Jeffrey Heine:And all of this, Paul says, results in the glory and praise of God. It results in worship. Verse 11, filled with a fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Paul is describing the ultimate aim of all things, the worship of God. Worship is more than the songs that we sing.
Jeffrey Heine:When you love your neighbor with the love of Jesus, that is worship. When you live in the righteousness and holiness of Jesus, that is worship. When you do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God, that is worship. It's not just the songs we sing. Worship is how we live.
Jeffrey Heine:When we live for what is greatest, that is worship. And Paul says that when the love of God abounds in the people of God, we discern what is holy. We bear fruit from the righteousness of Jesus, and we live lives of worship and praise to the glory of God. That is what Paul is praying for the Philippians. That is how Paul is preparing his children for the road ahead.
Jeffrey Heine:Because Paul knows that regardless of the struggles or the success, the delights or the devastation that might occur along the road of life, at the end of the road is the beginning of the kingdom of Jesus, and the glory and praise of God will go on forever and ever. I was at the eye doctor with my youngest daughter on Wednesday when my wife texted me and asked if I was following the news. And I said no. I was watching Peppa Pig in the waiting room while Eleanor's eyes dilated, which is a very strange thing to explain to a child who has never had their eyes dilated. My wife's response when I told her no, I wasn't following along was to check-in.
Jeffrey Heine:And as I watched the news, I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to explain what was happening on the TV to my kids. I was shocked and ashamed and angry and tired and worried of what might happen next. Because if 2020 taught us anything, it's that we don't know what will happen next. Not with politics or with a pandemic, not with our culture or our community.
Jeffrey Heine:We do not know what lies on down the road. And we certainly can't control it. We cannot regulate or prevent all that will come next. We can try, and we can pretend, but we are finite, finite creatures in an infinitely broken world, and we can only cry out to the eternal to rend the heavens and rescue us. So we pray.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray and we get specific in our prayers. We ask for the love of Jesus to abound in us, to prepare us for whatever the road may bring to pass. Not that we might avoid it, but so we can bear the fruit of Christ's righteousness and His justice no matter how tumultuous the road becomes. And we take heart knowing that whatever transpires on the road of our lives, Christ has overcome the world. Because he walked the dusty roads of Jerusalem, he walked the road of suffering, carrying our cross upon his shoulders.
Jeffrey Heine:He took our way of suffering, though he knew no sin. And he gave us his righteousness and forgiveness and the hope of resurrection so we might have life and may have it abundantly, abounding in his love. And we can rest in that love, find comfort in that love, find strength in that love to live in righteousness. And we can know that the glory of God and the praise that is due his name will outlast every fear, every suffering, all confusion and sorrow. And he will bring us to his eternal joy and kingdom.
Jeffrey Heine:So come, Lord Jesus. Let us pray. O Christ, our hope is only in you, and we pray that by your spirit, we would abound and love your love more and more, and that that love would bear with it knowledge and discernment so we might approve of what is excellent. More that we would live into that holiness that you have for us, that we might be found pure and blameless, bearing the fruit of the righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus. And all of this to the praise and glory of your name, o Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray these things in the name of Christ our king. Amen.
