We'll turn back with me to Philippians
chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1. I thought it would be well for
us tonight, before we come to the Lord's table, to look at
one of Paul's prayers. You know, several of his prayers
are recorded in the various epistles that he wrote. And I have no
doubt that God the Holy Spirit had him write these prayers for
our learning. Not just to fill up space, but
for our learning. that we might learn, we might
know better how that we should pray for ourselves as well as
how we should pray for others in Christ. Now this is one long
sentence, but one prayer with three petitions, verses 9 through
11. In this I pray that your love
may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment,
that you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be
sincere and without offense to the day of Christ, being filled
with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto
the glory and praise of God. One prayer, three petitions,
as I see them. First, he asked that their love
might yet abound more and more. Verse 6, we read just a few moments
ago, he had already stated his confidence that God had begun
a good work in them. Notice that in verse 6, being
confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good
work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Being confident that God hath
begun a work in them, a work of grace in their hearts. We
would refer to this, of course, as the work of regeneration.
the new birth, the giving of life to a sinner who is dead
in trespasses and sins. And this good work would, we
know, include love. Notice the petition is, this
I pray, that your love may yet abound more and more. He doesn't pray that they would
have love, Because as God's children, as those in whom God has begun
a good work of grace, they had love. You know, there are three
cardinal graces. We call them cardinal. The Word
of God speaks of them as being true and being in the life of
every child of God. Every child of God, when God
saves a sinner, he first of all will have faith. believes in
the Lord Jesus Christ. But along with faith, there will
also be the grace of love. If a person doesn't have love,
the apostle makes this very clear in 1 Corinthians chapter 13,
though I preach with the tongue of men and angels and have not
love, I'm nothing but a sounding brass and a tinkling No love is certainly a part of
the new nature, the new man that is created in righteousness and
true holiness. The scriptures reveal that when
a person is born again of the Spirit of God, we have a new
man, a new nature. And the apostle Peter refers
to it as being partaker of the divine nature. Now that doesn't
mean that the nature of God is divided up into parts and each
believer receives a part of the divine nature, but the truth
about God, the truth about God is stamped upon the heart of
every child of God. Every believing person has faith,
has love, our works, but upon Jesus Christ
and His perfect finished work. His righteousness that is accepted,
declared accepted by His resurrection, that righteousness is our righteousness. It is imputed to everyone who
believes. Look over to First Thessalonians
just a moment, and we see these things are true. of believers. Paul is writing here, and let's
read verse 2 and 3. We give thanks to God always
for you all. First Thessalonians 1 and verse
2. We give thanks to God always
for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering
without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, patience
of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father. So they had love. They had love
that good work that he was confident which had begun in them, assures
us that they had love, they loved God, they loved Christ, they
loved the gospel, and they loved one another, and they certainly
loved this apostle. That becomes evident as you read
through the letter. They loved this apostle who had
brought the gospel And they had manifested their
love. Their love was not just in word only. Flip over here,
Philippians, the last chapter. And verse, verse 15, chapter
4. Now you Philippians know also
that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from
Macedonia, no church This has always been somewhat amazing
to me. No church, think of the various
churches that the Apostle Paul was used of God in raising up
and establishing. And yet he tells us here that
not any other church had any concern for his well-being, his
physical well-being, as far as it took food for him to live
and to travel and to preach. I mean, he was like everyone
else. He needed the necessities of
life. And yet Paul says here that no
other church communicated with, no church communicated with me
as concerning giving and receiving, but you only. Speaking to this
church, this church that he is now praying for, that their love
might yet abound more and more. You only. Notice on he says,
for even in Thessalonica you sent once and you sent again. And it wasn't like these people
were wealthy people. how that these people in Macedonia
were what we would consider poor people, physically poor. They were rich, as all of God's
children are rich in the blessings of God, the blessings of grace.
Every child of God here this morning, this evening, I know rich people, not in the things
of this world necessarily, but in the things that really count,
the things that are eternal. But this group of people, this
church at Philippi, they were not wealthy, physically wealthy
people at all. And yet they communicated with
the Apostle Paul, not once, but twice, when he was at Thessalonica. And they were the only church
who did so. So back in the text here, the petition here, their
love was not just in words, but it was abounding. And it showed
itself, their love showed itself by their actions. And love will
always find a way. It will always find a way to
show itself. When a person loves another person, that person has. And the same
is true in the Christian world. Their love was like a fountain
of water, which flowed and overflowed. So he doesn't pray that they
might have love, nor does he ask that their love merely might
abound, but that it might abound that it might continue to abound,
that there would never be any stop, there'd never be any halting
in their love, that it yet might abound more and more. I said at the beginning, we look
at these prayers and we learn how to pray for ourselves, don't
we? We learn how to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ
by looking at these prayers. Now, I see the need of this prayer.
As I looked at this petition this past week and thought about
what I might say, I thought there's two truths that I want to bring
out here as to why we should pray and ask that our love might
yet abound more and more. The first reason is because of
the words of our Savior, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ
in Matthew 24, when he said this, because iniquity shall abound,
the love of many shall wax cold. Let me read that again. Because
iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Would any sane person deny that
we are living in a day when inequity abounds? When inequity abounds,
maybe more so than at any other time that we have been in this
world. We live in a world where safety the most people, and men and
women are deceived like never before. Evil is called good,
and good is called evil. A person is promoted to the highest
court in our land who cannot define what a woman deny that iniquity does not abound
in our day. On every hand. It's not just
in the world, it's in the so-called church as well. When the church
is accepting things that the Word of God condemns, clearly
condemns. And our Lord said this, because
iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. So we,
surely we need to pray that our love, that your love, the love
of our brothers and sisters in Christ may yet abound more and
more. And a second reason, not only
because of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, but I thought about
this. The church at Ephesus, The Church
of Ephesus. Do you know that at one time
they had the Apostle Paul preaching in their church? At one time
they had the Apostle John preaching in their church? And then for
some time they had Timothy there as their minister. And yet it
was just a few short years, not long, by just a few short years
when the Lord directs a letter to this church at Ephesus and
says, you have left, thou hast left thy first love. So there's
a need, isn't there? There's a need. It's so apparent
to me. It's apparent because the Apostle
Paul first prayed for this church at Philippi that their love might
yet abound more and more. that their love might increase.
And I want you to notice the text again, verse 9. In this I pray that your love
may abound yet more and more, now notice, in knowledge and
in all judgment. The two ways that this may be
understood, that their love may yet abound more and more in knowledge
and in all judgment. may be understood like this.
Some Christians, some believers, are more knowing and some are
more affectionate than others. We just know this is so. Some believers are more loving
and maybe have less knowledge, and some believers have a great
deal of knowledge and less love. And so what Paul may be praying
for and asking that in this church that their knowledge and love,
their knowledge and affection might be equal. That as they
grow in knowledge, that they also grow in love. And that's
the second way it may be understood, that it is through knowledge
that the love that Paul asks that might yet abound more and
more, how is this love going to come? Is love just a feeling? It seems like that's what the
world says, believes. Is love just a feeling? How,
how is it that our love will grow, will increase? The more
a believer grows in his knowledge of God, The more his knowledge
grows in the knowledge of Christ, the more his knowledge grows
in the everlasting covenant. There's people who attend churches
and they never even hear the word covenant. They have no understanding
of the fact that there is an everlasting covenant. And Christ, He is the covenant,
really. He's the messenger of the covenant.
He's the mediator of the covenant. He's the charity of the covenant.
He's the foundation of the covenant. He's the substance of the covenant.
He is the covenant, really. God has given Him as a covenant. How do we grow in our love when
we realize that this took place before the foundation of the
world? That God has loved his people with an everlasting love. His love for you didn't start
yesterday and it's not going to end tomorrow. And his love
for you did not begin because of something he saw in you. And
he's not going to see something in you that's going to cause
him one day not to love you anymore. No. His love is eternal. And the way that we grow and
our love may abound yet in more is in learning more about him. A brother told me just before
the service, he said, you know, The attribute about God that
I love the most is His immutability. And that's certainly one of my
favorites too, isn't it? There's no shadow of turning
in Him. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. Look in 1 Thessalonians, and
we'll move on after this to the next point. 1 Thessalonians chapter
3. Verse 12, we see the Apostle
praying similar for this church at Thessalonica. And the Lord
make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and
toward all, even as we do toward you. To the end, he may establish
your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father. at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ with all his saints. Thank you to increase and abound
in love one toward another. Now back to the prayer in Philippians
1. The second petition is, he asks
that they might be discerning and sincere Christians. Verse 10. that you may approve
things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without
offense to the day of Christ. The word approve here, that you
may approve. It is a word, from what I've
read, it is a word that is used when metals are tried. When metals
are tried, I assume by fire. And the medalist tries to determine
how much medal is in that medal, what type of medal it is. Medal is in that. Paul prayed
that believers would learn to try things that differ, to use
discernment, and not just to accept anything and everything
that goes under the banner of Christianity. There are doctrines of Christ,
and there are doctrines of man. There's the Gospels, and there's
the law. There are heavenly things, and
there are earthly things. There are eternal things, and
there are temporal things. Paul is asking that these believers
here might learn to approve And this discernment that we
all need, we all need this discernment
because a small child, let me use this example, a small child
may be easily deceived by something shiny. They may have something
very valuable like a paper bill that's worth, let's just say
$20, and then someone comes along, a small child, comes along with
a quarter that is real shiny or something like that, you know,
and switch it out, change it out. And when we're born again,
we're born babes. We come into the family of God
not full grown, but as babes. And we desire the sincere milk
of the Word that we may grow thereby. And this discernment
that the Apostle Paul is praying for is a discernment that is
accomplished using the written word of God. Using discernment, the believer
will find then that there are things that are excellent. There
are things that are good. There are things that are better.
And there are things that are excellent. Not everything has
the same value. And the excellent things that
we that a believer will learn to appreciate and discern are
things relating to our peace with God, how we may have peace
with God, our pardon. our justification, our sanctification,
our redemption. We sang that hymn this morning
before our Sunday school. Our redeemed, how I love to proclaim
it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And I thought to myself,
I've got to preach on redemption again. That's just a wonderful
truth, isn't it? Redemption, how that Christ redeemed
us. We were His already, but we had
sold ourselves He redeemed us, and He redeemed us with His precious
blood. Things that are excellent. What
we will find, these things that are excellent, they will all
center in the person of Jesus Christ. They'll all center in
the person and work of Jesus Christ. Paul asks that believers
be sincere. Now, John Keel had an interesting
comment here that I thought I would give us tonight. He said, some
think it is a metaphor, that the apostle uses a metaphor taken
either from the eagle, which holds up its young against the
sun, I guess takes the eaglets on its wings and flies toward
the sun, And such as can the light of the sun bear, she retains. She retains as her own. But those
that cannot, she rejects. These little birds that cannot
look at the light of the sun, she rejects as spurious A spurious
brood, not hers, not hers. Sincere. And then a second metaphor,
he said his men, businessmen usually I assume, but someone
would bring them a product to sell, or for them to buy, and
they would take it and they would hold it up to the light of the
sun. the greatest light, the most powerful light that they
could get at that time, they would hold it up to the sun to
make sure there was no fault in the product, whatever it was.
So Paul here, so Paul would have believers, pure in heart and
life, and our practices that will bear the light of the sun,
the light of day. Notice he says in verse 10, until
the day of Christ. As I looked at that, I could
not help but think that one thing we should use to judge. Sometimes people say, well, would
it be all right if I do this? Would it be all right if I do
the other whatever it might be? Well, look at it in the light
of the day of Christ. What are we talking about here,
the day of Christ? We're talking about when Christ
comes again in judgment. How will it look then? Whatever
it is you may have a desire to do or wonder if you should do
or not do, well, how is that going to appear in the day of
Christ? How will it appear to you then
in the day of Christ? Pretty good, pretty good measure. When I say that word sincere,
I remember reading many years ago, I think it's from the Latin,
the two words sin, S-I-N, sin, those of you who know Spanish,
sin, without Without cera. Wax. Without wax. C. Cera. C. Cera. C. Cera. And the products
were fired, porcelain products, I believe it was. They were fired
and they could have a very tiny crack, almost impossible to see. And the merchant would take wax
and fill in that crack. Sin, sinner. Sin, sinner. That's the way God's people must
be. And the third petition, he asks
that believers be filled with the fruits of righteousness,
verse 11. Be filled with the fruits of
righteousness which are by Jesus Christ. under the glory and praise of
God. What does this mean, fruits of righteousness? Well, it means
good works. Good works. For we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God ordained that we should
walk in them. And the apostle would have these
believers filled with the fruits of righteousness, filled, their
lives filled with good works. The Lord Jesus said, every good
tree brings forth good fruit. And a person is declared righteous,
that is, justified through faith, having the righteousness of Christ
imputed or charged to him, and then the effect, the effect of
being justified by faith is good works. We're not saved by our
works, we know that. We're saved by His work, by His
person and work. But we are ordained unto good
works. John Gill, and I'll close with
this. I thought this was going to be a short message. John Gill
said we have in this verse here everything that constitutes a
good work. Number one, it is that which
is done according to the righteous law and will of God. Number two, it springs from a
principle of grace and holiness. And number three, it is performed
in the name, grace, and strength of Christ. And number four, with
a view to the honor and glory of God. Being filled with the
fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, by his strength. Remember he told his disciples,
without me you can do nothing. And we know that's true. We know
that's true about ourselves. We can do nothing without Him.
And yet in this same letter, the Apostle tells these people
that we can do all things through Christ who has strengthened us.
So these good works that he would have the believers to be filled
with are good works which are performed through the grace and
strength of God the Holy Spirit of Christ in you, and they are
performed to the glory and praise of God the Father. Amen.