PAUL'S PRAYER FOR SPIRITUAL PROGRESS

INTRODUCTION

-{Philippians 1}

-What would happen to a train whose engines failed? IT WOULD STOP AND BE STUCK!

-What happens to a car on the freeway whose engine light comes on and it just stops running because the alternator went kaplooee? IT’S STUCK ON THE SIDE OF THE FREEWAY!

-What happens to a Christian who stops learning and growing because they are not in the Word and in Prayer? HE OR SHE WOULD BE STUCK IN A SPIRITUAL RUT and BE SPIRITUALLY DULL!

-What do all these have in common? THEY DESCRIBE A STOP OF PROGRESSION!

-You see, a Christian was not meant to be stagnant. A Christian should be in a continuous state of spiritual progression, moving more toward Christ-likeness each and every day.

-One author said, “The Christian walk is much like riding a bicycle; we are either moving forward or falling off.”

-Think of this:

Facebook keeps telling me I have all these memories, and it brings up posts and photos from years and years ago. Several of them are of my kids—sometimes pictures of a decade ago. Now, let’s say I take a picture of my kids as they are now and put it next to a picture from 10 years ago, and I notice that neither of them have gotten any taller or bigger. If that were the case, we would think there’s something wrong here because after all these years there should be some sort of physical growth and progress.

-Wouldn’t it be equally strange when a person who was saved by the blood of Jesus Christ several years ago shows no progress whatsoever in their spiritual growth. They look, think, and act the same way they did when they were first saved, or worse, the same as before they were saved.

- What about you? If there was some sort of Spiritual Facebook memory that we could look back on, and we look at the spiritual memories over the years, what would we see?----Would we see someone who is progressing in their walk with God? Would we see someone who has grown more Christ-like in the past several years? Is there a measurable difference?----Or would we see someone who, like our earlier examples, is stuck in a rut?

-Our spiritual progress is not only a matter of cooperating in the spiritual means of grace with the Holy Spirit, but it is also a matter of prayer. We are to pray for this progress in our lives.

~I have been doing a series on prayer over the summer, because prayer is so much more important than the time or effort we give it.

-And one important aspect of prayer is to pray for our own spiritual progress and the spiritual progress of our families and the spiritual progress of our church and the spiritual progress of all Christians around the world.

~Prayer is not only a spiritual discipline that helps us grow, today (really) I’m talking about some of the content of prayer==we pray that we would spiritually progress.

-And in Philippians we see Paul praying for this very thing for the Philippian church. Paul specifically prayed that they would progress in their faith in practical ways to show them growing in maturity toward more Christ-likeness, and I believe Paul’s prayer can help us pray for our own and other’s spiritual progress.

READ PHILIPPIANS 1:9-11

Philippians 1:9–11 ESV

9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

1) We pray to progress in our Christian attitude

-The first part of Paul’s prayer is that they would advance in their attitude of love (the ultimate of all Christian attitudes)

-Our inner thoughts and feelings should be that of agape, sacrificial love

-I believe he had in mind the greatest commandments, where Jesus said in Mark:

The most important [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29–31 ESV)

-Since these are the greatest commandments, we pray that they become a reality in our attitudes. What is it about this love that Paul tells us to pray for?

a) Pray that love increases

-Paul knew that the Philippians’ love was not perfect, because nobody’s love is perfect----So his prayer was that their love would abound, lit., that there is such an excess and fullness that it overflows any set boundaries

-We as Christians are not to just love a little, or set a limit to our love----Paul places great emphasis on the fact that our love should never stop progressing—he doesn’t just stop at saying that our love should abound, but adds it should abound “more and more”…

-It gives the sense that just when you think that you have gotten there, there is another step that can be taken----You think you’ve reached your limit on love for God or for people, think again

-It’s as if you get to a certain point on your attitude of love, and then God one-ups you, you think you’ve made it, then He shows you how much more love there can be

-I joke around about going to the Chinese buffet and after a couple of plates saying that I’ve had enough, but then I always seem to find room for more—and it shows. I mean, just when you think you’ve hit your limit on Chinese food, there can still be more.

-Well, just when you think you are to the limit of love, there is still more, and so Paul shows that we can pray that our love would increase more and more, that it would go beyond any boundaries of love we may think there are

b) Pray that love is informed and insightful

-v. 9 says love should abound in knowledge and discernment/judgment/insight

-As our love abounds it is to be in knowledge as we experience the wonderful love of God in Christ that we read in Scripture and experience through the Holy Spirit. And then through that knowledge we are able to make loving, moral decisions through the insight/perception/judgment that we receive

-This tells us that just because our love is supposed to abound, it doesn’t mean it has no direction or that it tolerates everything. That’s the love the world expects. The world says that if you are to love, then you have to tolerate anything and everything. But biblical love is quite the opposite because the love the Bible describes doesn’t tolerate sin or other forms of ungodliness, knowing that that is harmful.

-The love the world offers tells us that there is no wrong or right way. If you are truly loving, it tells us, you will tolerate and accept and approve other peoples’ opinions and viewpoints no matter how sinful they are according to the Bible.

-But if our love truly is abounding, we will get to know God and His Word more and come to find that the most loving thing to do is to share that knowledge with others, rejecting everything that sets itself up against God

-If you were about to drink a glass of poison because you thought it was fruit punch, would it be more loving of me to say, “You know, I respect your opinion that it is fruit punch and since I am tolerant of that viewpoint: CHEERS!” Or would it be more loving of me to knock the glass out of your hand and say, “Stop, it’s not fruit punch its poison.”

-Yet the world tells us the loving thing to do is not share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others but let them hold their own beliefs…

-True love that abounds will be in with a deeper understanding of God and the insight to make moral decisions and act upon them, and that is what we pray towards

c) Pray that love seeks the important

-v. 10a tells us our love abounds in knowledge and discernment for the purpose of approving what is excellent----that means the more our love abounds in knowledge, the more we seek to put the first things first—we seek that which is most excellent, what is most important, what will make an eternal change in our lives and in the world

-We pray that we will know and act upon the things that really matter and not get bogged down in non-essentials

-That was one of the many complaints that Jesus had against the Pharisees----They made these man-made laws that were so picky about minor details that they completely missed the important things of God—Jesus told the Pharisees

“You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Matthew 23:24 ESV)

-That phrase talks about people who get so worked up over the minor details that they completely miss the big things that are important to God

~And what’s important to God—loving God and loving others in truth are important to God. Loving people enough to share the gospel with them is important to God. Loving the world like He loves the world such that we go forth and fulfill the Great Commission all around the globe is important to God.

-We get worked up about color of carpet and things like that—but the right Christian attitude is the prioritization of what God says is important.

~And so, we pray that our love is focused on what God says is the priority—that we have indispensable agape love that abounds in knowledge and discernment so we can approve what is excellent

~That is the Christian attitude. No, we don’t compromise truth, but neither do we compromise love. You can be a person of love without holding to truth. You can be a person of truth without holding to love. But the right Christian attitude is holding truth in love. And that is what we pray for.

2) We pray to progress in Christian action

-Not only do we pray to progress in a right attitude, but also that the right actions or behavior also grow in our lives

-If we are progressing, our lives will become more and more submitted and obedient to what it is that God is calling us to do

-How does that work out practically, first…

a) Pray that we are found genuine

-v. 10b says we should be pure (or other versions sincere)

-It not only speaks of being morally pure or spotless, but more importantly that we have pure motives; no hidden motives or pretenses

-The word came from those who would take cloth or clothing of some sort and hold it up to the sunlight to inspect it to see if it is the real thing

-For us it means our actions should come from pure motives and confirm our words; we are to be without hypocrisy

-As one person poetically put it:

A man of words and not of deeds

Is like a garden full of weeds.

-What would happen to the world and to this country if Christians were full of pure motives, not looking for anything or worrying about anything with regards to themselves, but instead their actions were purely motivated by the love of Christ

-Sad is the day when someone has to pray for the people of God like this one little girl prayed for the people of God: “O Lord, make the bad people good and the good people nice.”----after all you see on social media, there are a lot of good people that need to be made nice.

-Our actions are to be genuine, sincere, with pure motives. But, next, we also:

b) Pray that we are faultless

-v. 10b tells us to be blameless (or other versions say without offense)

-this doesn’t mean that we are perfect, as long as we are on this earth that will never happen

-What it does mean is that we have nothing in our life that causes us to stumble in our walk with Christ; and just as important, we do not have anything in our life that causes other people to stumble in their walk with Christ

-When we speak of stumbling or causing to stumble it means to be led or to lead someone into sin, whether overtly or not

-As Jesus Himself said about the little children,

“whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin {or, to stumble}, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6 ESV)

-We don’t take on an attitude like, “You know what, I’m going to do what I want because I am free in Christ to do it, and the Bible doesn’t specifically say it is a sin”; and yet those around you are not so sure if it is a sin or not, but they follow you into doing it anyway – Paul says that they sin when they go against their conscience, but you sin because you led them to do it

-Paul warns

“Take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” (1 Corinthians 8:9 ESV)

-We need to look out so we do not stumble, and neither do we cause anyone else to stumble. And so we pray that our actions would be done in love, faultless in that out actions don’t cause ourselves or others to stumble

c) Pray that we are fruitful

-v. 11 tells us to pray that Christ fills us with the fruits of righteousness

-We are to allow God to work in our lives these actions and virtues because of what He has done for us

-It says “fruit of righteousness” which means because we are righteous before God through Christ (we have a right standing) He will then cause us to produce spiritual fruit in our lives

-What Spiritual fruit should we be bearing?

-I believe that is answered in

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22–23 ESV)

-But it’s not just having the fruit in the forms of virtue, but also putting those fruits and virtues into action. We pray that our love will be put into action, that our joy would be put into action…

~Fruit is not merely attitude, but it is what flows from the attitude into actually doing something

~Fruitfulness is the life of Christ flowing through us into spiritual living.

-And so, we pray according to John 15—Lord, you are the vine, we are the branches. May your Word abide in us and may we abide in you, because without you we can do nothing—we would be fruitless.

-It a recognition that we are insufficient for these things in ourselves. I can’t do it. I can’t make myself have the right loving attitude. I can’t make myself faultless. I can’t make myself fruitful. I, the branch, need to remain in the vine, and He through me will bear much fruit.

CONCLUSION

-We can preach about prayer all we want, but we need to put it into action. And here is some content to our prayer.

~Sometimes we may say I don’t pray because I don’t know what to pray. Well, here it is. Pray that you would progress in the attitude of love and the actions that will flow from that.

-Some folks may think that God will just zap us to make us more like Christ (I guess like a spray tan. You get sprayed and then you’re tan. Some people think you get zapped and then you’re like Christ).

~But that’s not how it works. It takes time and effort and discipline. It takes getting our spiritual hands and feet dirty in cooperating with the Holy Spirit. It takes us taking time to pray that God would develop this attitude of love in us and bring our actions into conformity, and then we look more like Christ.

-I have a question for you: Are you more spiritually mature than you were years ago? Are you more like Christ than you were years ago?

-If there is no progression in your walk with Christ, I don’t want you leaving here without getting before God in prayer and praying that He would so move in your life. Come to the altar and pray that God would bring spiritual progress in your life.

-If you frankly couldn’t care less if you are progressing into becoming more like Christ, then you ought to have a concern for your soul. Anyone who is born again will make some sort of progress.

~But maybe that’s the problem—you have never been born again. Christ died not only to save you, but to sanctify you. You first are saved, and then you progress. But it starts with believing in Christ…