Okay, open your Bibles if you
would to Philippians chapter 1. Brother Charlie and I were
talking before service there and he was sharing about how
the church that he went to before here He didn't really mention
a whole lot about doctrine or about great doctrines of the
faith. We know doctrine doesn't save
us, but we know that doctrine, true doctrine, talks about Christ,
centers on Christ and Him alone, and is very important for us
as believers. We grow in the grace and knowledge
and truth. And as you said, Charlie, they didn't talk about election,
they didn't talk about any of these great doctrines that we
that we just hold so dear, hold so dear. And actually in the
religious world, The doctrine of election and the doctrine
of the total depravity of man are two of the most hated doctrines,
and yet they're true. The doctrine of total depravity
just says that we are dead in trespasses and sins, and there's
no hope for us outside of Christ. We can't save ourselves. We have
no ability, and we're actually dead spiritually, and we must
be made alive, born again by the Holy Spirit of God and given
faith to believe even on the Lord Jesus Christ. In election,
of course, we all embrace that and love that great doctrine
of the fact that God chose us, and we know that if God hadn't
chosen us, we'd never choose Him. So that's what makes it
so precious for us as believers. It's magnificent. And of course,
we were chosen in Christ. That's the key as well, too.
Outside of Christ, there's no salvation. So God the Father
chose us in Christ before the world was. Now, when we think
about that, what happens? We just, oh, it's amazing, isn't
it? We can't comprehend that, but
it's truth. It's truth. Today's message is on discernment.
discernment. Now, you don't ever hear a whole
lot of messages on discernment, but we're going to see here that
Paul actually, in our text, prays not only that the Philippians
would increase in love, the love of God in Christ, but we know
that comes by the Holy Spirit, but that they would also grow
in discernment. And again, how do we grow in
discernment? Well, by the power of God, the
Holy Spirit, of course, but he uses the preaching of the gospel. So we can say, this man's telling
me the truth, and this fellow over here is lying. Right? How do we know? How do we know
when we hear, how did you know, Charlie, now? How do you know
now that what they taught over there was not the truth? Because
God's giving you discernment. He's giving you an understanding
now of the word of God, of the gospel, and that's true for every
believer, right? You can hear something and it
just doesn't sound right, does it? It doesn't sound right. It doesn't point us to Christ.
It's not God-honoring. Now we can say, well that's man-centered
doctrine and that's glorifying man. See, anything that tells
you you have to do something to be saved, Something you or
I have to do is a man-centered salvation. We gospel preachers
preach a Christ-centered salvation. There's only salvation in Christ.
It is nowhere else. And it's all by God's grace.
And it's all by God's mercy. Now this wonderful epistle is
written to the born-again blood-washed church at Philippi, very dear
to Paul as he was the instrument that God used to start this church. So again, as I said a few studies
ago, it's similar to what we feel, the love that we're bonded
together with. He had that with them too. Because
he had been with them, he ministered to them, he preached to them,
he got to know them, he loves them. And so now he's separated
from them. He's in Rome and they're still
at Philippi. And in verse nine, he's writing
to this church And he prays to our great God that the saints
at Philippi would abound in the love of God. Look at verse nine. In this I pray that your love
may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.
Now see the word judgment there? In the Greek it's discernment. The Holy Spirit had Paul penned
these words, right? But Paul from his heart desires
that they would grow in love, number one, right? Because love
precedes everything, right? The love of God shed abroad in
our heart precedes everything. If we don't have the love of
God in our hearts, then it's not real, right? But we're new creatures in Christ
and we have this love that we never had before. Now we love,
again, I keep repeating this, we love the gospel, we love Christ,
we love God, we love God's people, we love the word. It's wonderful. But here we see Paul praying
for discernment too. Well discernment, in this case,
is discerning because we're going to see later on as we continue
in this study in Philippians, that there's some who preach
Christ of contention, seeking to add affliction to Paul. And he said, no matter what,
as long as the gospel's preached, I'm going to rejoice. But I was
listening to Joe Terrell on this. and he said that false teachers
had come in, and then some people, even in the group, were saying,
well, I like this preacher over here, and I like this preacher
over here, and I like this preacher over here, so I prefer this preacher,
so I'm not gonna listen to this preacher. See, nothing new under
the sun, is there? We have to be careful as grace
people. We have to be extremely careful. Extremely careful that
we don't get caught up in that kind of stuff. Remember, Paul
wrote to the Corinthians and he said, some of you say I'm
of Apollos, I'm of this guy, I'm of that guy, and then they
even lump Christ in with those men. Christ is the one we preach. He should not be lumped in with
the other man. He's exalted. He's the one we
exalt, right? And every gospel preacher is
a messenger. Now we all have different styles,
right? Every one of us. And as we grow
in the grace and knowledge and truth, and I'll tell you this,
God makes the preacher. God has to grow the preacher. He does that. And we give him
all the glory for it. So if you do like hearing a preacher,
praise God for him. Give him all the glory. Give
God the glory. Give God all the glory and all
the honor and all the praise. And let's read now. So we see
here. that Paul prays for love in verse
nine, that their love may abound more and more. Again, as we look
at that, that's super abounding love. And in knowledge, that's
knowledge of Christ and knowledge of the gospel. And then we see
in judgment, in all judgment, discernment in the Greek. Let's
read from verses three to verse 11 to get the context. We'll
be in verse 10 today in that latter part where it says judgment
in verse nine. I thank my God upon every remembrance
of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making requests
with joy. For your fellowship in the gospel,
we have, beloved, we, every believer, we have, every born-again blood-washed
believer, we have fellowship in the gospel. Isn't that wonderful? That's what we have. From the
first day until now, that's from when we were born again until
currently. being confident of this very
thing, that He, who began this work, God began this work, that
He, which has begun a good work in you, will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. He is the author and finisher
of our faith. Even as it is neat for me to think this of you all,
because I have you in my heart, insomuch as both in my bonds
and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers
of my grace. they had the same grace of God,
just like each one of us who are born again, we have the same
grace of God. We're blood-washed saints. We've
been washed in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
God's given us the same grace as he gave to Paul and the saints
at Philippi. It's wonderful. It's absolutely
wonderful. For God is my record. How greatly I long after you
in the bowels of Jesus Christ. In this I pray that your love
may abound yet more and more, in knowledge and in all judgment,
that ye may approve things that are excellent. See, so what it
is here, and we're gonna look at some things that are excellent,
he's praying that they would be given discernment for things
that are excellent. You know who's the most excellent?
Amen, brother. Christ. There's nothing more
excellent than Christ, is there? You see? Isn't this wonderful?
Oh, it's absolutely wonderful. That you may approve things that
are excellent, that you may be sincere. That's genuine in the
Greek. Genuine. That's the one thing
I love about our group here. We're genuine. We're sinners
saved by grace. But we're genuine. We don't put
fronts on. And I've noticed that with the
grace community. There's not a lot of fronts.
Hey, I'm a sinner. I'm saved by grace. I still struggle
with sin every day, right? Mine, genuine, sincere, and without
offense till the day of Christ. Now that offense there is in
God's eyes. Do you know in Christ, God's
not offended by our doings and our sinfulness because it's all
washed under the precious blood of Christ? Now that doesn't give
us a license to go crazy, does it? No, no, no, no. Because again, the love of Christ
constrains us. But isn't that wonderful? Oh my, until the day of Christ,
being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by
Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. The fruits of
righteousness is that which the Holy Spirit works in us. The
fruit of the Spirit. And remember, it's called the
fruit of the Spirit. It's not called the fruit of our doings.
Right? It's the fruit of the Spirit.
He works within us, beloved. He works this love that Paul's
praying that they would abound in. God, the Holy Spirit, works
that in us. It's wonderful. The joy that
we have, the underlying, and that doesn't mean we're bouncing
around all the time with a big ol' smiley face, right? I'm not
talking about that. Because religious folks try to
do that and it's almost comical to watch. He's talking about
the underlying joy that comes from the Holy Spirit of God.
I'm saved by the precious blood of Christ. Praise God. And that
fills our hearts with joy. No matter what the things are
going on, we can still be joyful in Christ, can't we? Even when
we're weeping. Isn't that wonderful? See, we have a hope. And what
a hope we have in Christ. What a hope we have, beloved.
It's amazing. So again, Paul's praying that
the Philippian believers would grow in love and knowledge and
discernment. Listen to these verses, and I pulled these verses
from the Greek literal Bible. Listen to this. For God is my
witness, how I long after you all in the affection of Christ
Jesus. In this I pray that your love
may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all discernment.
See, in the Greek literal, they say discernment, which is, again,
the underlying word for judgment. for you to approve the things
being excellent, so that you may be pure and blameless unto
the day of Christ. Who are we pure and blameless
in? Somebody tell me. Amen, Christ. Amen, Christ and
Christ alone. Listen to this, being filled
with the fruit of righteousness, that is through Jesus Christ.
See, all this comes, all spiritual blessings come through Christ,
don't they, to the believer. being filled with the fruit of
righteousness that is through Jesus Christ to the glory and
praise of God. So the word judgment there, again,
is translated discernment, and that's what the underlying Greek
word means. It's translated discernment in
the Greek literal Bible. In our text, it says that your
love may increase in knowledge and judgment. My, oh my. People say, well, don't judge.
Really? It's called discernment. It's called discernment. And we're not judging people's
salvation here. What we're judging is, is that
man preaching the gospel or not? in the context, because again,
we're going to see that as we get further down. And remember,
this church was having trouble within and without. Right? Without, by being persecuted
for their faith, because they had turned from idols to serve
the living and true God. Within, by Judaizers and preacher
worship. My oh my. It's incredible. Oh my. Think of this too. Our love for
Christ and his people is not a blind, ignorant infatuation,
is it? Not at all. No, beloved God,
we know Christ now. He's revealed himself to us.
And we love him because of what he's done for us and because
of who he is. He's God in the flesh. God saved
us. Just let that sink in. God saved
us. God himself saved our souls. Come down to this sin-cursed
world and gave his life for us. And the more we know about his
perfection, in light of how much we're sinners, the more in awe
we are of him. That the perfect one left the
glories and splendors of heaven to save our souls. It's absolutely amazing. And as we grow in this love,
and as we grow in discernment even, we learn more about ourselves
and others too, don't we? Remember it was at the end of
Paul's ministry when he said, I'm the chief of sinners. Oh my, he learned something,
hadn't he? He learned something. At the first, he said, I'm the
least of all saints. And at the end, he says, I'm the chief of
sinners. My, oh, my. But who took him in that journey?
God the Holy Spirit taught him, just like he teaches you and
I, beloved. And who does he? The scripture says that the Holy
Spirit will point us and guide us into all truth, right? Who's
the truth? Christ. Christ, he's the way,
the truth, and the life, right? This is truth. Right here, this
word. This is truth. Oh, by God's grace,
we believe it, don't we? We don't understand it all, but
we believe it, don't we? We embrace it. And when God lights
something up that we haven't seen before, we just embrace
that, too, don't we? Like we were talking about, Sister
Carolyn. Oh, my. You be reading something, all
of a sudden, whoo, I never saw that before. And it just warms
your heart. Oh, isn't it wonderful? It just
warms your heart, beloved. Again, this church is being assaulted
from forces outside and from forces within. Look at verses
14 to 17 here. Oh my, some preach Christ even
of envy and strife. This is Philippians chapter 1
verses 14 to 17. And many of the brethren in the
Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to
speak the word without fear. So because Paul was in prison,
some saints were emboldened even more to preach the gospel and
to talk about Christ. But look at this, some indeed
preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. The one preached Christ of contention,
Look at this, not sincerely, not genuinely, not genuinely,
supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love. Oh my, that's the ones who were
waxing confident by his bonds. And then the other ones who were
preaching of contention were them Judaizers and the other
false teachers that had crept in. Or somebody wanting to make
a name for himself. Maybe a preacher got a little
chip on the shoulder and thought, I'm gonna make a name for myself.
Happens. Pride happens to all of us, doesn't
it? You know, I was told very early
in my ministry, always, always, always remember that Christ gets
the preeminence. Always remember that. And that
was from Jean-Claude to me. A man who's a missionary who's
went all over the world preaching the gospel. I thank the Lord
that he told me that. But the other of love, knowing
that I am set for the defense of the gospel. Paul was set,
wasn't he? He was set, Brother Travis, wasn't
he? He was ready to preach Christ and to defend the gospel. That
doesn't mean he was debating people, that just means he was
presenting the truth, in contrast to error. Oh my, he didn't say to somebody,
well yeah, you know, we and I disagree on some fundamental thing of
salvation, but hey, you know, you're okay. No, no, no, we saw
that in Galatians, didn't we? Someone's preaching a false gospel,
he called them out. Oh my. And I'm not talking about
somebody who might disagree with us on certain doctrines, but
yet still preaching the gospel. I'm not talking about folks like
that. Not at all. I'm talking about someone preaching
the false gospel. Oh my. So Paul was praying that the
believers, because of what was going on, because of the contention
from some of these folks just seeking, could you imagine that?
Preaching contentiously just to add affliction to Paul's bonds.
How much they hated him. They didn't preach in love, did
they? No. But Paul said there were some,
the other, verse 17, of love. knowing that I am set for the
defense of the gospel. Oh my. So what Paul's, I like
what old Gene Harmon said, he said, Paul's praying that they
would have spiritual sense and that they could exercise that
spiritual sense. Because as we grow in knowledge,
right, we try to exercise that knowledge, don't we? Right? Remember as we were getting older
and somebody said, don't do that, don't do this, and we exercised
that. Because we, you remember, don't put your hand on the stove.
My mom told me one time, don't stick the fork in the light socket. I did it once. And I never did
it again. Right? But I should have exercised
since and listened to her in the first place, right? That's
what I was doing. I was doing a little jig there.
Oh my. But that's what happens, right?
Oh my. So Paul's praying that they would
be able to judge what's being taught with discernment. And the reason why, one might
ask, well, why? Why is he praying for this? Well,
look at verse 10. This is our verse today. I'm just getting
to it, and we're almost out of time, but that's okay. That you
may approve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere, again,
genuine in the Greek, and without offense till the day of Christ, that they might be able to distinguish
that they might be able to distinguish what was right and wrong, that
they might be able to distinguish the true gospel from a false
gospel, right? And Paul's praying for discernment
for that very reason for them. So we're to compare what a preacher
says to the word of God. I want you to be Bereans and
compare what I say to the word of God. And we'll attest that
way with every preacher, whoever they are. Whether they be within our grace
community or outside the grace community, if you listen to some.
There's fellows I listen to outside our grace community, even, who
are preaching the gospel. But I always use discernment,
right? You have to. You have to. See the word approve in our text? This was interesting. It refers
to the act of testing something. Testing something. Testing something for the purpose
of approving it. I was told a long time ago by
a preacher in our group, and I thank God he told me this.
He said, before you decide to go somewhere, Find out what they're
teaching, because if you go there, you're giving their stamp of
approval. Oh, my. See, I'd never thought
of that. I'd never thought of that. So this word approve in
our text, it's again from a Greek word which refers to the act
of testing something for the purpose of approving it. One Greek fellow said to approve
after testing. So test it to see if it's real
and then you can approve it. And I like this, Sister Kathy,
you might like this. This was very interesting. I didn't know
this. It was used of the standing of candidates for the degree
of Doctor of Medicine in the Greek. So this word was used
as how to recognize its worth so that they could put their
stamp of approval on it. When they certified doctors from
passing their examinations, they gave them this approval. They
tested, and then they were approved. Isn't that amazing? I think they
test doctors the same way too, don't they? Where if you want
to become a doctor, you have to go through that real rigorous
test or something. And then you get the stamp of approval. I
think Sister Ann's granddaughter is now a doctor. Yeah. It was used of the standing of
candidates for the degree of, again, doctors who had passed
their examinations after they were certified physicians. And
here the word refers to the ability of the saints to sift or test
certain things. To sift or test certain things.
Thus to recognize its worth and then put their stamp of approval
upon it. Is a man preaching Christ? Well,
we approve that, don't we? If a man doesn't preach Christ,
we don't approve that. You see? So he's praying that
they have discernment. Discernment. And think of this, as we grow
in the grace of God, we do discern more things. We do discern more
things. There are some things that differ
from one another, such as morality and grace. Morality and grace
differ. Such as earthly things and heavenly
things. It's a big difference, isn't
it? Such as carnal things and spiritual things. Huge difference. Things of the flesh and things
that are spiritual. Temporal things and eternal things. Everything we see in this world
is temporal. But Christ is eternal. And God is eternal. And the saints
of God, who be blood-washed saints of God, are enjoying eternal
life. Isn't that wonderful? Also the law of God and the gospel
of God. There's a difference there, isn't
there? One says do, and the other one says done. One says do, and
you can't do it, and the other one says, Christ says I did it
all. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, it's
wonderful. And then the doctrines of man
in comparison to the doctrines of Christ. What's the doctrine of man? You
must be baptized to be saved. And the doctrine of Christ is
there's salvation only in Christ and him alone. Baptism is just
what we do after the Lord saves us. It's called believer's baptism.
We're going to look at that today in the text that we're going
to look at in the book of Acts. And then chaff and wheat. There's
a big difference between chaff and wheat. Gold and silver. Both
metals, but there's a big difference between them, isn't there? Precious
stone, and wood, hay, and stubble. Big difference between those. One has worth, and the other's
worthless. Shouldn't say that about hay,
because a farmer can sell hay. But in light of purchasing things,
purchasing power, I don't have no purchasing power, do I? If
we took a basket of hay to the grocery store and said, well,
I want to pay for these steaks with this, they'd look at us pretty
funny, wouldn't they? Right? They'd say, well, that's
worthless. See, all these things we discern,
right, as believers. And these things are to be tried,
and that which is not good is to be rejected. That which is good, the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ to be received. That which is not good,
a false gospel, is not to be received. And again, that's the context
of the text as we looked at further down when Paul's comparing one
who's preaching out of love and the other who's preaching out
of contention. And the born-again, blood-washed
believer should be transformed. We're new creatures in Christ.
We're not who we were before by the renewing of our mind.
And we grow in spiritual knowledge. And we grow in experience. of walking a Christian life?
How many times have we said to our kids, don't do that. I've already done it. And there's
nothing there. Right? You're just going to get
hurt. Because I've experienced that. My oh my. A friend of mine, he, actually
Jake, he doesn't drink, never really got into it. And I said,
brother, I was in it, it's emptiness, and you're not missing nothing.
You're not missing anything. Give God the glory for not having
to get caught up in it. Isn't that wonderful? My. So we ought to have our spiritual
senses exercised to discern spiritual things, the difference between
things. And this discernment is Paul's praying for us, again,
not according to carnal reason. It's not according to carnal
reason, no. It's discernment of that which
is being taught. That which is being taught. Carnal
reason and judgment are to be judged foolishly. Foolishly.
It's just foolishness. I heard a fella today, I was
reading an article about this fella, some actor who's now doing
this Bible study thing, and he says, well I think this text
means this. Totally out of context. Number
one, I think the scripture says this. I think is not, we shouldn't
apply I think to scripture because the scripture says, the scripture
is not a private interpretation. So I think is out of the way,
what does the word say? See but you know what happens?
People don't like what the word says. Remember the pen knife
king? Chop all that out. Right? But see God's people, we embrace
it. We don't understand it all. Of course we don't. And there's
going to be so much we don't even know when God takes us home
to glory. We just have a little scratch
on the surface of what we know. And we're marveling in that,
aren't we? Oh my, how much more about God is there? Well, the
scripture says, John wrote, that of all the things that were written
about the Lord Jesus Christ, the world could not contain the
books. Isn't that amazing? Think of
it, just think of it as eternality. Okay, I'll sit there for a thousand
years. Not even that, probably 20,000 years. Hey, brother Jim.
And then we still just got a little scratch, brother. Oh my, my oh
my. Look at verse 10 again. So the
Holy Spirit, he increases us in knowledge and in the things
that are excellent of God, look at this, that you may approve
things that are excellent, that you may be sincere without offense
till the day of Christ. I'm gonna quickly wrap this up,
but I've gotta get through this because this is important. Paul
prays for discernment for the Philippian church, that they
may be sincere, genuine, without offense. And not only does Paul
pray that they approve things, that are excellent, but that
they may learn to sense what is of real value. What's of real
value for us as believers? Christ, the preaching of the
gospel. That's a value to us. We feast
on the word of God when it's preached, don't we? It's food
for our souls, beloved. and that they would learn in
discernment the difference in self-love and Christian love.
There's a difference there, isn't there? There's a difference between
self-love and Christian love. That they would learn the difference
in religious works and works of faith, right? Works don't save us, they come
after we're born again. They're proof that we're born
again. And we don't even know when we
do them. As opposed to religious works, well I did this, and I
did that, and I do this, and I do that. Okay. And then see again the word sincere
in verse 10, it means Get this, it means to be judged
by sunlight, tested as genuine. Judged by sunlight, tested as
genuine. My, oh my. And one who's loved
to God and Christ and loved to God's people. This is also the underlying word,
one whose love to God and Christ and one another is without dishonesty,
also one whose, like this, one whose hope is lively and is built
on a good foundation which is Jesus Christ our Lord. That's
all within that definition of that word, sincere. Again, this too, whose faith
and repentance is attended with genuine effects and proper fruits,
which again, of course, as we looked at in Galatians, are the
fruits of the Spirit. It's not something we can muster
up. It's not something we can muster up. Now, don't go and
look, oh, man, my love is not very deep. None of ours is. We're
fleshy humans. But do you love God? Do you love
Christ? Who put that in you? Because
it's not natural. It's God the Holy Spirit, beloved.
Oh, my. See, people look. They look inwards
thinking, I got to do this. I got to be more loving. I got
to be more joyful. Well, wait. I'll tell you what. If you look
to Christ and continue to look to Christ, I can say this. You'll be more loving. You'll
be more joyful. You'll have more peace, right? You'll be kinder? I'll tell you. I'll tell you, it changes us.
When we're born again, it changes us. Now look at the words, without
offense until the day of Christ. Without offense here is considered
in the righteousness of Christ, in which we're perfectly without
offense to God, being clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Now just imagine that. Chew on that, eh? We'll chew
on that for this week. That's incredible. We're without
offense in Christ to God. But Brother Wayne, I'm a sinner,
eh? We're sinners, aren't we, Brother Travis? But we're without
offense in Christ because of his righteousness and because
we're clothed in his righteousness. And also, our walk and conversation
before God, we are to be without offense. Now, we may offend in
many things, but we don't seek out to offend people, do we? Not at all. Not at all. Oh, my. And also, that we may walk without
offense until the day of Christ to ourselves and to our own consciousness
as well. exercising a conscious void of
offense toward God and man. We don't desire to offend people.
We don't desire to offend God, do we? No. But praise God, he's
appeased in Christ. Now see, that's just wonderful,
isn't it? John Gale says this, acting according
to the light that they have received, those principles they have embraced
and professed, desiring to be kept from all evil, that it might
not grieve and wound them, and doing nothing and things of an
indifferent nature with offense or against the dictates of a
conscience. So we don't seek to sin against our conscience. Right? And I like this, until the day
of Christ. He's coming. Our King's coming. And He saves sinners from hell,
doesn't He? Oh my, isn't it wonderful? Beloved, we're redeemed by the
blood of the Lamb. Brother Steve, could you close
us in prayer?