That Your Love May Abound

The Divine Institution of Preaching and the Seriousness of Study

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, November 16th, 1980, when the Trinity Church was still meeting at the Grover Cleveland Junior High School in Caldwell, New Jersey. I would encourage you to follow in your own Bibles as I read again this morning from Philippians chapter 1, verses 3 through 11. After bringing the standard apostolic greeting to the church at Philippi, the Apostle then proceeds to write, I thank my God upon all my remembrance of you, always in every supplication of mine on behalf of you all, making my supplication with joy for your fellowship in the furtherance of the gospel from the first day until now. Now, being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ, even as it is right for me to be thus minded on behalf of you all, because I have you in my heart inasmuch as both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye are partakers with me of grace.

1:29 For God is my witness, how I long after you all in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and void of offense unto the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. I am assuming this morning that the vast majority of you are here because you believe that the preaching of the word of God is a divine institution.

2:26 Furthermore, I am assuming that the vast majority of you are here because you believe that the preaching of the word of God is a divine institution. I am certain that the vast majority of you are here because you believe that the preaching of the word of God is a divine institution. God Himself, God as revealed in Christ, God by the Spirit actually comes and ministers to you personally in the preaching of His word. Now if these two assumptions are valid, then surely the vast majority of you regard it as no burden to you as a human being, to follow the very tracks of the mind of the living God as those tracks are embedded in the very words of Holy Scripture. Now this is precisely what we're attempting to do in our verse-by-verse study of Paul's letter to the Philippians. To trace the tracks of the mind of God with a view to having dealings with God in the very institution of God, namely the preaching of His Word. Therefore, to manifest the spirit of indifference or carelessness to this kind of study

3:48 is to insult the God who has graciously condescended to reveal the tracks of His mind in the words of Scripture, and it is to impoverish our own... ...souls by despising the primary means ordained of God for our advancement in grace.

Paul's Petition: Not a Transcription or a List, but a Central Passion

4:13 Now those are serious charges, but anything less than that would not be according to fact and to reality. And so I invite you, and I trust for the vast majority of you, this invitation is no burden, but indeed a delight, to examine with me carefully, verses 9 through 11 of this first chapter of Philippians. We saw last Lord's Day that verses 3 through 11 are the record of Paul's praise and prayer with respect to the Philippian church. We studied together verses 3 to 8 last Lord's Day in which we saw Paul's thanksgiving and its causes. Now this morning we begin our study in verses 9 through 11 of his petition and its concerns. So you have that very natural division. It's not an artificial division imposed upon the text for the sake of homiletics.

5:22 It is a division that grows out of the text in seeking to handle it honestly. I thank my God. And so He lays before us. He lays before us His thanksgiving in its essence and its causes.

5:38 But you will notice the transition in verse 9. And this I pray. And from verse 9 through 11 we have the account of His petition and its concerns. Now as we stand this morning on the threshold of examining this petition and its concerns, two things need to be said by way of introduction.

6:04 First of all, we must understand that these verses are not a transcription of His prayer. That is, what we have in verses 9 through 11 is not a word-by-word account of exactly the very words that the Apostle prayed when he prayed for the Philippians. When I take my dictating machine and begin to read the Philippians, and begin to read the Philippians, and begin to read the Philippians, and begin to read the Philippians, and begin to dictate into it and say the next letter should go on church stationery, Mr. So-and-so, and give the address, Dear Brother So-and-so, the responsibility of the secretary who takes that cassette and places it in her machine and puts on her headphones is to give a word-for-word transcription from the tape onto the paper of that which I have expressed when I dictated the letter. Now when we take the letter and we come to any of these accounts of apostolic prayers, we must not regard them as though they were something that was spoken into a dictating machine and then just recorded word-for-word or transcribed word-for-word. We do not have an apostolic litany or an excerpt from the beginnings of an apostolic prayer book. Rather, what we have

7:31 from the Apostle under the guidance of the Apostle is the distilled essence of the main thrust and burden of his prayer. In other words, if we were to listen to the Apostle pray for the Philippians over a period of time and then were to read these words, we would recognize that what we were given in these words was the overall passion and burden of the Apostle's prayer, not, a word-for-word transcription of that prayer as though every time he prayed for the Philippians, he prayed precisely in the language of verses 9 through 11. And then secondly, we need to understand that we do not have a prayer list with several items lined up in a column. Now you might get that impression from the English version. And this I pray, as though Paul then slips out his prayer list, and here are the major concerns.

8:38 Number one, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and discernment. Number two, that you may approve the things that are excellent. Number three, that you may be sincere and void of offense to the day of Christ. Number four, that you may be filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

8:59 Now my work as an expositor. A preacher would be easy if that's what this passage contained. And it's very interesting in the no fewer than 15, 17, 18 commentators that I normally consult in the course of my preparation to see that some of them have actually approached the passage as though that's what we have, was a prayer list with four or five main requests all lined up in a column. Well, how do we know that that is not what we have in these verses?

9:31 Well, how do we know that that is not what we have in these verses? Well, we know that for the simple reason that in consulting the original language, no such construction can possibly be put upon this account of Paul's burden of prayer for the Philippians. The construction in the original language is such that it comes through very clearly that what we have in this prayer is one great central passion and burden. In a sense, there is only really one request.

10:01 But that request is related to certain immediate and more remote goals and concerns in the mind and heart of the Apostle Paul. And so what we find in the structure of this prayer is precisely what we found in the structure of his thanksgiving. We find the pulsing, warm, burdened heart of the Apostle coupled with that trustful, keen, perceptive mind so capable of thinking lofty and expansive thoughts. And just as his praise was an effusion and a mingling of the burning heart and of the clear head, so likewise with his petitions. And out of that warm and passionate heart comes one great overarching concern in prayer, the great, great burden of the prayer. But that warm and pulsing and passionate heart never wrenches itself loose from a clear and a perceptive and discerning mind so that when he records the burden of his prayer,

The Immediate Burden: Abounding Love

11:20 he laces through the expression of the burden of his prayer some of these vast and grand concepts of the motivation. Which lies behind that prayer and some of the concerns that are woven through the very fabric of his burden. And as we attempt to open up the prayer, we shall do so by considering, first of all, the immediate burden of his prayer. And that's found in verse 9 and the first part of verse 10.

11:58 The immediate burden of his prayer. Verse 10 says this, This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve the things that are excellent. And anyone who has his Greek Testament in front of him will know why I make the division there and I'll not go into a lesson in Greek grammar. But then beginning in the latter part of verse 10, we have what I am calling the ultimate concern.

12:32 The immediate burden of his prayer. In order that these immediate burdens, I pray, with a view in order that you may be sincere and void of offense to the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. So God willing, this morning we will take up the immediate burden. Burden of his prayer and next week, God willing, the ultimate concerns of his prayer.

13:09 Now the immediate burden of his prayer has first of all its central concern and then its practical goal. And that will constitute the meat and potatoes of our study this morning. The immediate burden has its central concern and its practical goal. Now what is the central concern?

13:32 Well, he tells us, look at the language of the text, not these things I pray, you see if he had a prayer list, he would have had to use the plural, these things I pray, but he didn't say that. He uses the singular, and this thing I pray, whenever I pray, I do so with thanksgiving upon every remembrance of you Philippians, and then he launches into that account of the basis and the ground. Now when he returns to tell them what it is he prays for them, he apprises them at the outset that there is one grand central passion and burden of his prayer, this thing I pray. And what is it that he prays? He prays that their love may more and more abound, literally, their love may yet more and more overflow. This is the word used in the New Testament to describe what happened when after the Lord multiplied the loaves and the fishes, they had yet much left over.

14:45 There was an abundance. Speaking of the rich people, in that incident of the widow and her mites, the rich cast in of their abundance, the same word is used. And so this great apostle, with this large, large, large, large, large, large, large, large, large heart, who had known from the first day of his contact with the Philippians something of their love, their love to Christ when their hearts were opened, as was Lydia's, to receive the gospel, love to one another, as expressed when Lydia opened her home to the servants of Christ, love that had been manifested in their going on in the faith and in their constant fellowship in the gospel. The apostle who had known and experienced their present expressions of love, now when he prays, has as his great and central concern that that present measure of love, as real and as vast as it was, may more and more abound and overflow. And it is that which constitutes his central burden. Amen.

16:01 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:01 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:01 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:02 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:03 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:03 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:04 Amen. Amen. This love, already so ardent, may grow, may have every defect removed from it, and everything given to it, which can increase its strength and its beauty, this is the chief petition to God for them.

Why Love is the Central Burden: The Queen of Graces

16:27 Now this being so, in the language of the text certainly makes it evident, we must asked the question, why was this his central burden? Of all of the things which could have constituted the central passion of his heart when he prayed for the Philippians, why was this his great request, that more and more their love, love to God and love to man, that this love would increase and abound? Well, I think the answer is given to us in the Scripture doctrine of the centrality of love among the graces of the Christian life. Love is in reality the queen of all the graces of the Christian life. Surely the passage we will read, God willing, next Lord's Day morning, 1 Corinthians 13, makes this abundantly evident. For there the Apostle says, If people have gifts of knowledge, gifts of utterance, gifts of sacrificial service, if they have not love, they are nothing. He closes the chapter by saying, Now abideth faith, hope, and love these great graces, but the greatest of them is love. Love is the queen of all the other

17:50 graces. We see this affirmed in such passages as Galatians 5.22. Now the fruit of the Spirit is love. And the least we can say about it is that in that list of the ninefold fruit of the Spirit, love stands first in order of mention and importance. And it could well be, as many commentators have suggested, that love stands, as it were, as the canopy and the root and seed of all the other graces. And joy and peace and longsuffering are simply manifestations of the grace of God.

18:27 of love. Furthermore, the Scripture says, He that loveth hath fulfilled the law, for love is the fulfilling of the law. And the great duty which God has laid upon man, when reduced to its most simple summary, is what? What is the first and great commandment? To love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love one's neighbor as himself.

18:57 And you see, the apostle understood this. And because of this place given to love in the economy of grace, the great passion of his heart was that love in the Philippians might abound yet more and more. And I must pause to say that when we understand love in these biblical categories, then certainly the word and all that surrounds it is the word of God. The word and all that surrounds it is lifted out of the morass of the vile and perverted concepts of love in our own generation. It's lifted totally out of the realm of its cheap usage in the immoral, shallow plots of the soap operas, and out of the lecherous animal passions expressed in Hollywood and the film industry, and out of the mindless,

19:57 feeling-dominated lyrics of modern music. When we view love as the fulfilling of the law, when we view love as that queen of all the graces implanted in the hearts of the people of God, and when we view it essentially and primarily in its manifestation in God himself, then we understand something of why the apostle prayed, as he prayed. John tells us that God is light, 1 John 1.5, but then in chapter 4 he says God is love.

20:38 And so therefore the one most full of love is most full of God, and the one most dominated by love is most like God. So the great and central burden of his heart as he thinks of his dear Philippians, when he goes to pray for them, regardless of what may be in his mind at any given moment, he finds himself coming back again and again to this petition. This is the thing I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more. But now notice the text.

Love Abounding in Knowledge and Discernment

21:17 It is not bare love. Love in isolation. Love unconditioned. Love by other elements for which he prays.

21:28 But he is very careful to record this, I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all discernment. In other words, he is praying that they may abound in a love that will always be found in conjunction with two other commodities. Knowledge and discernment. If I may use an analogy, he is praying that their love may abound, but never a love that will stand alone, but a love that will find linked to its arm on the left, knowledge, and to its arm on the right, discernment. And that's his prayer, that their love may abound not in isolation, not in detachment, but their love may abound in knowledge and in all discernment. Now, what did he mean by using those words? Well, the word that he uses for knowledge points to something more than a mere surface acquaintance with the facts or with reality.

22:45 He uses an intensified form of the word which literally means full. Full, genuine knowledge. In other words, he is praying that their love may abound in conjunction with an inward, full, certain knowledge of spiritual realities. Now, why does he pray that way?

23:13 Well, again, because he understood this great truth of Holy Scripture, that a heart in which there is darkness, a heart in which there is darkness and ignorance, a heart in which there are misconceptions about God and man and the world of reality is a heart in which love to God and love to man cannot exist and it cannot grow. We've often heard it said, ignorance is the mother of devotion. No, it isn't. Ignorance is the mother of vice and of sin.

23:46 It is truth which is the mother of devotion. And so if their love is to be loved, to be genuine love, it must have hanging on its left arm increasing measures of knowledge. And so he prays that their love may abound yet more and more in all knowledge, that they may know more and more with accuracy the God whom they serve, that they may know with an increasing measure of full experimental knowledge the great realities of God's deepness, healings with them in grace and the provisions of His grace and kindness in Christ. For to grow in such knowledge is to grow in genuine love.

24:35 But he's not content to simply pray that love will have a companion on her left arm. He says, I'm praying that she will come to you and increase with a companion on her right arm as well. And he uses the word translated in our Bibles, discernment. Now this is the only place the word occurs in all of the New Testament.

24:58 So we can't turn to other passages to let Scripture interpret Scripture. But we do have a word that's in the same family of words over in Hebrews chapter 5. And this gives us a very helpful clue as to its meaning. In Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 14, the writer speaks of solid food as being the portion of full-grown men, even though...

25:24 Those who by reason of use have their... And here's the family word.

25:29 Have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. The word for senses here obviously refers to that ability to make proper moral judgments, to discern between good and evil. It may interest some of you to know that our English word aesthetics comes from the Greek word used in the Bible. This passage.

25:55 Now when we speak of someone having a good aesthetic sense, what do we mean? Well, we mean with respect either to musical sounds or to colors and things that impinge upon the eye. They have a sense of rightness. There are some people who obviously are totally neutered aesthetically.

26:13 All you need to do is watch the kind of tie and shirt and jacket they put together and you say somewhere along the line, the nerves that cultivate aesthetic judgment... Great aesthetic judgment had been cauterized or someone reached in and extracted them.

26:30 We understand what aesthetic sensitivity means without even interpreting it. Well, the apostle is praying that their love may abound not only in full and certain knowledge, but in this highly cultivated sense of moral judgment that they may be able to know and choose and choose, the specific things which love suffused through the heart and light suffused through the mind will incline them to choose. That's his prayer. Now think of the Philippians.

27:10 There they are in the midst of this Roman colony, a society soaked in paganism, all kinds of pressures brought to bear upon them in work. In their places of play and recreation. Many of them having no rootage in the Old Testament scriptures so that on the most elementary issues of how they are to think about the world, how they are to think about men, family responsibilities, husband-wife relationships, their minds, their backgrounds have been totally conditioned by paganism. And the apostle is concerned for the glory of God in the church at Philippi.

27:52 And so the great... The great passion of his heart is, Oh God, may their love increase yet more and more.

28:00 Without that love to God, they'll be unconcerned about how to please Him in all the details of life. So he prays that their love may abound more and more for the great dictate of love is to please its object. And so he wants that passion to be increased. Likewise, they won't be concerned as to how they relate to their fellow men, husbands, wives, parents, children, employer, employee, vice versa, unless there's love to their fellow men.

28:28 So he prays, Lord, may their love abound yet more and more. But, if they have this passion to please God and also to live and relate to their fellow men in a way that is honorable, what good will it do unless they have knowledge? Knowledge of God that will regulate their relationship to Him. Knowledge of man in society.

28:53 Knowledge that comes... that comes from God through the Word of God.

28:56 What good will it do? And what good will all that knowledge do if they can't interpret it in the concrete situations? So he prays that their love may abound with the handmaiden on the left of knowledge and the handmaiden on the right of moral and ethical perception. This discernment, this ability to distinguish the things that differ.

29:23 In other words, if I may put it in the simplest terms possible, the great burden and central passion of his prayer is that the Philippians may have a burning heart accompanied with a well-instructed head, accompanied with a piercing and a sensitive eye. And when all of those things come together, the burning heart, beating with ever-increasing measures of love, love to God and man, a clear, well-instructed head, more and more furnished, not with shadows of human theories, but with the substance of truth, life interpreted by the living God Himself. Well, as that burning heart is more and more furnished with a clear mind, and the clear mind more and more furnished with a discerning and piercing and sensitive eye, able to make proper judgments in the situations of life when no apostle is there to give counsel and no elder is over the shoulder to give counsel, why then the apostle knows that in that situation the Philippians will more and more realize the very end for which they were redeemed, namely, bringing glory to their God and Savior.

The Practical Goal: Approving Excellent Things

30:51 Now that this is the proper interpretation, of the central burden of his prayer is evidenced in what he says concerning its practical goal. Why does he pray this? Look at the language. This thing I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent.

31:21 You see the practical goal of his central concern? If God will give them this abounding love with its handmaidens of knowledge and discernment, he says this practical goal will be realized. There will be this ability to approve the things that are excellent. Now many of you will have a marginal reading which renders it, distinguish the things that differ.

31:49 Now again, there's a translational problem. You have an exact parallel in the structure of the language, in Romans 2 and verse 18. Professor Murray commenting on that says, it can be translated either of these two ways. Approve the things that are excellent, distinguish the things that differ, and to quote him he says, it is impossible to decide which is the proper rendering.

32:13 But in reality, there's really no difference, is there? Think for a moment. If the thing Paul is praying as the practical goal of his central passion is that they may have the ability to distinguish things that differ, well, what's the great end of that? Well, the end is that distinguishing things that differ, they may choose the good above the better, and the best above the better.

32:45 They will have the ability to distinguish things that differ, or if the proper rendering is that they may, putting things to the test, actually approve the things that are most excellent, that's the end result. So there's really no difference, and the translational problem is not a problem in coming to grips with the central thrust of what is here given. Perhaps the best thing I can do to pull the thoughts together for you is to read what I have found to be the most judicious comments on this part of the text from a man who lived and labored in another generation, but this is what he says, summarizing this part of the text. The Apostle's prayer, then, is that the love of the Philippians may be accompanied with abundant knowledge and with all delicate moral perception, to the end that they may try or test so as to distinguish things which differ. His reference in the things which differ is not to virtue and vice, the service of God, not in the service of the devil. With respect to these things, the Philippians had decided clearly and irrevocably long ago, for they were already Christians, and even eminent Christians.

34:08 They shunned the darkness and loved the light. In this clause of his prayer, the one we're considering now, Paul has in mind the faculty of distinguishing Christian virtue from all of its counterfeits, of seeing in an apparent, conflict of duties, what present duty really is, of discerning where excess begins in that which, up to a certain point, is innocent or useful, of deciding accurately which of two ways of pursuing Christian work is the better, of avoiding moral pitfalls, how carefully they may be disguised and covered over, of habitually saying and doing the right thing at the right time, in the right way, and thus steadily growing ever like Christ. The degree in which this faculty is possessed determines very largely the beauty of a Christian's character and the breadth and depth and permanence of his influence for good. So the practical goal that he has in mind when he prays with his soul, the central concern for an abounding love with handmaidens of knowledge and discernment, is that in every situation

35:35 where moral judgments need to be made, these Philippians may approve the things that are excellent, may make the proper choice. Now again we ask the question, why is this necessary? Well, think for a moment. In the New Covenant, we have an entirely different structure.

35:56 Ancient Israel, was separated from the nations geographically. God put up this wall to keep the nations out and also to keep Israel into itself, that middle wall of partition. And all the facets of their life were regulated by a precept from God. Right down to what they ate and how they ate it and when, under what circumstances, every detail.

36:25 There was this manual, that covered almost every facet of life, right down to personal hygiene. Now the gospel is gone amongst the nations. That middle wall is broken down. But you see this complicates the problem of giving to the people of God, specific directions as to how they're to live.

36:51 And the gospel goes into a vast array of cultures, each one with its own peculiar dominance, each one with its own prominent aspects of sin or of common grace. And the people of God bring with them all of the baggage of their past influence. And God has not given us a manual that we can look up alphabetically and turn up a direction from God concerning every detail of life. Does that mean we are less privileged than the Old Covenant people?

37:20 No. Because one of the promises of the New Covenant is this. Not only will I be their God, but God says, They shall no more every man teach his neighbor, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know me, from the least to the greatest.

37:37 For I will put my law in their hearts, and upon their inward parts will I write them. So that now, endowed with the Spirit, we have the broad moral principles of the Decalogue. We have the specific principles of the Word of God in the Old and the New Testament, those which transcend culture, those which are not bounded by that middle wall of partition, but even furnished with all of those things. There are many specific instances in which we do not have an explicit word from God.

38:13 And yet if we love God and love our fellow man, we want to do the right thing, don't we? Well, how are we going to know how to do it? Here's the answer. As the heart abounds with love, joined with the handmaidens of knowledge and keen moral perception, we will approve the things that are excellent, and we will be able to make right choices and decisions, and thereby glorify God and walk in peace and joy in our own hearts.

Application: A Pattern for Our Own Prayers

38:50 This is why the Apostle prayed what he prayed for the Philippians. Now, in order to keep the balance of Scripture, I would love to go on and expound the latter part of verse 10 and verse 11, what I'm calling the ultimate concerns of his prayer, because he didn't separate them, because that would mean I would have preached a sermon without application. My conscience won't let me do that. So as I have prayed to abound in love with the handmaidens of knowledge and discernment, with respect to this very sermon, I'm constrained at this point not to go on and give you the last half of the prayer, but now, having shown the prayer in its central burden, the prayer in its practical goal, consider with me now the prayer in its present relevance. In other words, what in the world does all this say to you, and what does it say to me? Well, let me suggest that, first of all, we should behold in this prayer a pattern for our own prayers. Matthew Henry has said in his quaint way, God has recorded the prayers of the apostles for others that we should know how to pray for ourselves.

40:18 Isn't this one of the great concerns that every Christian has? How shall I pray for my fellow believers? And often we feel, well, if I don't have a lot of details about my fellow believers, knowing that they've got a twitch behind the left ear and they've got an itch between the second and third toe on the right foot, if I don't have all kinds of detailed information, I don't know how to pray for my brethren. You hear people say this rather frequently.

40:47 They'll say, well, I'd like some specifics so I know how to pray for you. Well, how many specifics did Paul have from the church at Philippi? The distance between the two. Between Macedonia and Rome was a long distance.

41:02 You didn't have any 747s carrying passengers and having a mail compartment into which they'd throw the letters. No, there was a very limited means of communication, and even though Epaphroditus had come and no doubt brought word of various individuals, in terms of up-to-date specific news, the apostle had a modicum of this. And yet he did not lack fuel for prayer. This thing I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all discernment, all moral sensitivity, so that in every situation you will approve the things that are excellent.

41:45 Oh, my dear fellow believers, you want to know how to pray for yourself? Start using these very prayers as a framework for your own personal devotions. And begin to pray, Lord, I do not ask for wealth, I do not ask for this, but, oh, God, may the measure of love that is in my heart, implanted by the Spirit, may it abound more and more. Love to you, love to my fellow men, love and compassion to sinners, but, oh, Lord, may it be a love that has the handmaidens of knowledge and highly developed moral sensitivity.

42:25 Oh, Lord, give me that love that longs to please you and longs to do what is good to my fellow men. And then, Lord, furnish my mind with knowledge so that I will know you as I ought and know my fellow men as I ought. And then, Lord, give to me that ability to make right decisions when I don't have my husband there to make a judgment with regard to how the children should be dealt with in a given problem during the day. That should be your prayer, Mother.

42:57 God, fill my heart with a love that's determined, even though it's contrary to my flesh, to stop in the middle of making that dress, to stop in the middle of kneading my bread, to deal with that problem. Lord, give me love that loves my kids enough to be inconvenienced and to have my schedule interrupted twenty times a day if necessary. Lord, give me that kind of love. But, oh, Lord, furnish me with knowledge so that when I go to deal with the problem, I'm not looking at the kid through the jaundiced eyes of modern child psychology, but that I'm looking at that child through the eyes of Holy Scripture, a creature made in the image of God but fallen in Adam, one who has a heart in which there is bound up a mountain of folly and rebellion to God and to authority. Lord, give me love furnished with knowledge. Help me to interpret my children's actions according to reality, not that wicked, vicious, godless child psychology. But then, Lord, give me that moral discernment.

44:10 Give me spiritual aesthetics so that when it comes to the fine-tuning, I won't be overly harsh or I won't refuse to exert the kind of discipline or pressure needed to deal with the issue. And my husband, my husband's not here to ask him, and I can't get on the phone and call an elder. Lord, I plead with you, give me love that abounds more and more in knowledge and discernment. See how practical it is?

44:40 Make the apostles' prayer for the Philippians a model for your own prayers. And you fathers, you can apply it in your role as fathers, as husbands, as workmen, in situations where you're working in an office, working in a shop, working on a construction crew, where biblical norms don't cut any mustard with those in charge. Well, at what point do you dig your heels in and say, thus far and no further? At what point do you agitate?

45:11 At what point do you submit without compromise? Where's the line between sanctified accommodation and sinful compromise? Well, you better cry to God for love that abounds with knowledge and discernment. You kids in school, that's what you need.

45:30 At what point do you speak up in a class when godlessness is being openly and authoritatively pronounced from the lecturer's desk? At what point do you quietly swallow? How do you know? Well, you need to cry that God will give you love that is strong enough to bear the reproach of Christ if necessary.

45:54 But love so disciplined with knowledge, and discernment that you don't make a fool of yourself and bring reproach upon Christ unnecessarily. Well, where's that line? God will give you knowledge to know where it is. We need to pray for ourselves.

46:13 This is what we need to pray for one another. And how my own prayer life has been challenged as I've soaked my mind and soul for hours in this text this week, and I mean that literally. What can we pray for one another? What can I as a shepherd pray for this flock?

46:33 Oh, what fuel for prayer is here. That you as a people may abound in love more and more. That our present measure of love to God may be intensified and heightened. That our love to one another may be equally intensified and heightened.

46:53 But we don't want a love that is just an internal pressure. Or a gush of the heart. We want a love that is always locking arms with her handmaidens of knowledge and of judgment. And you see, as I begin to pray that way for you, then I begin to get concerned.

47:14 I say, Lord, what about those that don't soak up every opportunity to get all the knowledge they can? Who feel they're advanced enough in grace that they don't need to come to Sunday school. Advanced enough in grace they don't need to come Sunday school. Every night.

47:31 They've got enough knowledge and get enough coming once a week. I envy you. I do. I envy you.

47:38 If you've got so much knowledge that all you need is one dose a week. I can't get by getting all I've got plus all I get during the week living in the gospel. And I still feel like a fool so many times when I have to make moral and ethical decisions because I feel so ignorant. I say, Lord, if only I had more knowledge of your word.

47:59 More knowledge of yourself and of man and of your world. If only I were more diligent in praying in the scriptures and meditating upon them. I feel my judgment would be more certain. That's not mock humility.

48:14 I'm telling you the truth. So I marvel at the luxury that some of you have who feel you're so advanced in knowledge. One shot a week is all you need. I'm praying that God will smite you with conviction and humble you this morning.

48:29 I'm praying that God will send an arrow into your heart. And then to have moral discernment, ethical sensitivity. Oh, how desperately we need this. It's because so often we're on a path we've never been on before.

48:49 And we don't have any landmarks. No road signs. And there's nobody who's been in quite the same situation as you are in now. Well, this is what you need to pray that God will give you.

Application: A Prescription for Our Growth in Grace

49:02 So I say, by way of application, first of all, behold in this prayer a model for our own prayers. But then secondly, behold in this prayer a prescription for our own growth in grace. What does it mean to grow in grace? Well, it means to grow in love.

49:25 There is no grace in growth in mere acquisition of knowledge. The Bible says knowledge detached from love puffs up. Some of you are staggering around under a head packed full of facts. But you're very useless, relatively useless, when it comes to being an instrument of edification.

49:49 Why? Because you're not abounding more and more in love. Oh yes, you're packing more and more knowledge into your head. But that's not the knowledge Paul prays for.

50:01 This full knowledge, this epignosis he prays for, is heart experimental knowledge. True, full, inward, operative knowledge. And so we see in this prayer a prescription for our own growth in grace. Yes, we must constantly grow in love, cry to God for love, to himself, to one another.

50:27 But then we must not detach that love from its handmaidens of knowledge and of discernment. And this is why the means of grace are so important. And why we as your elders exhort you and occasionally admonish you. It's not because our noses are bent if you're not in Sunday school or out Sunday morning or Sunday night.

50:53 I trust we're beyond that. Our hearts are pained because we know you're impoverishing yourself. And to the extent that your knowledge is limited, your moral discernment will be limited. And to the extent that you have mere knowledge but don't put it into practice in the concrete situations, Hebrews 5 says, full-grown people spiritually are not those with the highest IQ, but those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.

51:28 It's when you begin to take the knowledge you have impelled by the measure of love you already possess and put it into practice in the concrete situations, that you cultivate this spiritual aesthetics, that ability to make sound and proper judgments as a husband, as a father, as a single person, as a divorcee, as a widow, as a widower. Regardless of your circumstances, each of us has his own peculiar baggage of situations where we need the wisdom of God brought to bear upon our lives. To bear upon our own sense of right and wrong. Oh behold in this prayer a prescription for your growth in grace. You must seek the face of God for increased love. You must avail yourself of all the means of grace for increased knowledge. And then you must in every circumstance seek to act in a manner that will glorify God in terms of His law.

Application: A Revelation of the Unconverted State

52:36 You must exercise yourself in discerning good and evil. But then finally, behold in this prayer a revelation, a revelation of the state of unconverted men and women. You say, Pastor I can't find a sinner in that prayer anywhere. Well you won't find him directly but now follow my line of reasoning.

53:01 If these Philippians, remember what we discovered about them in Acts, chapter 16, wonderfully turned from darkness to light in those three specimen conversions described. Lydia, one who was a Gentile but had become a proselyte to the Jewish faith whose heart the Lord opened. Then that poor slave girl who was the epitome who exemplified the degrading, debasing influence of paganism. And then that Roman soldier.

53:36 And then, as we beheld something of the intimate relationship between Paul and the Philippians, one of his favorite churches, if not his favorite, all of the evidences of grace. If such a people as these need to have more of the knowledge and discernment of people already here, as it were, in comparison with other Christians, and certainly here, with respect to those that are yet in paganism, do you see the tragic state of an unconverted man or woman? He knows nothing of true love. God in common grace may keep him from being the beast that he would otherwise be, but of love to man and God in man that flows out of the believing reception of God's love to man in Christ, the unconverted man knows nothing of this. He loves a God that he's created in his own imagination, one with whom he can feel comfortable while he loves his sin, governs his own life, and avoids the implications of the cross of Christ. You see, the God of an unconverted man, if he professes to believe in a God, will always be a God

55:04 with whom he can feel comfortable while he still retains the government of his own life in his own eyes, and while he can avoid the implications of the cross, which tell him that he's vile, he's undone, he deserves hell, and there's no way to God but through the bloodletting of the incarnate God, the Lord Jesus Christ. My unconverted friend, listen. Our prayer for you is not that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent. Our prayer is that you may begin to learn to love, something you will never do until you take seriously the love of God to sinful man in Christ, and behold in the sending of the Lord Jesus Christ what true love is. In all your filth and wretchedness, God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You will not have that true knowledge of God that comes only in Christ, for Christ himself is said that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and until your thoughts of God square with the words

56:31 and the deeds of Christ, you have no true thoughts of God. If you have a God that you can smuggle up to bypassing the reality of facing your sin and facing the necessity of a blood atonement, your God is not the God of the Bible, for Christ has exegeted the God of the Bible. He has told us in characters of blood that God is holy and none can approach him who is not cleansed from his sin in the blood of sacrifice. And so we urge you to repent and flee from your pride and find refuge in that only place that sinners can find refuge.

57:13 You see, if people already born of the Spirit and already advanced in godliness need greater measures of love and knowledge and this cultivated ethical sensitivity to do the things that please God, my friend, what of all your notions that you are pleasing him in your present unconverted state? No, no, the Bible says they that are in the flesh cannot please God. And if you've not been born of the Spirit, you cannot please God. And we urge you to flee from your sin and your pride and have dealings with God in his own dear Son.

Conclusion: The Prayer's Fulfillment in the Church

57:56 Well, that brings us around full circle to where we started this morning. What is Paul's prayer for the Philippians? Well, the prayer in its sentence and its central concern is this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more. That's its central passion.

58:18 But it's not detached. It's love that abounds in conjunction with knowledge and discernment. And what is the practical end of all of that? That they may approve the things that are excellent.

58:35 May God grant that we shall see that prayer fulfilled in us more and more. Much upon our hearts in these days is this epical event of our move to the new property, to a new community. And oh, how many decisions we will have to make corporately and individually with reference to our precise responsibilities as a church. And we're not going to find any verse, any chapter, any book, any specific thus saith the Lord that's going to give us all the fine-tuning we need.

59:12 What do we need as a congregation? A baptism of holy love, an increasing measure of the love of God in our hearts to Him and to one another and to lost mankind. Love increasingly furnished with true knowledge and then a highly cultivated moral sensitivity. That we may approve the things that are excellent.

59:38 That we may be kept from the tyranny of the good and know the blessedness of the best. Oh, may God grant that this prayer shall be fulfilled in us. That we will be prayed often in our closets for ourselves and for one another. And that we may be able to see God praised as that prayer is answered.

60:05 Let us pray. Our Father, we do bow solemnly in Your presence, confessing our deep need for an increased measure of love for Yourself, for one another, and for mankind in its lost and dying condition. We pray for a love that will abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all discernment. Oh, teach us of Yourself and of Your ways. And then help us to have a highly cultivated sense of right, a highly cultivated sense of what it is that will please You. Heavenly Father, take the words addressed to those that are yet in their sins.

61:15 Cause them to feel and to own their desperate state. And be pleased to draw them to Your dear Son. We thank You for Your word. We thank You for this prayer that we've been privileged to study this morning.

61:32 Holy Father, may it become more and more the fervent, intelligent prayer of our hearts for one another and for all of Your people. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.