And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so 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.—Philippians 1:9–11

Introduction
The following lyrics were written in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks. Then in 2016, the song was remade with a broad collection of musical artists in response to numerous terror attacks, the crisis in Syria, the deaths of young, unarmed black men, and the ambush killings of five police officers in Dallas. Out of that heartache, these lyrics were born:

People killin' people dyin'
Children hurtin', I hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach?
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father, Father, Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
Cause people got me, got me questioning
Where is the love, where is the love?

Amid violence, terrorism, racial injustice, and just the general brokenness of the world in which we live, some of most famous pop artists lament a distinct lack of love in our world today. But this lacking hits close to home. We don’t love others as we ought. We judge people based on their dress, skin color, smell, occupation, age, gender, hairstyle or height. We know what it is like—all too well—to be sinned against and to sin against others. Even in the church, we face grudges, gossip, and dissension. We don’t need national tragedies to remind us of how broken our world is.

Is the solution then, in the words of the Beatles, “All you need is love?” Is love the answer to all the problems we face? This leads us to our sermon passage today. This text is one that I had committed to memory perhaps five years ago. It is one that I have prayed most for myself, for my wife and children, and for those who have been entrusted into my care. It is what I long to see.

My hope is that we would abound in love that results in greater holiness and ultimately, being ready to stand before Jesus, for the glory and praise of God. My desire is that in studying this passage that we would first, better understand the impact of God’s love at work in our lives, and second, that this passage would become your prayer, priority and pursuit.

So here’s my plan: two questions. First, what is Paul praying for? What is the content of his prayer? Second, what does he want to see? What is the purpose behind his prayer? 

Part 1: What Is Paul Praying For?

The church was likely experiencing selfish behavior (2:1–5), false teaching (3:2) and disunity (4:2–3). Paul, with care and deep affection, tells them of his prayers for them (1:4), and then proceeds to share the content of his prayer in verses 9–11. One scholar says this about verses 9–11, they “are the New Testament’s most profound and precise statement about the influence of agape [love] from the intellectual and moral point of view, in this world or in the next.”

Paul has been giving a praise report, full of thanksgiving. He mentions that he remembers and prays for them with joy regularly (vv. 4–5). He picks that back up and now discloses the content of his prayer. This prayer in verses 9–11 touches on various themes that he’ll develop throughout his letter.

An Abounding Love
Paul prays that the Philippian’s “love may abound more and more.” Now a couple of things to note here. The object of the love isn’t clear, is it a vertical love for God, or a horizontal love for one another? I believe Paul is praying for the Philippians to love one another more and more (horizontal), but rooted in Christ’s sacrificial and selfless love (vertical). Here are a few clues why:

The first clue comes in verses 15–17 of chapter one. Paul contrasts those who preach Christ from envy, rivalry and selfish ambition, with those who preach out of love, knowing that Paul is defending the gospel. It’s like a love for Paul—rather than envy of him—but it’s also a love for and from God, in wanting to see the gospel go forth.

The second other clue comes in the beginning of chapter two, verses 1–2. Paul exhorts “if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love” then they are to be of “one mind, having the same love.” Have the same mind with who? With fellow believers, to be unified in light of God’s love.

What Paul wants to see in the Philippians isn’t some conceptual, ambiguous, ethereal idea of loving God. Maybe I’ll run off into the mountains with my journaling Bible and a book that speaks fabricated words of Jesus tell me how much he loves me. No. To love God is to roll up your sleeves and to lean into the community of faith so that we love one another. It means bringing over a meal to celebrate a new birth, or grieve a sudden death. It means “wasting” hours of time sitting with a parent who has lost a child. It means giving of yourself—not just money, which is often easier than our time. It means befriending someone you wouldn’t normally rub shoulders with.

My wife and I had the privilege of meeting a Christian Pakistani couple. They were Christians in this Muslim dominant country, where Protestant Christians comprise less than 1%. Well the wife had met a woman at work and proceeded to share the gospel. Then suddenly they found that their lives were in danger. They fled to the US and sought asylum. During that time, I saw Christians open their hearts, homes and lives to this family. Christian hospitality is a remarkable thing.

In Matthew 25, when Jesus separates the sheep and the goats, he says to the sheep, when I was hungry, thirsty, naked and in prison, you cared for my needs. The righteous question, when did that ever happen? Jesus replies, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40).

Abounding More and More
This love is to abound, be ongoing, keep growing. That’s the nature of the Christian life. To continually increase in love. Not to grow crotchety, bitter and angry, but to continually abound in love, more and more. I had the privilege of knowing a man named Jim. He married his wife of 63 years when she was 16, suffering from polio. She was paralyzed in the left leg, using walkers, braces and wheelchairs their whole marriage. I met them as his wife was declining very significantly. Her care at this point was so significant she needed a full-time care facility. But this husband, motivated by the love of Christ, would go every day and every night, seven days a week, to feed her breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

At no point in the Christian life can we say, “I’ve loved enough. I think I’m good.” That’s not how love works. When God’s love is poured into the heart of a Christian, it has a purpose (which we’ll look at in just a moment). It is not inconsequential how we treat and think of others within the body of Christ. God desires his church—the people of God—to be characterized by a growing and increasing love for one another. John 13:35 says, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is one of the identifying traits of God’s people.

Love With Knowledge
Paul prays that their love would be characterized by knowledge and discernment. This isn’t the fickle love of teenage text messages and mixtapes (some of you don’t know what mixtapes are!). Instead, this is a love that is accompanied by knowledge and discernment.

Love with knowledge is like driving down a highway, when we begin to get drowsy and our car slowly veers over the yellow line and just outside of the road. Then all of a sudden we’re jolted by the rumbling of the car. Should rumble strips alert distracted or drowsy drivers that they’re headed off the road. Knowledge of God guards us from going off-road in our love.

This abounding love is to be guided by knowledge. Not willy-nilly love that is universalistic, throwing out truth. We are to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). We don’t love heresy—we hate it. That what love looks like for those you protect. We do not love evil or wickedness; failing to love in truth (3 John 1:1). We call out domestic abuse, injustice, killing of the unborn or all other evils as evil. That is what is most loving in that moment.

Knowledge about God alone is not enough. “Knowledge puffs up; love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1). You can know the Greek, Hebrew, memorize all the passages in the world, more and more Bible study, sermons and even seminary—and not cultivate love for your brother or sister, and your faith is dead. You only feed your ego, flex your intellectual prowess, but lack a Christ-like love. Love and knowledge but go hand-in-hand and become intertwined in our lives. One of my most disappointing conversations has been with a seminary student. I asked him what he wanted to do? He replied that he wanted to pursue the academic route so he didn’t have to deal with people and their sin. What good is knowledge of God if we don’t use it to serve the church? This is why I love the vision and mission of Bethlehem College & Seminary. I know the professors are invested in training people to use their knowledge in service to the church.

Just a brief word of application. If you’re not in any smaller community—Sunday school, small group, accountability group—some setting where you are forced to love others, you’re missing out. You were made to expend yourself in love for your fellow brother or sister in the body of Christ.

This knowledge is primarily knowing Christ. Paul himself declares that he “counts everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (3:8). His aim is to “know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (3:10). Love is to be intertwined with the knowledge of Christ to be fruitful and effective.

Love With Discernment
This abounding love is not only to be tempered and guided by knowledge, but it is to likewise be accompanied by discernment, or depth of insight. Only time in the NT this word is used. This discernment is to rightly understand the situation and the times. Discernment is needed if we’re going to love others.

To love well requires discernment. With a friend who has just lost their child, we may just sit and cry with them. We don’t enable those who are hurting themselves with substances. Many well-meaning churches dispense “love” that breeds dependency and entitlement, cultivates laziness, and undermines the local economy. We can do more damage than good in the name of love. Paul prays for their love to be accompanied by depth of insight.

Paul prays that the Philippians love would abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. May you know and experience the love of God in Christ, and out of that, love those around you, guided, tempered, and propelled forward by knowledge of the truth, and able to discern how to best love those around you.

Jesus embodied this best. He had harsh words for Pharisees and tender words for hurting people. Sacrificial Christ-like love must be truth-filled and understanding in order to be truly loving.

What does Paul pray for? What’s the content of his prayer: abounding love, with knowledge and discernment. When love, flowing from the right source, accompanied by truth and understanding, flourishes in the lives of his people.

Part 2: What Does He Want to See?

Now we look at verses 10–11 and Paul’s purpose. This is still part of his prayer, but in this portion of his prayer he reveals what he wants to see, the purpose and result of this abounding love. And there are two main purposes in Paul’s prayer: 1) to approve what is excellent, and 2) to be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, illustrated by verse 11.

To Approve What Is Excellent
The first purpose is for the Philippians to distinguish what is best. That they might love what is truly lovely. That they might praise what is truly praiseworthy. That they would worship what is truly deserving of worship. A growing and increasing love that is intertwined with knowledge and discernment, results in approving what is excellent.

It’s like a child that says, mommy, daddy, I’m really hungry. Can I have this lollipop? And you say, sweetheart, I have prepared a plate of apples and carrot sticks. This will be better for you. Child still longs for the sweets. Your hope, as a parent, is that when this child grows up, he picks a balanced meal of some protein, salad and carbs instead of a bag of Sour Patch Kids and Skittles. You want him to be able to discern what is going to be good for himself.

This is modeled by Paul himself:

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.—Philippians 3:4–8

Paul himself is saying what I once thought was really important, my confidence in the flesh, I now realize isn’t important at all. Not that its less important, but it’s meaningless; rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ. As our love for Christ and for fellow believers increases, we realize how little other things matter. Paul later says in 4:8 “whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, if there is any excellence, anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Dwell on the things that matter, as love and knowledge abound so that you can rightly recognize the things that matter. We need to have our values align with our commitment to Christ. We can use our money to help a brother or sister adopt an orphan into their family, or we can get an upgraded phone. We can use our time to open the Bible with a new believer, or we can go home and binge-watch some show. O that our values would be rightly placed.

Many people have made a shipwreck of their lives because they could not discern what was truly important. Malcolm Forbes, an American business man, publisher of Forbes magazine, lived by a motto: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” He threw lavish parties and lived an extravagant lifestyle. He wrote a book titled More Than I Dreamed: A Lifetime of Collecting, which gives an account of all the stuff he owned. Yet Jesus will declare to all who live by his motto that “life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15). And the price will be steep.

Paul’s desire, and my desire, is for us all to approve what is excellent. To understand that loving others—within the body of Christ—will never be in vain as we manifest the love of God in us. See what matters in this life.

To Be Pure and Blameless
The second purpose we see to be pure and blameless. If approving what is excellent is related to the head, then purity and blamelessness is related to the heart. We are to not have moral perfection—Paul himself says I have not already perfect (3:12)—but rather to have pure motives and conduct, and a blameless life (not causing others to stumble).

We don’t often think of love being connected to holiness. Paul desires that their abounding love, guided and tempered by knowledge of God, flowing out to fellow believers, would in fact allow them to grow in holiness. Loving others forces us to put to death our selfishness. The purpose of love—at work in a community—is to create a people who are pure and blameless. Strive for what is good (love) and in the process, put to death what is bad (kill selfishness).

Paul wants the Philippians to be a community that loves each other with a pure desire. That they wouldn’t bring disrepute on the name of Christ. That there would be no reason to malign the name of Christ because of how the church loves. Recently a friend of mine had invited her neighbor to some event at church. Afterwards, her neighbor remarked to my friend how nice all these people were. She asked her, “Are part of some special sect of Christianity, because I’ve never met people this kind and loving before?” Implication: I’ve met some “Christians” before, they weren’t nice. But you seem different. Or one time I had invited a neighbor to our small group. It was hosted in another member’s home, so they’re family came, we shared in a meal and participated in our Bible study. Afterwards, he said to me, “This is so amazing! In the working world, you need to have known someone for years before you ever get invited into their home. None of your friends had even met us before, but you not only open your home, but we get to share a meal, you guys listen to us share where we are spiritually.” This neighbor experienced a taste of the pure love of Christ at work in a community.

Someday, if you’re trusting in Christ, you stand before the throne of God, with nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to regret. You will glory in the saving and sanctifying work of Jesus on your behalf. That doesn’t happen by accident—but by God working in us to make us pure and blameless, even as “we work out our own faith with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (2:12–13). Don’t grow weary in doing good. Don’t grow weary in loving, don’t grow weary in pursuing holiness—because that is where you are headed in Christ.

Now if you don’t have that confidence to stand before Jesus, you don’t know what it is like to love others selflessly as I’ve described, you can take hold of this good news by receiving the love of God by believing in his Son Jesus. You can repent of your selfishness and turn to Jesus who died on the cross to rescue us from our self-centeredness.

To Bear the Fruit of Righteousness
In verse 11 Paul turns to illustrate this reality for us. He envisions a people that will be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” Now this phrase is difficult to understand. Most commentators interpret it in one of two ways:

1. Righteousness is the source of the fruit (a right legal standing), or
2. Righteousness is the nature of the fruit (a right ethical or moral behavior).

Based on the content and context of Paul’s prayer, he has the righteous fruit in view. He wants them to bear the fruit of righteous behaviors and actions. Paul envisions a people whose lives, actions and behaviors reflect Christ, they are filled with righteous acts and deeds. This is very much inline Galatians 5 where the fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Those attitudes and actions stem from the work of God, but bear fruit in righteous actions, thoughts and behaviors. Keep in mind, that we cannot separate God’s gift of righteousness to us in Christ (imputed righteousness from God) and the fruit of righteousness that is enabled.

For the Glory and Praise of God
Paul ends with a doxology in praise to God. That love would abound with knowledge and discernment—right thinking that motivates right living—so that there would be a people that are pure and blameless for the great day of Christ that would all lead to the glory and praise of God the Father. Paul concludes his prayer with joyful praise of God—even in the midst of prison, spiteful enemies and suffering. Paul reminds us of the sure and guaranteed destination and the victory we have in Christ, and that that vision would motivate his people towards purity, unity, holiness and righteous living that would resound in the praise of God.

My aim is that we would not only understand this passage, but that this prayer would become your prayer. This prayer would be what you pray for your children, grandchildren, small group members, neighbors, parents, and yourself. That it would become your priority—to abound in love. That you would put yourself into situations and relationships where you would have opportunity to abound in love for fellow believers. That that it would become your pursuit. Paul’s prayer for the Philippians does not negate his commands and exhortations to them to be humble, pursue all that is good, and to be unified. Instead, Paul paints a picture that these realities are true and increasing, and we ought to throw more fuel on the fire to bring it to greater fruition, to let this love abound, resulting in holiness, and ringing out for all eternity to the glory and praise of God.