Philippians 1:9-11- Discernment

Welcome

Good evening faculty, staff, patrons and class of 2025. Thank you for giving me the honor of sharing a few thoughts with you tonight as you transition from one chapter of your life to the next.

I begin with a question. How do you know what to do? Should you take the job, do you leave the job, do you stay or do you go, should you begin a relationship or end one that isn’t healthy, should you buy or should you rent the house, what about kids, when the kids come so do a whole host of other decisions that have to be made. The decisions are endless. And those are the big ones, the ones you have to a degree been making and the ones you’ll continue to make. Think about all the decisions you’re making on a daily basis that you aren’t even thinking about some times.

Researchers say that on average we make 35,000 remotely conscious decisions a day. Psychology Today took that a bit further, and after subtracting time for sleep, concluded that we make about 2,000 decisions per hour—or one decision every two seconds.

These decisions range from small, conscious choices like what to eat or wear, to the larger more deliberate decisions I mentioned previously like career choices or personal relationships

So How do you know what the right thing to do is?

Philippians 1:9-11 is a prayer. Its a prayer that Paul prayers for those in the church in Philippi and I think is relevant for you graduates. Here is what he prays:

Philippians 1:9–11 NIV

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may 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.

I know that you all where really hoping to here an exegetical sermon on these 3 verses in Philippians and those of you who attend Allensville know how long I typically can preach- insert story from Trace about being bored at church- but just give me 10 minutes and hopefully you’ll be left with something you can take from here. I tend to work backward from the conclusion.

Paul’s conclusion “that you may 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 the end goal, but it one that we never arrive at. It is a continual work that Jesus does in us, until our time on earth comes to an end and we reach the fullness of this in eternity with him

So, let it be clear, regardless of what I say after this, one thing needs to be understood- there is no amount of doing that can achieve for us the righteousness that Paul is calling us to and he makes that clear. Only through Jesus Christ are we made “right with God”- that is what righteousness is. And he makes us righteousness for His own glory and praise.

That being said those who are in Christ are called to live in such a way that reflects the glory of the one who makes us righteousness. And he gives us a way to do that.

Here Paul puts forth the concept of discernment as the key component in living the “pure and blameless” life. What is discernment.

Discernment is the sound judgment which makes possible the distinguishing of good from evil, and the recognition of God’s right ways for his people. It is necessary for the understanding of spiritual realities and, on a practical level, for right government and the avoidance of life’s pitfalls.

The spiritual component of discernment helps us decide between good and evil and right and wrong according to God’s ways. This skill works itself practically in the avoidance of some of the troubles of this life. The reality is that if we are honest with ourselves a lot of the trouble that we often find ourselves in is because we didn’t exercise very good judgment.

Boys I’m looking at you because I know the girls would never do something that might get them in trouble- of the times you found yourselves in a troublesome positions- how many of those times were because you exercised at best poor judgment and at worst no judgment at all.

So we have this concept of discernment that Paul puts forth that leads us to do what’s best- which leads to the life that Jesus Christ died for us to live. But how do we know if we are exercising good judgement? What makes a good decision or bad decision. How do we know if something is right or wrong?

Well I think Paul gives us a marker for that. It’s love. Paul is not talking about the heart eyes emoji type love. He’s not simply talking about love as a feeling. He’s talking about love as something we choose. I have heard love defined as “to will the good of the other as other.” To say it another way love is a choice we make that puts the good of others first. This is the love that the father has for his children, has for you. Our ability to love in this way flows out of the love that we experience from our heavenly father. And our capacity to love in this way grows in depth and knowledge and insight as our relationship grows and deepens with the father. I think these things grow in proportion to each other. If you haven’t experienced this type of love then I don’t think you can show it to others. So allow yourself to be loved by the God who loves perfectly. As you experience the love of the father in relationship with Him your capacity for loving in this way will overflow out of that.

So, I asked the question at the beginning- How are you going to know what to do? In light of Paul’s prayer my suggestion to you all would be to in the course of your decision making process- to ask yourself what is the loving thing to do? That’s not always going to be easy- in fact most of the time it might not be easy because Jesus calls us not just to love those who love us, He calls us to love our enemies. To “will the good of our enemies.” So sometimes the loving thing to do is going to leave you feeling like you have been taken advantage of, it’s not going to feel fair, it will probably require a sacrifice on your part and it could potentially end up with you getting hurt.

Here’s the deal- that type of lifestyle- one governed by love- brings glory and praise to God. And I don’t know this for sure but I’m guessing that there aren’t many people who get to the end of their life and think man I really wish I had loved less.

So, enter into a relationship with the God of the universe the God who wants to lavish his perfect love on you. Let yourself experience that love and then let it overflow into how you govern your love, how you make your decisions. To live the pure and blameless life in Jesus that brings praise and glory to the God who loved you first.

So, that’s the address I have prepared- and let me be clear I believe this all to be true and important for living the christian life. But, let me just take a few minutes to speak to you from the heart in light of this.

Sometimes I think we over complicate this. We stress ourselves out wondering what we are to do? Am I making the right choice here? We put pressure on ourselves almost to the extent that if you don’t get this right at 18 the rest of your life could be potentially messed up. I’m not suggesting you make rash and unwise decisions- again see my previous point on discernment.

But Thursday night at Baccalaureate you guys sang a chorus that declared “Where you go I’ll go and where you stay I’ll stay, when you move I’ll move I will follow, whom you love I’ll love and how you serve I’ll serve, if this life I loose I will follow.” If you sang that with any type of conviction, any desire to actually live that out then I have know doubt you’ll be living out Paul's pray here.

It flows out of relationship- and if you are walking closely with God- you’ll know where to go and you’ll know when to stay, you’ll know what to do and what to say.

The best encouragement I can leave you is not to love more or to use discernment and good judgement when you’re making decisions. The best encouragement I can give you is to make your relationship with Christ your highest priority, because if you do that all these other things they flow from there.

Let me pray for you:

Philippians 1:9–11 NIV

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may 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.