Discernment

Indeed, it is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

Good morning Living Word. Today we continue through our series going through the book of Philippians. Last week we looked at the introduction to this letter to the church in Philippi. We also did a brief overview of the beginnings of this church that are found in Acts 16. The notable part of that story that many who grew up in the church would remember is when Paul and Silas were in prison. They sang hymns and praised God and the jail shook and their chains came off. That happened in the city of Philippi.

We read how Paul was so thankful for the Philippian Christians, telling them that he believed that God would not leave the work he started in the them unfinished. He said:

Philippians 1:6

…he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

We talked about how God does not get tired of, or lose energy in, any of his projects. God does not start something he does not intend to complete. This “good work” in us is established through “sanctification”, or the process of being set apart from the world, being made holy. We see the work of sanctification through troubles and trials, which then help to grow the fruits of the Spirit in our lives, and teaches us to trust in the Lord more and more.

Today, we continue through more of Paul’s introduction to this letter. We will see Paul talk about his prayer for this church he is writing to and how he wants their love to grow, specifically in knowledge and discernment.

Big Idea: Without knowledge and discernment, our love is lacking.

So let’s dive into our text for this week!

Philippians 1:7

Paul knew it was right for him to have this joy in his heart about the Philippian church because of the affection that Paul and the Philippians had for each other. In verse 3 and 4 of this first chapter Paul tells his readers that he thanked God every time he remembered them in prayer. He said he prayed with joy when he remembered the Philippians.

This church had such love for Paul that they sent Epaphroditus with a gift to serve and minister to him in prison (Phil 2:25). Paul had such love for the Philippians that he became concerned when Epaphroditus became ill and could not immediately go back to Philippi (Phil 2:26-28). The gift that Epaphroditus brought to Paul from the Philippian church showed their partnership with Paul. Their partnership helped to advance the gospel, as we will see in verses 12 and 13.

We don’t know if there are any other instances in which the Philippian church worked with Paul in defending and proclaiming the gospel other than what we can read in Acts 16. But even if this gift is all that is being referenced here by Paul, it was significant to him and worthy of the commendation to the Philippian church.

Philippians 1:8

For God is my witness, how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

Paul further assures his readers of his love and affection for them by taking an oath before God and stating, “how deeply I miss all of you.” The ESV translates this phrase as “I yearn for you all.” Paul wants desperately to be able to see and be with these fellow believers who have been such a help to his ministry.

This yearning or longing is, “with the affection of Christ Jesus.” If you are a fan of the old King James you may read that phrase as “how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.”

In some older cultures, the “seat” of the emotions was the bowels or the gut. We still use this type of terminology today when we say we have a “gut feeling” about something, or how the initial feelings of infatuation with a boyfriend or girlfriend gave you “butterflies in the stomach”. Maybe an emotionally charged situation has made you feel sick to your stomach.

Our bodies and brains are so connected that what we think or feel emotionally can have an impact on how our bodies react. That is what many ancient cultures are referring to when relating emotions and feelings to the bowels. The word in Greek here for “affections” is splanchnon which literally means inward parts. One of my study bibles says that word became the strongest Greek word to express compassionate love - a love that involves one’s entire being.

Today, we talk about the heart as being the center of our emotions. This terminology was also used in Scripture when the Proverbs talk about trusting in the Lord with all of your heart. It is from our hearts that we say our affections and love originate. This is how our modern translations of the bible describe this love that Paul had for his readers. Yet this love was so strong it could not have been his own.

The reformer John Calvin, when writing about this passage said this about how we as humans tend to show affections:

“…the man who loves according to the flesh has respect to his own advantage, and may from time to time change his mind according to the variety of circumstances and seasons.”

Calvin here says that when we show our affections according to our flesh, or our sinful nature, we do so out of selfishness and for our own gain, or as Calvin says - our own advantage. What causes even more problems with this then is that we as humans are not consistent. We change our minds based on seasons and circumstances.

However, the love of Christ does not change because God does not change. The love of Christ is not here with us one day and gone another. When we love like Jesus, according to the work of Christ in us, we do so with selfless love. That love is not about what we can get out of it. When we love with the love of Christ we will truly care for the welfare of others above ourselves. That is the love and affection that Paul has for this church in Philippi.

Philippians 1:9

And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment…

After talking about his affection for the Philippians, Paul now tells his readers of his prayer for them, that their love would grow in knowledge and discernment. It is important to see that Paul did not just want the Philippians to grow in love. He wanted their love to grow in two specific ways.

Knowledge is not just attaining intellectual information but also gaining the experience to help define the situation you are in. John MacArthur says that the Greek word here for knowledge describes a full, genuine, or advanced knowledge. Biblical love is not an empty sentimentalism but is deeply rooted in, and regulated by, the truth of Scripture.

Discernment, according to the Dictionary of Bible Themes is:

“The sound judgment which makes possible the distinguishing of good from evil, and the recognition of God’s right ways for his people.”

The study notes of the Christian Standard Bible call it a “moral sensitivity.” Discernment helps us see the ways that God is directing us as his people and knowing to follow that.

Biblical love is not just the warm feelings we get toward others. Remember as we were going through our Advent series and in the sermon on Love we saw how the apostle Paul described love in 1 Corinthians 13:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This is what love truly is. And like I said a couple weeks ago when we went over this passage, I cannot love like this. You cannot love like this. Only Jesus can truly love like this. He shows us this love when we repent of our sins and commit our lives to him. Jesus can love like this because, being God, he has all knowledge and so has perfect discernment. This kind of love is mature, and not misguided. This is how we are to love each other and to love those around us - not with our own fallible love, but with the love of Christ working through us.

Philippians 1:10

…so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ…

The reason Paul wants their love to grow in both knowledge and discernment is so they “may approve what is superior.” Sometimes in life, we have to make choices between two seemingly good options.

Charles Spurgeon is credited with the quote,

“Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.”

Spurgeon implies here that discernment is not necessarily being able to distinguish between right and wrong - I think he would have more considered that to be knowledge. But discernment is the ability to distinguish when something sounds right but is actually a distortion, or half truth.

How many of you have heard someone talk about something, and since we are in church, lets just say you heard someone talking about God and how he works, or what it means to have faith, and you may not have known why right at that moment, but something that they said did not sit right with you? Maybe it made you squirm a little. You got a bit of a pit in your stomach. Or maybe it just made you turn your head a little.

I have gotten this feeling before as well. I haven’t always been able to understand right away what exactly was off about what was said. I will find myself keeping my mouth shut in the conversation but as soon as I get home I will start looking through my bible and my bible study apps on my phone to try to figure it out.

It doesn’t take much for false teachers, or even well meaning Christians who may not fully understand the whole picture of what they are talking about, to say something that may sound right but isn’t fully correct. Just the slightest change in how a topic in the Bible is presented or applied can actually bring serious error into the church. This is why we are starting to go through books of the Bible verse-by-verse to see them in context. That way we can understand what a phrase or saying or verse actually means in light of the verses and chapters around it.

We should always test everything that is said against the truth of Scripture. When Paul was on his missionary journeys, after he had left Philippi, he came to a place called Berea where he preached to the Jews in the synagogue. In Acts 17 you can read how the Bereans searched the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was telling them was true. And they did not have Paul’s letters and the Gospels to help them understand what Paul was saying. They were examining the Old Testament Scriptures to verify what Paul was saying about Jesus.

I hope that everyone here at Living Word Community Church would do the same thing with every one of my sermons. Follow along in your Bibles when you are here on a Sunday morning. Relisten to the sermons when they get posted on the website and YouTube. Test what I say according to Scripture so that you can help hold me accountable about what I preach to you as your pastor. Please! I want a church full of Bereans who will filter everything they hear through the truth of Scripture.

Next Step: I will test what I hear with the truth of Scripture

I love Spurgeon’s definition of discernment so much. When we can tell the difference between right and almost right, great and good, greater and great, and then choose right over almost right, great over good, and greater over great, that is the point when Paul says we will be found “pure and blameless” when we find ourselves before the throne of God.

This is something that I, as your pastor, am still learning myself. As I work through a passage of Scripture and study it to try and figure out the best way to communicate its truths to you, I find that I often have to choose between a couple of ideas or examples to use as I explain the text. That is not an easy job. There are times when I can see how one example from Scripture helps to explain a specific text I am teaching on, but I may not have the time to thoroughly work through that example well enough for my point to be fully understood.

I too need to learn how to choose great over good and greater over great in how I teach you the truth of Scripture. I told you on my first Sunday that I will make mistakes as your pastor. I hope you are able to see the heart with which I approach the word of God as I try to teach you its truths, even in my less than stellar attempts at communication.

Next Step: I will ask the Lord for better discernment in my life

When we put both knowledge and discernment together, we get wisdom. And wisdom is available to us from God.

James 1:5

Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him.

God gives wisdom generously to those who ask him. We can look back to the Old Testament and see how God honored Solomon because he asked for wisdom instead of riches and fame. Paul was not praying for some impossible thing to be given to the Philippian Christians. Paul was asking the Lord to give them wisdom in how they show love, which James says God gives to all generously when we ask him.

“Love is not a wild, ignorant enthusiasm, but the warm affection of a heart, guided by extensive and accurate knowledge, and by a clear, spiritual perception.”

We too should be asking God to help us love wisely every day.

Philippians 1:11

…filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

Paul prays that the love of the Philippians would be wise and discerning, not only to lead them to be pure and blameless, but Paul tells them that they would be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.” This righteousness that Paul speaks of comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul says that very thing in Romans 3:22.

When we put our faith in Christ, it means that we have been raised from spiritual death and given spiritual life through the working of the Holy Spirit. We repent of our sins, asking God for his forgiveness for our wrongdoing, and Jesus looks at us and says, “I have already paid for those sins.”

Giving his life on the cross, he took the punishment that we deserved for our sins, paying the price that was demanded of us, and in exchange, placed his righteousness, his right standing before God, upon us who put our faith in him, submitting our lives to him. It is the most unfair, unbalanced exchange in all of history, and yet God offers it to us anyway, that we may become his children.

The fruit of that righteousness is produced in us through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. It is he who plants these fruits in our hearts, fosters their growth, brings them to perfection, and fills the soul with them as the trees are laden with ripened fruit. It is this work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds that gives us the ability to produce things like:

Galatians 5:22-23

“...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

This is not a one-time thing either. This is a progressive process in which we are continually needing to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to walk and act according to these fruits that are being planted and cultivated in us.

And none of this is for our own glory. When we have fully devoted our lives to Christ and made him the Lord of our lives, we become less concerned with our own glory or status. Instead, we live to worship, serve, and glorify him, and him alone.

The late theologian RC Sproul said that the good deeds of man are stained or tainted by the inherent sinfulness that is present within us. Even our best intentions and actions are flawed and cannot meet God’s perfect standard of righteousness. Any “good deed” that we produce, even if it is beneficial to others, is stained with sin if the motivation behind it is prideful or self-righteous.

Without the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds, to renew our minds and transform our motivations, to give us a desire to please the Lord and give glory to him, without that working, our “good” is worthless.

Every one of us needs the power of the Holy Spirit to give us new life, so that we will stop living for our own sinful motivations, and instead, live to glorify the Creator of the universe, our God and King.

Maybe you have never come to that realization in your life before, but today you feel this pull toward Jesus that you can’t explain. If you know you need the Holy Spirit to give you new life by putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, that new life is available to you today! But it comes with a recognition of your own need to submit your life to Jesus.

Next Step: I need to put my faith in Christ

If you are making that declaration today, the elders and I are available to you to pray, to speak with you, and to encourage you on this journey of following after Jesus. We want to walk this road alongside you and help you see the joy of living for the glory of God.

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