Technicolor Joy
A Study in Philippians 1:9-11
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
5-07-2023
I Pray for You
I love country music. Not the twangy old country but new country. Friday night, I went and saw Thomas Rhett and Cole Swindell at the Peoria Civic Center. Both of these artists love Jesus and aren’t afraid to talk about their faith.
I came across a wonderful country song that is about the effect of a preacher’s words about prayer.
“I haven't been to church / Since I don't remember when
Things were going great / 'til they fell apart again
So I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do
He said you can't go hatin' others / Who have done wrong to you
Sometimes we get angry, but we must not condemn
Let the good Lord do his job, you just pray for them
I pray your brakes go out runnin' down a hill
I pray a flower pot falls from a window sill
And knocks you in the head like I'd like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you're flyin' high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, honey, I pray for you.”
This is NOT how we should pray for people!!
In many of Paul’s letters, he prays for the Christians that he is writing to. He often tells them what he is praying for them and asks for prayer for himself.
He loves these Philippians and just as he thanked God for them with joy he prayed for them intentionally and passionately.
God, Can You Hear Me?
Prayer is part of every major religion. Muslims pray toward Mecca. Jewish people pray at the Wailing Wall. For Buddhists, prayer is the act of emptying the mind.
But just like the disciples, many of us still feel inadequate in the area of prayer.
Richard Halverson lists four reasons that we shy away from prayer:
1. Unbelief – we simply doubt that God is listening or that He cares
2. Indifference – if God already knows, then why pray?
3. Priorities – we are too caught up in this world.
4. It’s difficult – prayer is hard work and takes discipline. Maxine’s mom and stepdad would pray all night. I have trouble praying for 20 mins!
Dr. Adrian Rogers wrote this:
“The greatest problem we face is not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer. Tragically, many of our prayers are so vague that if God were to answer them, we wouldn’t even know it.”
We don’t pray in order to inform God of any new information. We pray as children to a Father. Prayer keeps our hearts in touch with God. Prayer changes us and aligns us with His will. And God has conditioned our receiving things from Him through prayer.
Prayer is the expression of our total dependence on God for everything.
We can trust that God hears us (Psalm 16). We can rely on the Holy Spirit to help us pray when we are at a loss for words (Romans 8:26).
The writer of Hebrews encourages us to:
“…approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)
Let me make one caveat. If you are not a Christian, then you can have no confidence that God hears your prayers. Because our sins separate us from God, in our unredeemed state, we have no right to approach Him. But at the cross, our sins were paid for and the righteousness of Christ was applied to our account. He not only opened the door to the Throne room for you but He is praying for you, right now!
?“He [Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)
Robert Murray McCheyne wrote:
“If I could hear Jesus praying in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no distance. He is praying for me.”
Last week, we looked at Gospel driven fellowship.
I said that we are going to fight for joy despite our circumstances.
We will find our joy again.
Face the future with joy.
Turn with me to Philippians 1:9-11.
Prayer.
Today, lets’ study Paul’s Gospel-centered prayer.
A Gospel-Centered Prayer
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (Phil 1:9-11)
They know that Paul prays for them. But he is going to tell them exactly what he prays for them.
In Colossians, Paul prays
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” (Col 1:9-12)
And in Philippians, he begins with “this is my prayer…”
Let me encourage you to let people know that you are praying for them and even what you are praying for. Most people will be so thankful that you are willing to remember them in prayer.
Has anyone ever asked you to pray for them and you said you would but forgot? A simple way to avoid that is to ask, “Can we pray right now?” I’ve never had anyone turn down prayer, whether it be in the Walmart parking lot, Dollar General, or even the gym.
Abounding Love
What does Paul pray for? That their love may abound more and more.
The Philippian Christians were a loving congregation. They gave sacrificially and served and loved each other well.
But Paul prays that their love would increase, that it would overflow, that it would be super abound. It’s a word picture of a flower growing from a bud to a bloom.
Notice that there is no object in that sentence. Paul is praying that their love for what would grow? God? For others? For enemies? For the marginalized?
Yes! All of the above. He is praying that their love would overflow in all directions.
Have you ever left the hose on in your yard and watered the
Paul wrote to the Thessalonians Christians:
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” (I Thes 3:12)
The Roman government would often send spies into the churches to monitor what they were up to.
One of the spies wrote this back to his supervisor:
“They worship a man named Jesus who they say died and came back to life and is coming again. My how they love Him and each other.”
Jesus told His disciples:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)
The Apostle John wrote:
“We love because he first loved us.Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (I John 4:19-20)
Anyone here need to grow in our ability to love their spouse? Their children / grandchildren? Their friends? Their fellow church members?
The most famous verses about love are found in I Corinthians 13. These are the words I use when I marry people.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (I Cor 13:4-8)
I want to take a minute and have you read these words again but this time substitute your name in for love?
Anyone feel like they need to grow in love?
This past week, the Surgeon General released a report detailing the fact that Americans are more lonely than they’ve ever been.
A good friend of mine lost a 22 year old family member to suicide last week.
People are struggling. Let’s make it our goal to put love into action and that no one in our circle would ever feel unloved. ?
Paul prays that their love would grow in knowledge.
To Paul, love is not the sentimental, squishy emotion that characterizes much of our movies and books today.
Love is not blind and it isn’t anti-intellectual. This love is based on knowledge. Love is relational, personal, responsive.
Paul uses this Greek word fifteen times. It means knowledge of God. The more you know about God the more you will love Him. And the more you love Him, the more you will want to know His will and His ways.
Paul wrote to the Ephesians:
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” (Eph 1:17)
This knowledge helps us to know what is right.
The prophet Hosea wrote about the Israelites, “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)
When agents are trained to find counterfeit bills, they only handle the real thing for weeks. Then the trainers slip a fake bill into their pile. By that time the agents know the real thing so well, they immediately spot the funny money.
Knowledge helps us to love someone in a way that they can hear it and receive it.
For years, I’ve recommended Garry Chapman’s book, “the Five Love Languages.” It’s a framework for how to love someone in the best way for the way they are wired.
The love languages are:
Words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, quality time, and physical touch.
Knowing each other’s love language has helped Maxine and I to love each other intentionally over the years.
Then Paul added, “depth of insight.”
This word is used only here in the New Testament but it is found over twenty times in the book of Proverbs.
Insight helps us to know what is best. One of our favorite pastors used to call this “sanctified common sense.”
This is the practical application of wisdom to love, how to step in and be truly loving to others.
Over the years, I’ve watched as parents rescued their children time and time again and they would say that it was because they loved them.
But that kind of love is without knowledge or insight. If you rescue your children and they don’t suffer the consequences of the actions, their road will just get harder and harder.
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives…” (Eph 1:9)
Tony Merida ends each section of his commentary on Philippians 1 with a prayer. I’d like us to pray this together:
Father, please increase our love for one another. Help us to love one another based on our knowledge of Christ and His Word. Grant us discernment to know how best to express Christ-centered love to one another, as well as how to express love to the outside world. May our love for Jesus, who took hold of us, cause us to love others more sacrificially and genuinely. Through Christ we pray, Amen.
Growing Discernment
Paul prays that our love would grow more and more, in knowledge and depth of insight so that…
“You may be able to discern what is best…”
I have grown to love the Illinois State Fair. There is a lot of free live music and there are sights and sounds that I just didn’t experience growing up in the city, basically living at the mall.
Last year, I watched the sheep competition. Now, to be honest, they truly all looked the same. But the judges could tell an award winning animal right away. I didn’t get it but they obviously could see things that I couldn’t see.
That’s what the word discernment means. In that culture, it meant the process of vetting someone for public office, for judging the price of animals, or telling whether a coin was genuine or not.
Notice he prays that we may be able to discern what is best, or your translation may say excellent.
There are times when we have to decide between good and bad. Those decisions are fairly easy. But what about when the decision is between two good things? How do you tell the difference between what is good and what is best?
About a week before our wedding, an ex-girlfriend asked to meet me at the park. We sat cross-legged on a picnic table and she said, “I think you are making a mistake marrying Maxine. God told me that you are supposed to marry me.”
I was dumbfounded. I was a baby Christian and she was a woman of deep faith. I took a deep breath and prayed for the ability to discern what was best.
I then answered her, “If that was true, wouldn’t you think He would have told both of us?” She began to cry and said that I was right.
That wasn’t from me. That was God helping me discern what was best.
Increasing Integrity
He then adds another building block on to his prayer:
“So that, you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”
The Greek word for pure means “without wax” and “sun judged.”
In the culture, one of the main businesses was pottery. Cheap pottery is very fragile and would often crack after being removed from the kiln.
Unethical shop owners would put it back together using wax. It was hard to tell until you took it outside and held it up to the sunlight. Then you could see where the cracks had been filled with wax.
It became a practice to label pottery “without wax” (sincere) as a way of saying it had not been repaired.
Paul is praying that these believers would be sincere, honest, without hypocrisy.
I love how Puritan commentator Matthew Henry described hypocrisy: “Doing the devil’s work in God’s uniform.”
This speaks to inner character, what you see is what you get.
A nobleman wanted to be in the Imperial Orchestra but couldn’t play an instrument. He bribed the conductor who gave him a flute and showed him how to act like he was playing. This worked until a new conductor came along and demanded that each musician audition with him personally.
The fake flute player skipped town and it was said that he couldn’t “face the music.”
In 1990, Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan returned their Best New Artist Grammy. For a million points, why?
Because they were a fake band - Milli Vanilli. They didn’t sing their songs but lip synched to a recording made by other singers.
Romans 12:9 “Love must be sincere.”
Not only does he pray for our transparency of heart but also that they would be blameless.
This word means without offense or without causing offense.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
“Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God…” (I Cor 10:32)
This speaks to our outer behavior.
If I had a friend who was a recovering alcoholic, it wouldn’t be very loving to suggest that we go out to a bar together. I don’t want to cause him to stumble.
We live in a culture where it seems like every week another pastor or ministry leader fails and turns out not to be what they claimed to be. This has caused the younger generations to consider much of American Christianity a sham.
I saw a quote this week from Thomas Merton that hit me right between the eyes:
“Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that has cooled his faith.”
How do we combat that? This doesn’t mean we will be perfect, we are jars of clay. But asking God to grow in us a purity and blamelessness, to be real and authentic, that would point them toward Jesus.
Notice that he focuses them and us on the day of Christ?
Sometimes we get comfortable here and forget that this is not our home.
Jesus is coming back and every person you know will stand before Him. He will either be your judge or your defense attorney.
?Our love for others shows off God’s love for us. It’s a way of sharing the Gospel with a lost and dying world.
Father, grant us wisdom that we may pursue what matters most in life - knowing Christ, loving others, and making Christ known. Grant us purity of motives. Keep us from envying other Christians, complaining about people, gossiping, competing for praise and recognition, pursuing our own ambitions. Help us to love and serve in a way that’s pure. In all our relationships, help us to do what is right and what is best. Through Christ we pray, Amen.
Filled with Fruit
This love isn’t something that is private or that we keep to ourselves.
“Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ…”
He prays that they would be filled to the brim with the fruit of righteousness.
This will be manifested in right relationship with God and each other.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10)
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.
How are you growing in these?
Can we do this on our own? No, it comes through Jesus.
Lawrence of Arabia once invited some bedouin famers to the city and they stayed in a hotel. They were fascinated with the sinks. They lived in the desert and water was hard to come by.
Lawrence found one of the famers trying to remove the faucet so could take it with him. He thought that if he took the faucet, he could have all the water he wanted!
Jesus said “I am the vine and you are the branches…apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4)
This comes through Jesus and it is for Jesus:
“In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)
And it is ultimately to the glory and praise of God.
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (I Cor 10:31)
Video: Love Boldly
I love that she used knowledge and insight to learn how she could truly minister to her the best way. And the doctors and others saw this kind of love and were blessed by it.
Father, our greatest purpose in life is to glorify Your holy name. Fill our affections with a passion for your glory. Through Jesus, give us power to glorify You in our lives, in our homes, in our church, in our city, and in our world. Grant us power to glorify You by the way we love, the way we think, and by the way we live. Help us to live in view of the second coming of Jesus, our righteousness, our Lord and King. In His name we pray, Amen.
Communion
