Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
You can’t have too much of a good thing.
Have you ever heard that saying?
The idea is that if it’s good, then more and more would be even better.
But we know that’s not true right.
Going for a walk is good.
Walking 6,000 miles—not so good.
Getting a 8 hours of sleep, good!
Getting 187 hours of sleep not so good.
(That’s almost 8 days)
Building some muscle, good.
Building muscles on your muscles on your muscles.
Not so good.
People are afraid of you, shirts don’t fit, people stare, etc.
That wasn’t very sensitive to the body building community.
Now I’m going to get cancelled.
It pretty much goes that whatever good thing you can think of—too much of it has disastrous results.
There is however at least one thing that we can’t have too much of.
And our text this morning tells us what that is.
If you haven’t been with us lately we are preaching, passage by passage through the book of Philippians.
So you can go ahead and turn there with me.
Let’s read out text.
Our text in God’s Word says that too much love isn’t a bad thing.
God tells us in Paul’s letter to the Philippians that we are to abound in love more and more.
In fact our text gives us three defining characteristics of love in the life of the Christian.
And this morning we want to see our own love born from salvation defined in these ways.
So let’s jump in and find out what they are.
I. Growing Love (9)
Philippians 1:9 “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,”
We are to have a growing love.
Paul says I am praying that your love abounds—that it grows—more and more.
Friends, healthy things grow.
If you plant a garden and its a good garden it grows.
Healthy children grow.
And Paul’s joyful prayers for the Philippians is that the love they have would not be stagnant but would be ever growing.
Have you ever been in the place where your love for God and for others feels stagnant?
Maybe you’re there now.
Can you repeat something with me this morning?
My love for God should grow.
My love for others should grow.
Sometimes the word of God confronts us and the right response to that is to take the word of God—proclaim it as true and authoratative over our lives and start a course correction.
It’s all too easy to fall into a spiritual slump isn’t it?
To just go through the motions.
If that is you this morning—and likely it is all of us in some aspect—then we’ll decide right now.
I’m not going to go course correct—I’m going to desire and cultivate a growing love for God and others.
If you can get on board with that this morning, say “Amen.”
So we want to grow our love, but we want to do it right.
The rest of verse 9 is really important here in knowing how to grow our love.
Let’s look again.
Philippians 1:9 “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,”
Paul says I want your love to grow—to abound more and more…and then God’s word adds by what our love should grow?
What does the text say? “…with knowledge and all discernment.”
When we think of love we don’t often think of knowledge and discernment.
WE think of excitement, and feelings, and big gestures.
Not knowledge and discernment.
But they are very important.
I grew a garden a couple of years ago and I’m terrible at growing a garden.
It seems pretty straight forward but I found out there are a lot of ways you can mess up growing food.
However there is one plant that is fool proof—and that is cucumbers.
Cucumbers grow themselves pretty much.
The trick is knowing when to pick them.
So I’m growing cucumbers and these cucumbers are getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And in my lack of knowledge I thought “the bigger the cucumber the better because then there’s more to eat!
Why don’t you see these in stores!
That’s just like corporate America—keeping giant cucumbers out of our grocery stores to make a buck.”
Friends, there is a reason you don’t let cucumbers go on growing too long.
Do you know what happens to a cucumber left on the vine too long?
It gets sour.
The nastiest thing you’ve ever placed in your mouth.
It’s like crunchy soap.
I let my feelings and my heart determine what would be best in growing cucumbers instead of knowledge.
And we can make the same mistake when it comes to growing our love.
We can search out flashy excitement, experiences with lots of emotions, but God’s word is clear.
If we are going to have a love that grows-that abounds more and more—then it will be coupled with knowledge and discernment.
Where do we go for knowledge and discernment?
We go to God’s Word to get knowledge and discernment.
By the knowledge of God we discern what is and isn’t good in our lives.
Biblical knowledge and discernment grows our love for God and others in a healthy way.
It’s like the bumpers on the lane at the bowling alley.
It keeps us centered in the way that we should go.
Because here’s the reality—there are a lot of things competing for your attention—there are a lot of sources of “wisdom” that are calling to our minds.
Why?
Because what we sow in our mind is what grows in our hearts.
The enemy knows this—the world knows this—and God knows this.
This is why we must be a people who read their Bibles—we must be a people that beleive their Bibles—and we must be a people that change their lives based on their Bibles.
Are you going to God's Word for knowledge and discernment?
Spend time in God’s word and your love for God will grow.
So here’s the application for us this morning from verse 9.
We want to pray for a love that grows and we want to cultivate that through biblical knowledge and discernment.
As we spend time in God’s Word what happens is that we get to know God more and more.
The secret to love that grows more and more is to know God more and more.
Friends the reality is that many Christians are worshipping a God of their own making.
They don’t know the God of the Bible because they don’t read the Bible.
I’m not saying that is you, but make sure that’s not you.
Christian people—sometimes—say the craziest things about God.
And it’s because they don’t know what God says about Himself.
Let us joyfully meet God in His Word that our love may grow by knowledge and discernment.
There is a resource for you on the little round tables out there.
It’s an inductive Bible study method.
As you read God’s Word it’ll guide you in some great questions to help you get all that you can out of God’s Word.
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