The Apostle's Prayer for the Church (Revised 2) (Phil. 1:9-11)

Introduction

Turn in your Bible to Philippians 1:9-11. The title of the sermon is The Apostle’s Prayer for the Church. Let me read the passage, pray, and then begin.

9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

May the Lord bless the reading of His Word. May God, the Holy Spirit who inspired the text illuminate its truths to our hearts.

Over the last ten years over $705 million dollars was spend on Christian books. Last year one-third of all U.S. adults and teenagers purchased at least one Christian book. Of this huge number, nearly half of these books were on prayer. Prayer is a vital topic, but our greatest resource for learning this spiritual discipline is not the latest book, but the Bible itself. Scripture gives us the themes and language for prayer. Of all the passages in the pages of the Bible, Paul’s prayers in his letters may be the most informative.

We have before us today, one of Paul’s shorter prayers. Earlier in verses 3-8, he speaks of his continual prayers for the Philippian Church. Here in verses 9-11, he details his prayers for the welfare of that church. Paul’s little prayer is a model of intercession. Do you want to know how to pray for others ? Look to the prayers of the Bible as your guide. Look at Paul’s prayers specifically. Often our intercession can focus wholly on the physical to the exclusion of the spiritual. His prayers show us how to pray for the deeper needs of the brethren.

We will examine his prayer today for the purpose of learning to pray better both for ourselves and for others.

Background

Before we consider the text before us, let us step back and consider the letter as a whole. Philippians, like most of the New Testament, was originally an occasional document. That is something prompted Paul originally to write to the church.

Paul had a storied relationship of about ten years with the Philippian Church by the time of writing. Paul planted the church during his second mission journey. It was a strange group that made for an unlikely beginning for so healthy a church. Its first members were a young girl who had been trafficked for her spirit of divination. Lydia, a wealthy clothing entrepreneur. And the Philippian jailer along with his family. From this humble beginning, God established a local congregation.

The Apostle had a great relationship with the church that is characterized in the letter. We detect none of the terse words and tense situations as in 1/2 Corinthians and Galatians. The church supported Paul’s ministry with prayer, encouragement, and money from the beginning.

The relationship between them continued even into Paul’s imprisonment. When they heard of his incarceration in Rome, they dispatched one their own to find Paul in order to encourage him in the Lord and administer much needed support. Epaphroditus was one of their number perhaps even a minister. He made the 800 mile trek to Rome and found Paul. That was no mean feat. Once united, Epaphroditus gave encouragement from the Philippian Church and much needed financial assistance.

Their reunion was darkened though. The Philippian messenger got sick while in Rome. Almost to the point of death, Paul says. The Lord had mercy and healed the helper. Now Paul is sending him back and takes the opportunity to render thanks to the congregation by including a letter.

At its most basic, Philippians is a thank you letter. However, it is much more. Paul’s note is a statement on Christian joy. Joy and rejoicing is the major theme of it. He uses the term and derivatives over 12 times.

Our passage comes near the beginning of the letter. In the passages before, Paul issues a greeting and now he issues a prayer for the welfare of the church.

We will examine this passage under three headings: 1.) The Main Prayer, 2.) The Accompanying Petitions, 3.) The Hoped for Results

1. The Main Prayer (Phil. 1:9a).

9 And it is my prayer

Philippians, along with Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, is one of Paul’s Prison Epistles. For our purposes, I think it is important to note how Paul ministered during his imprisonment. Consider four ways he ministered.

Preaching

Though incarcerated, he was still able to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. He preached to those who visited, the imperial guard, others prisoners, and as part of his legal defense.

Letter Writing

Letters, for most of Paul’s ministry, were a substitute for a visit. Confinement meant more letters. God preserved these letters as a continued blessing for the Church.

Suffering

Paul’s suffering was not only part of personal sanctification, but his noble endurance was used to grow the Church and inspire other believers to greater and bolder service.

Prayer

The Apostle was always a consiment man of prayer. Shortly after his conversion, Ananias was summoned to lay hands on Paul to restore his sight and confirm his calling. The Lord told Ananias, he would find the man of Tarsus praying. However, prayer took on a new priority. He could not travel anywhere, but to the throne of grace.

Why did Paul open his heart about the private intercession that was previously heard only by the prison walls and guards? He did this to reveal the depth of his feelings for the church. However, another pressing reasons call for such revelation. This band of believers faced real struggles that called for prayer. What struggles did they face? Note several Paul mentions in the letter.

Their pain at Paul’s Imprisonment (Phil. 1:12).

Their personal persecution (Phil. 1:29-30).

Doctrinal Heresy (Phil. 3:1-2).

Church Conflict (Phil. 4:1-3).

These desperate times called for earnest intercession.

His priority calls us to greater commitment to prayer. Do you pray? Don’t let a dark providence like confinement happen before beginning to prioritize prayer. Andrew Bonar writes:

Oh brother, pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours in prayer; rather neglect friends than not pray; rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper - and sleep too - than not pray. And we must not talk about prayer, we must pray in right earnest. The Lord is near. He comes softly while the virgins slumber.

He loves the church and his prayers for them are an expression of that love. Paul cannot get to them in person, due to his imprisonment, but he can and does travel to the throne of grace in order to minister to them.

The second part of verse 9 begins to unpack the substance of his prayers. The first thing he prays and really the dominant supplication before God was for their love to abound more and more.

Why does he begin his intercession with a petition for increasing love? Its is because love is really the most important virtue of the Christian life. R.C. Sproul writes:

All virtue that is saving, or distinguishing of true Christians, is summed up in Christian love. It is love that disposes us to honor God as God, to adore and worship Him. Love recognizes God's right to govern us and His worthiness to be the object of our obedience. At the same time, love disposes us to treat our neighbors with honor and respect.

It is the queen of them all and the one from which the rest flow. Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians 13:13.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

In listing the fruit of the Spirit, the first one he mentions is what? Love. He prays for their love to abound as the priority of his intercession because love is the most important virtue of the Christian life.

The love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts. The seed of the gospel has been implanted into our hearts and brings the harvest of the Spirit. Chief among these virtues is love. Yet we must cultivate that love. Evidence of our true conversion is love. Our fellowship as a church should be, must be marked by love. If love be absent from our relationships what testimony can we give to the world and what service can we render to our Lord?

What is Christian love? Love is that virtue which seeks the highest good. It is not merely a feeling, but an affection that sparks tangible action. We love when we bear one another’s burdens and relinquish our rights for the good of others. We love when view each other through the lens

Who is the object of this love? To whom is the love directed. Many reems of paper in numerous commentaries have been expended on this matter. Is the object of this abounding love God or their fellow believers? It is best to say yes to both. Really they are inseparable. You cannot love God truly while hating your fellow believers. You cannot love your fellow believers without a deep, vibrant love for the living God through His Son Jesus Christ. One commentator said,

ἀγάπη here is to be understood in the most comprehensive way—restricted neither to love for God nor love towards fellow humans.

That makes sense for the greatest command is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second, which is like it, is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Love is difficult on good days. We fail to love God as we should. We willingly and unwillingly harm each other. We must pray for love, seek, seek it personally, and cultivate it corporately.

How can we every have this abounding love? It comes by resting in and gazing on Christ. Sin has been conquered at Calvary. The Old Man lies bleeding and dead. Christ’s five wounds sealed his fate. Yet, the vestiges of sin’s dominance remain. Only by resting in Christ’s finished work can we ever expect to love. We rest in Christ’s work, but we also faze on Him for an example of true love. Calvary is the greatest example of agape love. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

2. The Accompanying Petitions(1:9c-10a).

Paul prays for abounding love, but adds more details. He takes the rather intangible notion and puts flesh on it. The apostle does this with his use of the word “with.” This abounding love, he petitions heaven to be accompanied two things: 1.) with knowledge and 2.) discernment.

Paul marries love to knowledge. This is important. A love that is not tethered to sound doctrine is misguided. However, we must also under that the knowledge in question is not a mere intellectual or book knowledge we might say. Such knowledge is useless if not accompanied by love. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:2.

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

No, this is an experiential knowledge that translates into a loving action for the cause of the gospel. David Strain writes:

It refers almost exclusively to that spiritual, intimate knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ that is available to us only through the gospel as it comes to us in the pages of Scripture.

Our knowledge of God in the Word is meant for obedience in daily life. In Joshua 1:8 God commands Joshua to read and meditate on the Scriptures constantly, day and night. Why? Listen to the verse.

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Knowledge that does not lead to definite action, that is love, is a knowledge that puffs up.

I think this is one of the great dangers for Reformed believers. We are here because we take Christian doctrine seriously. However, theology for theology’s sake is wrong. Cold dead orthodoxy can be as dangerous as mystical piety. There must be balance. Orthodoxy must lead to warm, loving orthopraxy.

Discernment is the wise and experienced application of the knowledge of the gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ, for which Paul has just prayed, to all the details of our lives so that we might live each day to the praise of our Savior.

Discernment is the insight into specific life situations. Life is messy. Doing life with others as we are called to do in the Church means really messy and difficult situations. Paul prays that the Philippian believers would have insight into specific situations to deal with the difficult matters of life in Christian love.

I mentioned them earlier, but consider again some of the struggles they faced at the time of writing. They were pained and afraid over the imprisonment of Paul. They were being persecuted themselves on some level. Doctrinal heresy loomed. Two ladies in the church were having a row that had spilled over into the life of the church.

Any one of those situations was complex and difficult in and of themselves. Put them all together and you have a recipe for potential disaster. They needed insight to act in love. They needed wisdom to respond.

We dare not think these trials are limited to the First Century Church. Every church to the most healthy, like the Philippians, to the most dysfunctional, like a Corinthian Church, encounter trials that calls for discernment.

We must pray for ourselves and intercede for others that we abound in love that is informed by knowledge of the Word and accompanied by discernment that can apply this Word-driven love to specific situations.

3. The Result of the Prayer (Phil. 1:10b-11)

10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Paul now gives voice to the end result of his prayer. Why does he pray for abounding love accompanied by Word-driven knowledge and insight to apply to life situations? The end result is definite action on their part and secure standing on the Day of Christ.

Note the first part of verse 10. They were to approve of what is excellent. The experiential knowledge and practical insight was to be translated into definite action. That is the pursuit of excellence. Excellence here refers to Christian excellence that seeks God’s glory and other’s good. Knowledge and discernment must not remain inoperative, but result in approving action that is excellent. Excellent for His glory. Excellent for my brother’s good.

This action only comes by the wings of prayer. Our strength is feeble. Our limbs are weary and knees weak. Only the power of Christ can help us love. To love when we want to be offended. To love when we would rather be jealous. To love when we feel our rights have been infringed.

Earlier Paul expressed his confidence in the Philippians’ conversion and therefore their perseverance to the end. Philippians 1:6 says:

6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

His words are one of the definitive texts on the the Perseverance of the Saints. We are indeed kept in salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Yet, that does not stop him from praying thus. Why? We are guarded in salvation in order to persevere and our perseverance comes on the wings of prayer.

Verse 10 is an example of this type of prayer. Again, Paul has assurance of their standing and keeping, but he prays God would enable them to persevere. His prayer is an example that though kept by God, believers must work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.

On the Day of the Lord, His piercing gaze will bring everything to light. Hebrews 4:13 states:

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

In preparation for that coming day, Paul prays for two results. Think of them in terms of a negative and a positive.

Note verse 10. Connected to the abounding love