Philippians 1: Afectionate Lessons About the Gospel

We walk through Philippians 1:3-11 and hear Paul’s joy-filled confidence that God finishes what He starts in us. We challenge our own definition of love and ask whether our love is rooted in Scripture-shaped knowledge and real discernment. 
• Paul’s gratitude and affection for the Philippian church 
• Partnership in the gospel as a sign of grace at work 
• Confidence that God completes His good work 
• The day of Jesus Christ as future hope 
• Right now but not yet as a framework for sanctification 
• Agape love contrasted with culture’s definition of love 
• Knowledge and discernment as safeguards for love 
• Practical discernment in relationships and daily choices 
• Two dangers for the church: love without truth and truth without love 
• God’s inner work that also becomes outward witness 

Share and Connect

Transcript

Philippians Recap And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Last week we started our journey in the book of Philippians. And we know, because we talked about it last week, that Paul wrote this letter to a church that he helped help plant in the city of Philippi, which is in Macedonia, which is above Greece. Last week we also saw that he wrote this letter for very specific reasons that he introduces from the very beginning of this book. In the very structure of this letter, this personal letter, he lays out humility, service, unity, encouragement. He lays it all out for us to see in the first three verses of this book. We're going to look at the next couple of verses this week. And while Paul is addressing in the book of Philippians a very specific people in a very specific place, in a very specific time, that's the context. Such is the power of God's word and the wisdom of God's word, is that even 2,000 years later, talking to a group of people that is radically different than the people in the city of Philippi, his word still matters for us. Everything he says to this group of people can be applied to our life in one way or another. If it didn't, then what would be the point of doing any of this, looking at scripture in any any week? It applies to our life. But in this scripture, we see very clearly that Paul deeply cares for the people of this church and in this city. And what we are about to read shows that and also continues to lay some foundation for the rest of the book. We're still really in the intro of the book of Philippians. Philippians chapter one. We'll start with verse three. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you always in every prayer of mine, for you all making my prayer with joy. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I'm sure

Reading Philippians 1:3-11

SPEAKER_00 1:57

of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It's right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. And for God is my witness how I yearn for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve of what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, the glory and praise of God. This section of Scripture is just good vibes. And if you're my age and you had to look up what that meant, it just means it's really happy. It's really happy. He's really excited about this. It's joyful, which joyful and rejoicing occurs 14 times in the rest of this letter. This positivity here. There is this clear affection and yearning and remembering and this encouragement that is connected to Paul and this group of people. And all of that is important and it's interesting, but that's not necessarily where we're going to land today. But we see Paul in this letter, he's talking about this partnership, this work in the gospel. We see him point out the connection of him with this group that extends decades now. Right? This is one of the earlier churches that he plants in. And so there's been decades of connection and relationship and of work together. And Paul talks about the maturation and the completion of this work, this process of serving the gospel that happens together. And Paul expresses this desire and this confidence that this process of maturation, this discipleship process, this work that Jesus began in their lives, in their church, in their community, Jesus will finish that work in their lives. He goes on to express a desire that it that love and knowledge and discernment would sort of grow and bubble up in their lives that will help them practically live out what it means to be people who follow Jesus. And of course, all of this was produced by Jesus and his work and for his glory and for his honor. What we're going to do, what I'm going to do is we're going to work through a few verses here and just see where it takes us. He says, and I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. This is part of Paul's joy. This is part of his rejoicing. This is part of his encouragement for the church.

Joyful Tone And Gospel Partnership

SPEAKER_00 4:40

God did a work in their lives, and Paul proclaims he is sure God will finish what he started. He will. He does that for us. What is this good work that Paul is referring to? A good work. Well, in here, we probably know that it's salvation. It's being born again, it's being saved, it's being made new. It's all of these terms that we come up with that signifies a transformation in a person's life. All of these pagans at the church of Philippines, they're pagans, right? They worship false idols and gods. They have all these systems that are not of God for building their lives. These Gentiles are doing the wrong thing. They're living in darkness, and Jesus has shown up. Jesus has been declared, the gospel has been declared, and their lives are transformed because of it. And while he started at salvation, he's going to finish all the way through till he gets back here, right? What's the day of Jesus Christ? Well, one day Jesus is coming again. One day every tear will be wiped away. Every wrong will be righted. Every single do you ever think about that? Heaven is not just a like a happy place, right? You I think about every uncomfortable thing, every painful thing, every suffering thing in my life and others' lives. All the tears, all the pain, all the fear, all the anxiety, all of it, every single piece of it rolled away, wiped away. Just like that. God is coming back. Now, do I know when? No. Right? How much does Jesus talk about Himself coming back? A couple of verses in each gospel. And so I think appropriately speaking, that's probably how much time we should spend thinking about it. Keep an eye on it. Look at some stuff, but ultimately Jesus calls us to something deeper than just waiting for him to get back here. We got a job to do. Paul is confident, confident that God will keep working and moving. One of the proofs of this, uh this work that God

God Completes His Good Work

SPEAKER_00 6:45

is doing in the church at Philippi is the practical work of the Philippians to help Paul. They support him. They're working with him. Later in the letter, we'll see that they send monetary support to him. We see that they're working in their own community to do things. And that's one of the signs that God is continuing to finish what he started.

unknown 7:09

Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Whenever you have an encounter with God's grace, you can't help but share that, hopefully. You can't help but serve. It just bubbles up out of our lives when God gets in touch with us. God is faithful to carry us through this life, helping us be who he needs us to be. Paul says, it's my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. This is a glimpse of a healthy desire on the part of an elder or a teacher or a pastor towards those that they care about or that they are responsible for. Paul cares for them, and this is a responsible outflowing of that care. He wants them to love more and more. He wants them that that love to be connected to knowledge and discernment. That's a process. Everybody say right now, but not yet. Right now, but but not yet. I keep saying that you know there's a this process that he will finish what he started. Right now, if you are saved, you've got the promises of God in your life. You are secure. Your life is changed, but clearly there's still things that we all need to work on. That's the right now, and then the stuff that's God's still working in your life, that's the not yet. Right? God showed up and Jesus showed up and he changed everything, and everything is now changed, and the world is changed, and the way that sin interacts with the world is now changed, but it's also not yet because he's not finished. So when Paul encourages his people or his this church here to, I guess, this belief that God's not done yet, that's sort of what we're talking about. It's this right now, which is great, but also this not yet, which is also great and exciting to look forward to. Right now, but not yet. It's my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and discernment. Again, it that that's uh that's a call to something, it's a call to discipleship, proper discipleship that Paul wants for this group. But it's not just any kind of love. When I say love, we all have images of what love is. It might be a song, it might be a movie, it might be a Hallmark card, it might be uh a fake holiday called Valentine's Day that we've been suckered into buying things for people. Um can I get an amen from all the men in the house? Or are all you too afraid? Your wife's not even here. You can be honest, you're good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Right now. Anyways, but we we got these ideas, these concepts of love in our life. And so you might read this and think, well, God wants that love to expand more and more. But that's not 100% what it could be. We you might have it right, you might not. Uh, Paul tells us what kind of love, agape love. That's the word that's used here, and he uses it in 1 Corinthians as well. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast, it's not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable, irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Paul will go on to point out that without this love, the church, we as Christians, anything that we do is worthless if it does not have love. The works of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit that are practiced in the church mean absolutely nothing. The missions work that we do without love means nothing. Any community event that we do without love means nothing. What we're doing right now without love means nothing. We gotta have love. But again, not just any kind of love, not our own definition of love, definitely not the world's

Right Now But Not Yet

SPEAKER_00 10:55

definition of love, but a love as described by the life of Jesus and how God uh reveals himself in Scripture. This love ought to grow with your discipleship. It's a love that's enabled by Jesus in the first place, right? Jesus died for us because of love, and in that loving process, we now have access, the keys, to the type of love that we desperately need. Love grows with your discipleship. It does. And we have this love right from the start of our relationship, but it grows, it grows. Again, this is another image, another glimpse of this right now, but not yet. We have love right now, that's from salvation, but it's growing, it's increasing, at least it can. That's the not yet. And then looking at the scripture, I think out of this love, we got to ask a particular question is this love that we have, is it connected to knowledge and discernment? This is incredibly important to the day and age that we live in. In the Western world, this conversation that we're about to have is incredibly important for us because as a church, we're supposed to have this love that grows more and more and more, but the world certainly has its own idea of what love is. Do we have a connection to knowledge and discernment with our love? Because don't we get love wrong sometimes? I love Tara, but I get it wrong sometimes. I love my children, but I get it wrong sometimes. I love you guys, but I will get it wrong sometimes. I have gotten love wrong in my life before. And above and beyond that, we live in a world and a society that screams, we have the love. Not we, the church, but we, the world has the love. They're the loving ones, they're the ones who accept everything, they're the ones who make everybody feel at home. And the church is just a bunch of hateful, mean people because our love doesn't do those things. No. Because here's the thing: love can be manipulated, it can be misappropriated if it's not connected to the right thing. So love needs to grow, but it needs to grow with knowledge and discernment. They act as safeguards to this beautiful thing that we've been gifted. This knowledge, this word knowledge that Paul used here is best illustrated if we look at another small example of how he uses this word in another scripture. In Romans chapter 10, verses 1 through 2, he says, Brothers, my heart's

What Agape Love Really Means

SPEAKER_00 13:25

desire and prayer to God for them, them being Jewish people, is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, a passion for God, but not according to knowledge. Paul is saying in this scripture that Jewish people have a clear passionate for God, but not in the right way. They lack the proper understanding, they lack the proper knowledge and information, and so their passion is disconnected because it is uh misattached to the wrong thing. The knowledge is not there. In a similar way, people can learn to love love. Love becomes their God. God's not love to them, but love is God to them, and there is a distinct difference. They make love the end all be all. But without God, without the example of God, without the example of Jesus and His life and his resurrection, how can they truly value and understand love if they don't have that knowledge of Jesus, if they don't have the knowledge of how God describes love in himself in Holy Scripture, how are they going to really be connected to the right thing? It's like to me, I was thinking about this, and it's like if somebody saw an airplane flying through the air and they thought, yeah, flying is really cool. Flying is really good. How useful and utilitarian flying is for the world. And they like it a lot, they value it a lot, and instead of getting on an airplane or learning how to fly a plane, they climb on top of their house and they jump off and flap their wings. They have a passion for flying, but they don't have the right knowledge backing it up, and so it's a complete waste of time and in fact dangerous for their life. It's the same with love, the exact same with love. The knowledge we are referring to is grounded in God's word. It's grounded in who God says He is in Scripture, it's grounded in a historical orthodox way of understanding it after 2,000 years of really responsible, intelligent people thinking about this. And because many people lack this knowledge or ignore this knowledge, they so easily let this love get sidetracked and messed up in their life. People are zealous for love, but it's not in connection to proper knowledge or discernment. So it's not surprising that

Love Needs Knowledge And Discernment

SPEAKER_00 16:00

many in the world, and we know this, I'm not talking to people who are unaware of what it's like out there, but we live in a society where so many people claim to be zealous for love, but they are completely, completely in the wrong, and it ends up being destructive. Paul prays for this church to get the love thing right. Get it right, which is the same calling and challenge that we have today. Let love grow more and more with knowledge and discernment. It's not just by itself. So that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. These safeguards, this knowledge and this certain discernment help us navigate and have a healthy and righteous Christian lifestyle. That discernment thing, right? That's so that we can look at certain things in our life and discern based on love and knowledge whether they are edifying for us or not. We can look at a phone and we can use a bit of discernment with that phone and know that there are good things and bad things about that phone. We can look at a piece of artwork and we can say, This artwork is glorifying and edifying to God, and this artwork is not. And it boils down to even your personal relationships that you have with people. This relationship is edifying, it's good. This relationship is not. It's leading me down a path I shouldn't go on. It it these safeguards help you with, I guess, this expression of love that we're supposed to have to use them the right way. We get it wrong a lot these days. A lot of love, but without the knowledge and the discernment. And we see the results of this as churches decide that they want to do whatever they want to do. And in the name of love, they ignore scripture to do things their own way, and essentially they're returning back to the way paganism was before Christianity. But here's the flip side of this coin if you're not careful, and this was my challenge growing up. Sometimes we have all the knowledge and discernment in the world, but we don't have love, and so we become hateful and mean people. And we break in, we break and we hinder any relationships that we might have that we need to have because we're called to have relationships with the world to draw them into the church. And so whether we're getting love wrong or we don't have love, it's a challenge for the church. It's a challenge for us. Neither situation is fruitful for the church. There's a real love grounded in knowledge and discernment. There's a real love grounded in knowledge and discernment. It's powerful. We need it more and more. Because what I see in the world is that the world is absolutely hungry for love. They're hungry for it. And yet they keep going to places that don't actually give them what they need and what they want. They get a taste of something that seems like love. They're not really getting the real thing. They're getting Diet Coke, not real Coke. I know some people prefer Diet Coke. I don't care. We are called as a church to love Coke. Amen. We're in Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia. Love Coke. Amen. We're called as a church to love. We are. We are. It's a godly desire to want love in your life, to have that developed in your life. But it absolutely has to be uh connected to knowledge and discernment. And when you do that, things start changing. As I read through the scripture, and we're we're seconds away, minutes away from being finished. I just think it's apparent over and over again. Whether it's Jesus, whether it's Peter, whether it's Paul, whether it's John, we see that there is this parallel mission of God in our life. Things are happening in parallel all the

Practicing Discernment Without Losing Love

SPEAKER_00 20:10

time. We are saved, we're rescued, God's grace basically just turns our life upside down, does all this great stuff in our life, and it's good for us, but it also brings glory to him. And so while he is transforming our lives for our betterment, he's also making his glory known. And as his glory is made known in our lives, this personal process, it's being revealed to others as a sign of what he can do for his glory for others. Christianity is this both internal and external thing all at once. The church is external and internal all at once. It is for your edification. You are growing, hopefully, you're growing spiritually right now by being a part of a church, by listening to God's word. And it's going to make your life better in practical ways, but at the same time, it is also making your life better for when you get out there so that people will see the glory of God in your life. I just think it's amazing that at the same time that your life is being transformed, it's a personal blessing for you. That personal blessing is so profound that it draws attention to God and draws people, people's eyes to God out there. Not many blessings do that in a practical sense, but God's blessings do in your life. And already in the book of Philippians, we're seeing this revealed this love, this appreciation, this unity, this gospel that transforms lives. And I just want that for us. I want you to have confidence in that. I want you to know that as you grow more and more, God is faithful to finish what he started. I don't know all of your stories, but I just know this. Sometimes we can get lost in a doldrum. Well, we we we sort of get in our relationship with God and we're sort of just

Inner Change And Outer Witness

SPEAKER_00 22:05

floating along. And it where am I what am I supposed to do? Where am I going? Am I still I'm I'm stuck in the same spot I was five years ago? I'm just here to tell you that God is faithful to finish what he started. He will grow love in you more and more. He will give you and connect you with knowledge and discernment. He is faithful to do it, so don't give up. Don't give up. Don't be a uh a cautionary tale of people who stay basically the same way they always have been in the church. You can grow. You can grow. Let's pray. Let's pray for this pizza to get somehow settled and fixed. I don't have high hopes here. Yeah, I'm getting I have I have a look. I'm getting I'm getting a look from Tara right now. So I don't have high hopes, but God, you're in control. It's fixed? Okay. God is great. Amen? Miracle. Let me here. 230. 230. All right. Let's pray and just thank God for his word. And uh please forgive me for my scattered brainness in this moment and uh just the fun that we have in sermons. Heavenly Father, we love you. We thank you once again. And God, I pray, as Paul prayed, that love abound more and more in our lives. Soften our hearts, soften our minds to the plight of the people around us, even the people who seem to stand against us. I pray that we would have a sympathy and an understanding of their position. But Lord, I pray that that love. I pray that that love is never misappropriated. And I pray that that love is connected to a rich knowledge of perfect love, your perfect love.

Final Encouragement And Prayer

SPEAKER_00 23:56

And that your perfect love is not about acceptance, your perfect love is not about making people feel good, but your perfect love is about radical transformation and becoming a new person. And so that while we hurt for those who hurt and we hurt for those who don't seem to fit in and they're struggling in this existence, and they want love and they're trying their best to make their way through it, I pray that we love them in such a way that brings transformation and not just make them feel good for a moment, Lord. Let our love be connected to knowledge and discernment, which helps safeguard us and helps us have the right actions and helps us discern right and wrong in this world that's constantly changing. And I pray that your Holy Spirit would do this in our lives, even right now. Be with us, Lord, and help us and submit this in our hearts and in our minds. In Jesus' name we pray, and we all said together, Amen.