“Perspectives on Prayer - 7”
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“Where is the love?” Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack sang in an unforgettable hit from 1972. Their breakup ballad could now double as an odd anthem for American culture. Sadly, it seems like America's art and entertainment industry has rejected romance and sexual intimacy, and "love” has all but vanished from pop culture.
In 2014, the Journal of Advertising Research published a study documenting an odd decline in references to love throughout popular music. The word had fallen below phrases such as “good time” and other sexually and racially vulgar words or phrases are topping hits of the 2000s.
Music critic John Blake took notice seven years ago of how R&B—a genre that once gave the world Al Green and Aretha Franklin—no longer produced or broadcasted songs of romantic passion.
Film isn't much better. Esquire recently reported that “moviegoers are tired of romance on the silver screen.” A writer for The Washington Post declares that “the rom-com [or romantic comedy] is dead. Good.” Both articles attribute the lack of interest in love among the movie going public to shifts that now render the “clichés” of the boy-meets-girl movie “offensive.” It has become almost cliché to read “cutting edge” critics deconstruct popular love stories like Say Anything, reimagining them as predatory tales about sexual harassment. Never mind that the largest audiences for these films were always and will likely remain women.
In our culture today. We are bored with love. It seems we are done singing about looking for love in all the wrong places. Done with singing love takes time to heal. Done with singing I hate myself for loving you. Done with singing love hurts, love stinks, and love bites. Done with singing I said I loved you but I lied. There is so much misunderstanding about what love is… what true genuine divinely defined love is. So much wrong about it and so much wrong for so long that it seems that our culture has just given up on it. But no matter what our culture has done, as Christians, we cannot give up on love. And in light of our passage today, love is not the end, but a means to an end that we need to be praying for. We need to abound in love so that… so that what? Let’s find out.
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, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.
The Most Excellent
The Righteousness
The Gospel
The first thing we will look at today is how important love is not as and end of itself, but how the most excellent will lead to the excellent. Second, we should explore Paul’s second reason why he prays that we abound in love… righteousness. Finally, Paul brings his prayer to the final pinnacle: The Day of Christ the Lord
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world has, in many ways, given up on love, but the most excellent way must abound more and more by the power of the Spirit to bring us blameless and righteous on the day of Christ by His grace, sacrifice, and because He so loved us.
I. The Most Excellent
- Paul prays for what is excellent.
A. What is interesting initially about what Paul prays for is not that he prays for them to increase in love, but that he prays that their love will increase “so that...” Interesting, Paul does not pray love to be the end but prays that love will be a means to an end.
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, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:9-11
B. When we take a look at this… First, Paul assumes that if the Philippians are going to discern and approve what is best, their love will have to “abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” But to discern and approve what is excellent or best, the people need to be characterized by what the scriptures call an abounding love.
C. Why does Paul describe Christian love in this way? Love that “abounds more and more” is plain, but what about love that “abounds more and more in knowledge and depth of insight”? One commentator put it this way… “Perhaps we will get at Paul’s point rather quickly if we replace the phrase with the opposite qualities. Paul does not pray that their love might “abound more and more in ignorance and insensitivity” or in “stupidity and ham-fistedness” or in “cheap sentimentality and myopic nostalgia.” He prays, rather, that their love might “abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” The ever-increasing love for which Paul prays is to be discriminating. It is to be constrained by “knowledge” and “depth of insight.”
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 105). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
D. So you see in our world today love has to be constrained by knowledge and depth of insight. That is a huge reason why we are losing love in our culture today. Tons of confusion as to what love is. Songs has been out since the seventy’s about wanting to know what love is. Many in the world have a convoluted view of love today. But love is incredible when we got it right. Some might say that oh that knowledge and insight stuff would only stifle the passion of love. But what the Spirit wants us to see is that truth, knowledge, insight bring about purity and value to love. This is the kind of love Paul prays will increase more and more and if it does we will be able to approve what is best.
E. Now lets look at what is best, what is excellent. Diaphero. Some think here either...“things that differ” or “superior things.” But with a closer look they don’t seems as far apart as they might seem. Think about this… there really are times in life when we need to make a decision and telling the difference between right and wrong is pretty straight forward. But what we need sometimes is the extraordinary ability to see how things differ so that we can conclude what is the best possible choice or the superior thing. This is what Paul means about being able to choose what is best or what is excellent.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 105). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
F. Now the context of all of this is in the context of discipleship. So now lets bring it all together. What is it that Paul prays for? These excellent things are nothing less than all the elements characteristic of maturing Christian discipleship, and we cannot discern and approve them unless our love abounds more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 107). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 106). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
G. So you see Paul wants their hearts and minds to become genuinely Christian, for otherwise they will not discern and approve what is best.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 106). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
H. What do you do with your time? How many hours a week do you spend with your children? Have you spent any time in the past two months witnessing to someone about the gospel? How much time have you spent watching television or in other forms of personal relaxation? Are you committed, in your use of time, to what is best? What have you read in the past six months? If you have found time for newspapers or news magazines, a couple of whodunits, a novel or two or perhaps a trade journal, have you also found time for reading a commentary or some other Christian literature that will help you better understand the Bible or improve your spiritual discipline or broaden your horizons? Are you committed, in your reading habits, to what is best? How are your relationships within your family? Do you pause now and then and reflectively think through what you can do to strengthen ties with your spouse and with your children? Do you make time for personal prayer? For prayer meetings? Have you taken steps to improve in this regard? How do you decide what to do with your money? Do you give a set percentage, say, ten percent, of your income to the Lord’s work, however begrudgingly, and then regard the rest of your income as your own? Or do you regard yourself as the Lord’s steward, so that all the money you earn is ultimately his? Are you delighted when you find yourself able to put much more of your money into strategic ministry, simply because you love to invest in eternity? Has your compassion deepened over the years, so that, far from becoming more cynical, you try to take concrete steps to serve those who have less than you do? Is your reading and study of the Bible so improving your knowledge of God that your wholehearted worship of the Almighty grows in spontaneity, devotion, and joy? At what points in your life do you cheerfully decide, for no other reason than that you are a Christian, to step outside your comfort zone,
I. How are we doing with approving what is best these days. As you can see we need this love and this loves comes by prayer.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 108). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 109). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 108). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (pp. 108-109). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 108). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
II. The Long View
-Discerning Love and Transparent Purity.
A. So now watch this… Paul prays that believers will test and approve what is excellent “in order ...
so that you may approve 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.
For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.
B. The words pure and blameless and fruits of righteousness seems best to take all three as ethical qualities. To be filled with “the fruit of righteousness” is to be characterized by the conduct—the actions, words, and thoughts—that God himself judges to be right. And on top of it, Paul makes sure that we clearly understand that these come through Christ.
Pure and balmeless huh. More literally… fill with the fruit of righteousness
Philippians 1:10
so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.
Philippians
C. The picture that Paul paints is of an organism that produces fruit, and the one who makes the growth and fruitfulness possible is Jesus Christ. We are to pour our energy into the task, but we must understand that where this fruit appears it is the product of spiritual growth made possible by Jesus Christ.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 113). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
B. Pure and balmeless huh. More literally… fill with the fruit of righteousness
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 113). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
D. Paul never exhorts us merely to try harder apart from trying harder to be Christians worthy of Christ Jesus, and he is the first to acknowledge that the righteous living that ensues is, finally, the product of the grace of God.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (pp. 113-114). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
E. And here it comes to the top of the mountain. Paul prays that the love of these Christians might abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that they will be able to discern and approve what is truly excellent—and all of this so that they may be pure and blameless and filled with the fruit of righteousness, for (that is, with a view to) the day of Christ.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 114). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
F. Paul does not appeal to the “day of Christ,” the day of his return, in order to introduce a veiled threat. He is not saying, “You really must start showing more signs of this righteous conduct I have been talking about, or you may be caught out at the end, and face horrible judgment, or at the very least have a great deal of explaining to do.” Rather, he is saying something that most Christians will find even more compelling. Paul is telling them that they must live with a view to the day of Christ—that is, they must live in such a way that they show they remember they are moving toward that day and are utterly constrained by it.
G. Even now, Paul says, Christians will live with that day in view and will produce much righteous fruit in anticipation of that day. That is part of the call toward excellence. The church is to see itself as an outpost of heaven. It is a microcosm of the new heaven and the new earth, brought back, as it were, into our temporal sphere. We are still contaminated by failures, sin, relapses, rebellion, self-centeredness; we are not yet what we ought to be. But by the grace of God, we are not what we were. For as long as we are left here, we are to struggle against sin and anticipate, so far as we are able, what it will be like to live in the untarnished bliss of perfect righteousness.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 114). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 114). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
H. He is praying that Christians might be, right now, what we ought to be, what we certainly one day will be. The text teaches us to pray that we will test and approve for ourselves the highest and best and holiest things—all with a view to the day of Jesus Christ. Even now, Paul’s prayer insists, Christians are to be as holy as pardoned sinners can be this side of eternity. And we are to pray toward that end. It is in this way that Paul’s prayer for what is excellent is tied to the long view, to the day of Jesus Christ.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 115). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 115). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
III. The Gospel
Carson, D. A.. Praying with Paul (p. 115). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- And the Day is coming.
A. The context of Paul’s prayer concerning the day of the Lord was not a threat but a standard and encouragement to what is excellent. And this is a prayer for the people of God who believe that Jesus is the Christ. But there is also something here that we should take note of. What the day of the Lord will be like for those who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ. There will be a judgement.
B.
For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”
For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.
And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.
B. But the bad news is that when we are judged we will be judged according to what we have done.
“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
C. The wages of sin is death. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.
D. Judgement is real. There is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
E. But we can all rejoice today. There is good news today. It is the gospel of Jesus. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures… The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. He became sin who knew no sin...
F. The promises continue… all who call upon the name of the Lord… If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord...
