Scripture Introduction
A Biblical study of ethics usually considers four topics: the 1) standard, 2) dynamic, 3) motive, and 4) goal of the Christian life. In three short verses, the Apostle Paul touches on each of those as he prays for his friends in Philippi. The forty-three word sentence is simple, but the ideas touch our deepest longings and desires, as we discover that we need abounding love in order to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
[Read Philippians 1.9-11. Pray.]
Introduction
A few weeks ago I asked: “What do you do when God does not do what you want him to do?” That question touches one critical issue in the life of faith. God does all things for his glory and our good, but those things sometimes “cross all the fair designs we scheme” (John Newton). As John Piper notes, “All experiences of suffering… threaten our faith in the goodness of God and tempt us to leave the path of obedience” (Desiring God, 257).
Today I ask another critical question (and hopefully answer, at least in part): “Why do we do the things we do?” Why do we come to church? Why invest in a child’s life through Whiz Kids? Why work hard for a degree and a career? Why raise wise and compassionate children? What is the motive for the Christian life? Or even bigger, what motivates anyone to do the things they do?
Blaise Pascal lived a short life in the 1600s, but proved himself a prodigy by mastering Euclid’s Elements when he was only twelve. At the age of sixteen he wrote a paper on conic sections, acclaimed by fellow mathematicians as “the most powerful and valuable contribution that had been made to mathematical science since the days of Archimedes.” He invented the first adding machine when he was nineteen, and six years later proved the relationship between atmospheric pressure and the level of mercury in a barometer. His other insights in philosophy and the physical sciences were just as extraordinary. In other words, Blaise Pascal was one smart cookie. He was also a committed Christian.
Pascal’s most influential theological work is a series of meditations on life and faith called, Pensées (roughly translated, “Thoughts”). In those writings he commented on why we do the things we do: “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”
So Pascal believed that we do what we do because we hope it will make us happy. But that opinion has fallen on some hard times recently. Many Christians feel that seeking our own happiness produces selfish people who care little for God or his glory. And it is certainly true that the pursuit of pleasure leads many people far from God!
So we might suppose that the faithful motive for godly living is not our own joy but our duty. After all, does not the promise of personal reward always produce selfish and self-seeking desires? And does not the Bible teach self-denial as a great goal for the Christian?
C. S. Lewis did not believe so: “The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased” (The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, 1–2).
In other words (according to Lewis), not only do people seek their own happiness, but the Christian ought to seek that very thing. Our great duty is to find the happiness which can only be found in God. And many Scriptures agree:
• Psalm 34.8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
• Psalm 119.103: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
• Psalm 16.11: “In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasure forevermore.”
• Psalm 43.4: “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.”
• Psalm 37.4: “Delight yourself in the Lord.”
• Matthew 19.21: “Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”
• Proverbs 3.1-2: “Let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.”
• Matthew 6.14: “If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”
• Matthew 6.33: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things [food, drink, clothing, homes, life] will be added to you.”
• Ephesians 5.28: “He who loves his wife loves himself.”
• John 16.24: “Ask [in my name], and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
• Acts 20.35: Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
• Luke 6.35: “Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.”
God rewards those who seek their own happiness. There is a necessary distinction, however. It is no reward to receive pleasure in the world’s joys or the desires of the flesh; the reward offered by God is the joy of his presence and the pleasures of his kingdom. This reward is valued only by those who love God, for God himself is the reward, God our exceeding joy!
So why is all this discussion about reward and happiness and motive important? Some of us may believe that duty should be its own reward. As a result, both our efforts at sanctification and our evangelistic appeals rely much on responsibility and appeals to duty. Then, necessarily, we denigrate desire and delight, as if seeking to be “happy in Jesus” is a bit suspect. We almost sound as if we believe that enjoying the Christian life is proof of compromise.
But that is not a Biblical answer, and therefore does not produce the results we hope for. Our sanctification is stunted and our evangelism is anemic. Our efforts at godliness make us grouchy and self-reliant and our attempts to call people to faith produce few results when we ignore the fact that all people seek happiness. God would have us rejoice at the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels. I want you happy in Jesus! As a pastor, I want you here because you truly believe that God rewards with joy those who sincerely seek him. And I believe that is precisely why Paul begins this prayer for sanctification by asking that the Philippians abound in love.
I love my wife, so I try to please her. Why? Because it makes me happy to please the ones I love. You love God, so you seek to please him. Why? Because it makes you happy to please him. You seek your own happiness in his glory. So the beginning point for ethics is what do we love? If we love money, we believe money will make us happy and we will serve it in the hopes of acquiring more of it. If we love God, we believe he will make us happy, and we will serve him in the hopes of having more of him in our lives.
So what do we need? We need more love for God; and notice, please, that is where Paul’s prayer begins:
1. Because Love Moves Us, We Need More Love
Philippians 1.9a: “And it is my prayer than your love may abound more and more….” Paul knows that the things which captivate our hearts control our lives. The first and great commandment is not mere obedience, but all-consuming love: “Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…. And love your neighbor as yourself.” When love is deep and wide and long, obedience follows, not as dull duty demanded of unwilling slaves, but as the necessary delight of happy sons and daughters of the king.
It is no burden at all for you to say to me, “You must cheer the Minnesota Vikings,” for my heart is drawn out to long for the success of their team. But if you say, rather, I must root for the San Diego Chargers, then I will take on that duty as a load and will not perform it well.
So I need more love for God and neighbor, that my obedience would also be my great joy. I need love to motivate obedience, because as John Piper correctly observes: “Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved.” This is why selfishness is no part of true love. “Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others. Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved” (Desiring God, 206-207). So Paul wants to Philippians to love God more, so that honoring and glorifying God makes us supremely happy.
But love alone is not enough, is it? Love is a strong passion, a mighty locomotive which can pull hundreds of fully loaded train cars; it has great power! But even the awesome, 6000 horsepower locomotive is useless in a grassy meadow; it must have tracks on which it rides. The twin rails which enable love to travel to the glorious goal are knowledge and discernment.
2. Because Love Moves Us, We Need Knowledge and Discernment
Philippians 1.9: “And it is my prayer than your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment….”
Love alone is not sufficient to guide us to happiness because we are fallen creatures living in a fallen world. We think that doing such-and-such will satisfy desire, when, in fact, we will be most miserable! Blind love will not set its affections on what is good and true and right, because sin has twisted our wills to desire what is damaging and damning. So Paul prays for the locomotive of love to ride on these twin rails.
The Bible teaches this way often. Consider, for example, Proverbs 7. Solomon explains to his sons that when they travel they will meet adulteresses who will lure them with beauty and kisses and flattering speech. They will promise a beautiful bed, sweet perfume, delightful love, and freedom from danger since there is no husband near. In other words, they appeal to your love of pleasure. So how does Solomon combat this temptation? It is not by an appeal to the law: “Do not commit adultery.” Instead, he reminds them that sin brings misery: a direct appeal to their hope for happiness. Solomon tells his sons that they will be like a ox for the slaughter, a stag caught in a trap and shot with an arrow, a bird snared and killed. Instead, my sons, chose the way of life and riches and happiness and honor and success. In other words, the ways of God are always for your best. And it is this knowledge of what is good and this ability to discern what is damaging which guides the heart to the reward we seek.
Matthew Henry: “We must love God because of his infinite excellence and loveliness, and love our brethren because of what we see of the image of God upon them. Strong passions, without knowledge and a settled judgment, will not make us complete in the will of God, and sometimes do more hurt than good. The Jews had a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, and were transported by it to violence and rage, Romans 10.2; John 16.2.”
Biblical love is “wise and judicious” (MacArthur, 46). Through knowledge, it carefully assesses self and circumstances so that it discerns the right way. Biblical love is controlled by the Holy Spirit and directed by Holy Scripture.
Sinclair Ferguson correctly observes: “Biblical love cannot grow strong unless it is in the context of increased spiritual knowledge and discernment. Love and insight need to go together. To love is to have the motivation to help; discernment enables us to see what the real need is. Love means we have compassion; discernment means that we see the situation clearly and realistically” (15).
3. Love Guided By Knowledge and Discernment Chooses the Excellent
Philippians 1.9: “And it is my prayer than your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent….”
We each must make dozens, or even hundreds of choices every day. Many of those do not directly involve sin. So we may imagine those fall outside of the interest or influence of God and the Bible. But this verse says something different; God wants us to discern and chose what is best, not merely avoid that which is terrible.
The time is short; the days are evil. Thoughtful people want every moment to count. We will not settle for a life merely of peace and comfort; we want “every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ” (2Corinthians 10.5).
Do you write letters to your children in college? Susanna Wesley wrote to her son, John when he was at Oxford, appealing to him to approve only of what is excellent: “Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the delight for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin.”
When Jonathan Edwards was 20 years old, he challenged himself to chose what is excellent, and recorded it in his famous list of Resolutions:
5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
22. Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.”
Edwards knew what we may refuse to admit—in order to glorify and enjoy God, we must be highly discriminating with our lives. Anything less is a life wasted, which brings no joy to the
true Christian.
4. Conclusion
In his book, Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper tells the story of two sets of people. “In April 2000, Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards were killed in Cameroon, West Africa. Ruby was over eighty. Single all her life, she poured it out for one great thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the unreached, the poor, and the sick. Laura was a widow, a medical doctor, pushing eighty years old, and serving at Ruby’s side in Cameroon. The brakes failed, the car went over a cliff, and they were both killed instantly.” The February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest told a very different of a “couple who took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect
shells.’”
I’m not asking who did their duty. I’m asking you which two died with the greatest reward. How you answer that tells you whether you believe in “the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels.”
