CPCC November 17

211 says 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 Christ. Jesus to the glory and praise of God. This is the word of the Lord.

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All right, let's go ahead and have a word of prayer father. We do. Thank you for your for your word. We thank you that we can hear it and then we can read it and then we can gather together to study if I just ask that you would be with us this morning as we open it and we on packet that you would send your spirit to help us to understand and to apply it. We thank you so much for your church. And for your people. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Tell when I was younger like 8 or 9 probably like a lot of boys by age. I was really into Fast Cars And so you would kind of watch for fast cars wherever you want. And unfortunately, I'm being in Vermont you rarely ever got to see like the really really fast cars. I like that's the Lamborghinis or their Ferraris and then one day we learned this remarkable piece of information on the road that is parallel to where we lived in there in the middle of nowhere. There was a guy who had a big garage and inside the garage was a collection of exotic supercars found out about this. I would tell Dad can we drive home that way? That's all we would drive home and I would look at it and hopefully the doors will be open you get a glimpse of a Ferrari or Lamborghini and I was so excited. And then one day there was a bunch of people standing outside and as we went by and so my dad being need the Raging extrovert that he is just pulled in because my son really wants to look at your car. Come on in and I got to walk through this pristine garage with this collection of cars of which were either like five or six in the world. And then this guy says want to send one in like 8 year-old bread like my feet aren't even touching the ground. I was just like it was like I was so excited about what had happened and I just couldn't stop talking about it. And I don't know we got home in one of my uncles was visiting a bigger smile like you sit in my truck and I was like you got pulled over on the interstate for going to slow a smile on my face.

And these amazing supercars and when you come to the book of Philippians as you begin Paul's letter to the church. What you find is that Paul is overflowing with joy, he is so excited for the church and what God has done in the church and we read last week about how God was the one who began the good work in the church, right? We learned it acts that he opens Lydia's heart to hear the word of God that he threw his power drives out the evil spirit in the slave girl that he sends an earthquake that end in the conversion of the Philippian Jailer that God begins the work in Phillipi, but we also saw that got energizes his people. He doesn't deserve start them and say, all right, you're all set to go. But he encourages them in the work that he gives them the energy they need for Missions and then we saw this one. Beautiful promise in Paul's rejoicing that God is the one who safely brings you home. So you have this wonderful picture of the Christian Life in the first Philippians God begins the good work that he continues the good work and ultimately safely brings you home. Now this Sunday as we just heard the scriptures read we're changing from Paul's rejoicing over what God has done to Paul's prayer for what God will do in the church. As soon as we begin. This text is that Paul is speaking of God's work in the life of a Believer thing starts by saying this and it is my prayer now, I'm Paul is praying here. He's really praying. It's not like we're you have a hidden sermon in your prayers. Like we're growing up and was our turn to pray at the table was like, oh God help my sister not to be so obnoxious right is really not directed at God. It was directed at my sister. That's not what Paul is doing here that he's literally overflowing with Joy about the church and now he's going Pray for their spiritual growth and what you find is that he's talking about what God does in the church. Will you start by saying this? It is my prayer. He speaking to God about the flippy Inns and they're just getting to listen in about Paul's prayer and at the very end in verse 11. He says filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ that Paul's prayer is not about what the Philippians do but rather about with the transforming power of the gospel and what God does through people who know him that God's work in a lines of the flipping Christians to bring them to maturity and one of the things of this reminds us as we begin. This text is out of our dependence on God that Paul was going to say a lot of things are going to talk about love that abound Knowledge and discernments he's going to talk about approving or choosing. What is excellent. Tell me about being pure and blameless for the day of Christ to be filled with the fruit of righteousness. And Annie one of these taken on their own. What seemed an overwhelming task for the Christian Life For example, the fruit of righteousness. We reading in Galatians chapter 5, I get a fruit of the spirit is love joy peace, patience kindness gentleness and self-control and we just look at one of those we see that's so incredibly difficult, but we find it at this point since to God who brings these transformations in our life and he helps us to love helps to be kind to be gentle to be self-controlled. The other thing that this reminds us of his that we don't grow out of Christian progress meaning they're doing certain Behavior or certain me on your mannerisms that will disappear as they get older. What you find is that Christians do not grow out of Christian progress, right there never comes a point in our Christian Life or we say, you know what I've gone far enough. I've improved enough. I've Advanced enough. I'm all set. What we find is that God continues to work in our life from the day that we become a Christian until the day we go home to Glory that God is continually working in our lives and Paul's prayer reminds us that cuz we have an established church a church that loves God that loves others. That has given to the work of missions that have supported Paul have been co-laborers with him and Ministry and Paul here is still praying for their spiritual growth. There is never a point where we stop growing spiritually. Until Paul saying this is my prayer. Now, we come to the foundation of his prayer in this is found in verse 9 and he's going to talk about a bounding knowledgeable and Discerning love. Look what he says. It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. I want to see first of all how this is the foundation for everything that comes next. I told him first. He says his my prayer that love may abound more and more at the beginning and verse 10 after you said, I pray that your love will abound he'll say so that you might approve what is excellent. So approving of what is excellent comes as a result of the abounding love second-half verse 10in 2 verse 11, he says and so be pure blameless and fruitful and self-love. Lee seeds to this this picture, proving what is excellent with excellent which then leads to being pure blameless and fruitful. That's at the heart of everything policy is love answer the question that we began with AIDS. Who are we as Christians to love and the answer is fairly simple that our love has to Direction and rather than me telling I'd rather just read some scripture for Matthew 22 that points out this love and this is Jesus and he's dealing with the Pharisees and the Sadducees nerd gathering together and a verse 35 and Matthew 22. It says and one of them a lawyer and ask him a question to test him teacher which is the greatest commandment in the law. And he looks Jesus said to him you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind. This is the Great and the first commandment and the second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two Commandments depend all the law and the prophets. And so this lawyer comes to Jesus with a lawyer really question trying to trip Jesus up but he says what's the greatest commandment and Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy. Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul strength in mind. And then he says the second give me a man after the first one is love your neighbor as yourself and then he goes on to say on these two Commandments the love of God and the love for our neighbor. Everything else is built upon an easy illustration of this. I take your Bible and look at the Ten Commandments and what you'll find is if you read through the Ten Commandments you'll find Differentiated into groups one having to do with your love for God but there shall have no other gods before me do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain they have to do with the love of God. The second part of the ten commands has to do with the love for our car brothers and sisters for our neighbor right? Do not steal. Don't lie. Don't commit adultery all of these other things and what Jesus says what we can see exemplified in scripture is that our love goes into directions to goes upwards toward God and outward toward others. And so as Paul speaks of love. This is what we come To think about the Paul is praying. First of all, I think that the Philippians would love God deeply and so many times. I think we miss the depth of the knowledge of the love of God in Philippians 3. Paul says something that is remarkable as he talks about Christ being rooted and grounded in our hearts through faith in Flint Ephesians, 3:17. He'll say this next so that you may be rooted and grounded in love and then he begins to explain this love and look at what he says that you may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints. What is the breath and the length in the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge Paul praise, they would know this love that is so vast. It surpasses knowledge. You need to scribes. There's a q but it goes this way it goes that way and it goes this way and it goes outward and that it's only through the power of the spirit. We can understand the depth of the love of God until he's praying for the Philippians to know God deeply to see his love deeply, and to love him deeply but he's also praying with the Philippians would love one another member Jesus has he speaking to his disciples in the upper room and he says a new commandment that I give you love one another just as I have loved you. So there's a connection with the love of God that God loves and we love him and he says the outpouring of this is that we love one another and by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you love One another and I want you to understand that this is a different kind of love. This isn't simply where we like something a whole lot and we say well I like cake or I love chicken or I love pizza and we just simply be like something I want. It's also not that picture of romantic love in the cartoons where you have like the other boys squirrel and they seize the girl squirrel walking to the tree and then in the cartoon is heart just starts going like this beating out of his chest. That's not the picture of love that we have here biblical love is a love of the will it's a love of decision and it says I will love and I will keep going even when it's difficult even when it's inconvenient. It's a sacrificial love and it's not a love it simply found in saying I love you for an hour. How we feel with warm affection toward one another we learning John's of his old that is a love that becomes practical that if we say, we love our brother and sister, but when they are in me, we do not help them. We really don't love them. It is love is intentional that it is sacrificial and that it is practically applied in our life. In fact, we saw this morning as we gathered around the table when Jesus exhibits his love like this. He sets his face to go to Jerusalem. He says, I know this road will be difficult. And it is filled with suffering but for the love of the people who are separated from God, I will go to the cross and he sets his face to go to Jerusalem doesn't Just Praise they would love love God more deeply to see his love more deeply to love their brothers and sisters in Christ and their their City deeply or what does he say? Look at the distance love with a bound more and more that word abound means overflowing it is like when you go to Olive Garden and they bring out your salad and they said it on that little tray and lady comes because we got cheese on your salad. Cheese in the salad and a little grinder just say when and we can stand there and stare at the site. Just keep going when you run out. That'll be enough right that a picture of a bounding a whole lot a bunch, but notice what he says this love abounds. More and more Friday. This love overflowing is not just a one-time thing that he praised for their love for God and their love for their brothers and sisters in Christ would overflow and it overflow and then overflow and then overflow and keep overflowing and we find that this is a love that is rooted in knowledge. In fact Paul says that we pray that your love will abound more and more but you stay with knowledge and see what seems to be strange to talk about knowledge. How does knowledge help us with love. Well, first of all the more we know about God the more we see his love for us. We understand is Paul pray the depth in the width and breadth in the height to know this. So incredible so massive so overwhelming love of God, but also the more we see the love of God the more it transforms our love for our Brothers and Sisters in Christ. The reason we're able to forgive is because we've seen God's love and his forgiveness toward us. The reason we are able to be generous as because we've seen God's generosity toward us. The reason we are able to love is because we see God's love for us. So without the knowledge of God's love There's no practical outpouring of his love for others in our life. Without knowing him we struggle with love and I and I was thinking about this this past week one of the first times Rachel I met a few times before we had started dating in one of the times that we met was like 1:30 in the morning and I was sitting at IHOP over here across the street reading aeschylus in Greek, which is like an incredibly dorky thing to do and all of a sudden they're the girls basketball team from shanandoah walks in which was Rachel. So they're like the Cool Sports people and she's like really really something that's more important than you and then I just left right? Because why I didn't really know her who is this weird lady talking to me, right? Then what happens that changes in the law of knowledge leads to love? And Paul said you would grow in your love for God. You want to look grow in your love for your brothers and sisters in Christ for those who are lost without the gospel. You need knowledge and then he says this this Love Changes how he sees things and he said this love is with discernment and a picture of discernment is just simply how we look at things that we are able to see clearly and I remember walking out of the store the first time as a kid when I had glasses and I thought my vision was fine when Mom said you need to go where your eyes checked. Maybe you need glasses. I said, no, I don't and get a test if it yeah, you need glasses and I said, no you don't and I walked out of the store with my new glasses. Altamonte and everything's snaps into focus and you can see clearly now. I really did need glasses. That's what the sermon does it helps us to see clearly until the foundation of what Paul is going to say next comes from this love.

The changes us that transforms us that comes from knowledge that overflows and that helps us to see things clearly. That's a look at what he says next so that you may have proved what is excellent and be and still be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ the glory and the praise of God 3 results of love in the Christian Life. That is Paul prays that their love would grow in a bound with knowledge and discern three things come out of that happening. First of all transformed Focus that you may approve. What is excellent. Now, there's two parts to this is the first impulses that you make a proven that word literally means to verify or evaluate sew-in in the Gospel of Luke Luke uses this word in two different ways. One is a guy who Play some livestock and it says I want to go check them out to test them out. I want to see if they're good and then infused again a couple chapters later in regards to the weather that you look at the Sun and you live in the cloud. How do you determine what the weather is to be answer the first part of what he says comes out of love is an evaluation due to approve to verify to see how things are and then secondly to take action based on that. He says what is excellent you approve what is excellent. It literally means to differentiate you look at two things and you pick the one that is better. It's like going with my dad to buy lumber at Lowe's and we go through the stack of two-by-fours and if you've ever bought a two-by-four, you know, a lot of them are kind of like this when they go like this and they have not and so what Dad does to every two by four pics one better and we go through the entire Stack of two-by-fours until we have the six two-by-fours that are the best they are and what you find Paul saying is that just knowing what is good but Christians see what is good and take action on that because of the love that God grows in their life. You see the love of God and the love for others reorients us to what we're doing and how we're doing it. Right A Change Is How We live again this week. We were getting family pictures later this afternoon. And I remember when Avril and was born made, of course, you take a million pictures blue baby and take a picture with the grandparents told the baby and the other great-grandparent Neo Rachel's Grandad holding the baby everybody holding the baby and we're like he was so excited. And so we were in the hospital couple extra days and Walmart is right there. I'm going to run over to Walmart and get some pictures printed now, it takes me a little while to get to know people sometimes so here I am getting my pictures printed out at Walmart and most the time like I want to talk to anybody don't look at me. Don't speak to me. Just let me get in and out of this Walmart without you something terrible happening to me as I'm standing there. They're printing out the latest. My baby right here instantly what happened having that child transformed how I behaved and the same is true when God's love grows in a bounce our life it changes how we behave and what Paul is saying here is that Christians Don't Drift through this life that he's praying that God would give the Philippian church this direction based in love that they would pass out of love whether that's in righteousness toward Encore in love toward those who are around them that God would make them intentional Paul's prayers for intentional Christian that come from the love of God. The second thing. He says is this a consistent life a result of this love right by God in the life of the believer is a consistent life and what he says to be pure And blameless for the day of Christ and don't want to take a look at those words. Just very quickly. The first is pure and it said it's a description of character and there's a lot of your back and forth about how this word came to be in Greek and there should have two ideas of how this word p r came to be in Greek one is that somebody is a picture of sifting grain rice and you have the Grain in the chaff and you sit back and forth until your life was just the pure grain without anything extra without anything that is wasteful and useless added in there's a purity there and the second picture that can be found in this word literally means to be examined in sunlight and it's in trust because this will go into Latin And then come into English as the word sincere and in Latin literally means without wax and you say will why does that matter with any of this? Think about how you would cook and times that were long gone by you would cook mainly in Pottery as if you have a guy who's making pottery and it involves a lot of Labor and it involves expense and sometimes if you've ever made pottery that Pottery will crack and so some unscrupulous Potter's would take that pottery that it cracked in the Kim and they would fill it with wax and they would paint over it and the only way that you could determine if that pot was good. And so they're discriminating buyer in the marketplace would take the pain and they'd hold it up to the sunlight and they would see and if there was a crack that have been sealed by Wax that as soon as you put it in the fire would melt in the pot would break they would The light coming through the wax they would examine it in the sunlight and find it without fault. And that comes in English is the word sincere without wax without cracks complete examine into sunlight without sheriff and Paul says out of love. Comes purpose and comes a character that is transformed but not just inwardly and that we seek righteousness blameless is a description of our actions with others that we aren't causing struggle and hurt and Bri are sent into the lives of others with that. We are treating others in the way that God calls us to and so what you find is the results of Love is that it brings to us a transformed Focus Paul Praise Church would have Bound in love that I love with transform their focus focus would then be moved into a consistent life where their beliefs were just in their head for pouring out in their life and relation to God and righteousness and two others and then he says this I Pray for a fruitful line Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ the glory and praise of God and if you've moved through scripture, you know that fruit cancer picture to areas of the Christian Life One is the multiplication of Christians. The sharing of the Gospel goes out and it bears fruit and people come to Christ and scripture pictures that has a tree that bears fruit for the kingdom. But we also see fruit-bearing not just in the gospel going out but the gospel moving in for the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace, patience kindness gentleness and self-control bosses against such things. There is no law that Christian character bears fruit and soap all praise Church would bear fruit and I'll just remind you where this fruit comes from by this is not just simply go out and get this particular kind of fruit through your own strength of your own determination your own resolution for your own self control, but rather and John 15, Jesus is abide in me and I in you As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine either. Can you unless you abide in me? I am the vine you are the branches whoever abides in me and I in him he it is the Bears much fruit from apart from me you can do nothing Paul praise here for the church He praised the guy would cause their love to abound and that I love that love Is Just overflowing with turn into a focus for what is good that their character would be transformed. Ultimately they would be fruitful for the gospel. And what I want you to see this morning from this text is there is hope for God's people and continued growth in the word of God through the power of God in our lives because there are times in life where we may be feel spiritually stuck. Like we're not going anywhere or maybe we feel in the midst of a spiritual battle or a struggle and look at what Paul does Paul doesn't tell the Philippian Church be stronger could be better do all of these actually goes to God says, you're the one who gives love and A Renewed focus and determination for sincerity pain rightness. And you're the one who brings fruit and I pray that your church would see these and party reason maybe we don't see these in our lives is because we're going to the wrong Source who are seeking the source of our goodness and our energy and our strength rather than turning to the power of God. Just like the verse we just read where Jesus says he and his it Bears much fruit for apart from me. You can do nothing. Did the way we grow and mature and are transformed in the Christian Life Is by drawing near to the power and the goodness and love of God and that's what Paul prays for the churches rejoiced over what God has done. But he also praised for their maturity a prayer that we should pray for our maturity. Did as we pray we pray that God will cause our love to abound more and more that we would be focused on what really matters.

That we would be pure and blameless in our conduct. In our lives toward others and that we would be fruitful in the Kingdom of spray. father I thank you for your word and for your church in for Paul's letter to the Philippians and we Rejoice with Paul as he sees the good in the church and what you have done how you began this church how you energized this church? How you bring this church safely home. As we look at Paul's prayer we ask for the same things in the life of our church and the life. Of ourselves that we would have Bound in love board more through your strength and power. Then we would see what is excellent and choose those things that we would be pure and blameless that we would be fruitful and that you would keep us until you safely. Bring us home in Jesus name we pray. Amen.