To kick off this new year, we're beginning a new series in this letter, Paul's letter to the Philippians. And we're gonna move through it a bit quicker, that's at least my intention, than we would usually exposit a text. The plan would be, Lord willing, to finish this study by Easter Sunday. And so we're not gonna waste time, I'm gonna jump right in here. In fact, we'll give you a brief background. I always like to get some background in a letter when we start a new book, just so we can better appreciate it. And this letter begins, if you'll notice, in verses one and two, Paul and Timothy bond servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus, who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Even liberal scholars have to admit that this is an authentic Pauline letter. It comes to us from his hand. Paul characteristically identifies himself as a bondservant, him and his co-laborer Timothy. They are bond slaves of Christ Jesus. Paul just wants you to realize at the outset that being an apostle does not mean he is anything above anyone of Christ's disciples. Apostle or not, Jesus is master and Lord of us all. His authority is over us all. We are all his bond slaves if we follow him. Paul addresses his readers then as saints. Did you see that? Saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi. According to the scripture, saints is not a title reserved for an elite class of believers. But if you are in Christ Jesus, you are a saint. So we've got St. Patrick in the sound booth, and we have St. Evan and St. Rebecca leading worship along with St. Ephraim and St. Anne at the piano. My pastor used to always call me Nate Saint. You know, that's appropriate. That's biblical language, and you should greet one another as a saint. It means holy one. Not because we are practically holy in Christ, that we ought to try to be and strive to be, but because positionally, because of the holiness of Jesus imputed to our account, we are holy just as he is holy. That is the glory of the doctrine of sanctification. Paul will actually get into that some later in this letter. But you can be regarded as a saint, too, if you're in Christ. How do you get in Christ? If you belong to him, if you receive him as your Lord and Savior. Now, these saints were living in a city called Philippi. That may not mean anything to you, but if you lived at the time of Paul, this was a well-known city. Philippi was the capital of Macedon, It was named after Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. You can see there I have for you a picture of the ruins of this ancient city that you can visit today. And there would be an artist's rendition of what it might have looked like, more so in the time of the apostle as he's writing this letter. In Acts chapter 16, we can read about how Paul visited Philippi during his second missionary journey. And Luke gives us some detail into Paul's adventures here in this city in Europe. where we see the very first convert in the European continent is here in the city of Philippi. What glory to God there. We know that this letter Paul writes here must have been written sometime after this journey he takes to Philippi and recorded in Acts 16. But as we're going to see, this letter is one of Paul's four prison epistles. It was written from prison. And while Paul suffered many imprisonments, it's generally recognized that he wrote this letter during his first imprisonment in Rome, and that would date this letter to about AD 62. Now, what was Paul's purpose in writing this letter to these people in Philippi? What we can tell is that Paul wrote this letter to inform the Philippians of his current situation in Rome. He's still in prison, but he's aptly supplied and content and he wants them to know that. The Philippians were deeply invested in Paul's ministry. And they were concerned to know his whereabouts that is going to be evident to us in what we read. And so they had more recently sent one of their very faithful, very cherished members of their congregation named Epaphroditus. And they sent him to Paul bearing their gifts and encouragement. But Epaphroditus becomes sick while he is staying with Paul, deathly sick, so that the Philippians are afraid for his life. Well, Paul? sends here, he is sure to send this very letter we're reading by the hand of Epaphroditus himself back to the Philippians because he wants them to rest assured he's okay. I've sent him to you to see once again and know that he is well. And one commentator states that the return of Epaphroditus is probably the primary reason for Paul's writing at this particular time. No other pressing problem or subject stands out as requiring precisely this letter. Now Paul's an apostle, and his life was to plant churches and see the church grow, and so he writes as more than just one friend to another. As a dedicated apostle of Christ, he also intends to challenge his readers. He wants to see them changed by God's grace. For instance, he encourages his readers in this letter to stay united. We've got to stick together. We've got to persevere in Christ by sharing the right mindset, sharing the same frame of mind, sharing the same concerns. And while Paul suffers for Christ in Rome, he insists that this is his cause for rejoicing. Amazing. And he knows that the Philippian Christians are, at this time, we're going to see, also suffering for their faith. And so Paul is encouraging them, stand firm, strive together for the sake of the gospel. I think that's at the heart of why Paul's writing and what he's writing about. But we'll also see Paul is going to be addressing some conflict in the church. These people were not perfect, just like our church is not perfect. We got issues, there's conflict here just like anywhere. And Paul, learning of some of this, is writing to address that. And he's also going to warn them of dangers that he's aware of outside the church. In sum, Paul's writing Philippians then to express his gratitude and goodwill for these people and to inform his readers of his situation. This is a friendship. It's a beautiful friendship Paul has with these people. And given this friendship and the challenges both Paul and his readers are facing, they're both facing difficult situations at this time in their life. Paul then therefore encourages the Philippians, stay together, press on for Christ. All right, so that's kind of the background of this letter. And with that said, why don't we stand and read our text together. Let's read Philippians chapter one, verses one through 11. Paul writes, Paul and Timothy bond servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart. Since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this, I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. That's the reading of God's word. You may be seated. Let's seek the Lord's help. Father, we thank you again for your holy word that you've left for us. Thank you for the fact that this word still has power to change our lives. Father, there are many similarities that we would bear to this congregation in Philippi, and I pray that you would help your word to come alive to us, help us to see the practicality of it, the connections. We pray that your Holy Spirit would take truth that is timeless and apply it to our hearts and our lives in a way that only you can. And Father, as your word is preached, would it go forth with power, we pray, power to change. We pray that you would make us receptable, Lord. Let us not be hearers of the word only, but give us hearts now to receive the truth and respond as you would have us to. Father, strengthen the bond of unity in this congregation. Make us a true family. And we ask all this in Jesus name. Amen. The historian Stephen Ambrose interviewed World War II veterans who served in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne. And after extensive research, reading their diaries and journals and interviewing these men and others, Ambrose wrote a book on the experience of these soldiers. And he called it Band of Brothers. HBO would later come out with a miniseries based on this book and it really popularized it. But the story follows a single company of US paratroopers from their time in Normandy all the way to the war's end. And it recounts many scenes of horror and heroism. And it's a very gripping tale because it's a true story. But the story is more than just moving, because there's a real brotherhood that grows between these men, between these brothers in arms. So that at times, it's almost as if we witnessed something sacred in this bond. You know, Ambrose actually got his title Band of Brothers from Shakespeare's Henry V. Shakespeare tells how Henry V, this young king, gives a rousing speech to his men. Greatly outnumbered, the young king pledges, he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. And again, when you read these words, there's something near sacred in this sort of a unity, in this sort of a partnership. But from the text of Scripture before us that we've just read even, and especially in this entire letter, from this precious letter of Philippians, it is plain that the Apostle Paul, it were no stretch to say, the Apostle Paul had no less of a bond between his brothers and sisters in the faith. In fact, it were no exaggeration to say that Paul's bond with these Christian partners was sacred. They were partners in Christ Jesus. It was a sacred, inseparable bond that was stronger than blood. They were family in Christ. And today's text stresses one thing that we can and should do, we must do, as partners in Christ regarding one another. Now, there's many things we can do, and this letter will encourage us more along those lines, but it begins with a model sort of prayer. You see, one thing we can and must do for our partners in Christ is we must pray for them. We must pray for them. Beloved, we need to pray for our partners in Christ. We just read it a moment ago, but verses 3 through 11 are a prayer. They comprise a prayer that God has modeled for us. And this prayer demonstrates two ways that you should pray for your partners in Christ. Number one. Thank God for your partners in Christ. Thank God for them. Paul says in verse three, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. So verses three through eight, he's dealing with this Thanksgiving. And how are we to thank God for partners in Christ? Well, Paul says, thank God whenever you think of them. Verse 3, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all. You see all that? That's a quite extensive language there. But what better way to begin this new year? than to begin by thanking God for the precious people, His precious people, that He has brought into your life. Now, Paul certainly had a lot of people in his life. He was a very busy man. He had a lot of connections. He had planted a lot of churches. He's always going different places. But you know, it's interesting. He kept a special place in his heart for these people in particular, a special place in his memory for these brothers and sisters, especially these in Philippi, because the feelings were mutual. And you get this idea that Paul never forgot about these people because he knew they loved him. Now, surely he had plenty of others to think about, but he never forgot these people. He says that Paul's not remembering these Christians because he says, oh, they can give me a lot of money. They can send me a lot of offerings or they can advance my interest in Europe. That's not the idea. But Paul remembers them because he really loves them and he found it natural, can I say, to love them because he knew they loved him. They were family. Can I just say this? Some people, in my experience, have been in different churches, they take offense that people don't seem to reach out to them or acknowledge them or be aware of them or appreciate them. But ironically, when you talk with them, I'm not saying this is in every case, but at least in some cases you find they don't reach out to anyone themselves. Brothers and sisters, I want us all to do our best to reach out to even folks that don't, you know, hey, if they don't reciprocate, if they're not interested, if somebody comes in and you don't even know them, you should reach out to them anyway. Of course, we should reach out to those we don't know. At the same time, let me just remind us, he that has friends must show himself friendly. And if you want people to remember you, then you had better be present. You'd better get involved in their lives. And to the extent you do so, you will see others getting involved and appreciating you. I think we see some of that in this letter. Well, Paul's got a meaningful relationship with these Christians insomuch that he thanks God whenever he thinks of them. We need relationships like this. But Paul also thanks God without discrimination. He says that he thanked God in his every prayer for them all. And you know what's interesting? Act 16 shows us some of the diversity within this congregation at Philippi. And it was quite diverse. From just what we're told, there was this wealthy businesswoman named Lydia. There was this poor slave girl. who used to be formerly possessed by a demon. There was a rough jailer who had formerly taken delight in torturing Paul and his companion Silas. These guys are all mixed together in this congregation. And yet Paul thanks God for them all. He loves them all. Now, if we're honest, we typically prefer being around people that are somewhat like ourselves. Maybe that has to do with their age and interests and whatever. But the gospel breaks down walls and barriers and builds bridges and roads. The gospel builds a true community. So that every church ought to be able to say of its members, e pluribus unum. You know, e pluribus unum, that's the traditional motto of our nation. Out of many, one. I mean, that ought to be true of every church, including this one. Many different people, many diverse, you know, interests, diverse interests, diverse backgrounds, whatever. But you know what? The gospel breaks them all down. And I believe Paul would say, that there's something dysfunctional about a member of Christ's church that's not praying for all the body. You don't just pray for your interest group. You don't just reach out to your interest group, your cell group. I mean, we're not trying to build walls within the church and divide people. We are one. A community, and we ought to take interest in everybody who's a part. of the community, and by the way, this is why committing to a church is important, so we can define the boundaries of our covenant community. Do you thank God for everyone in his church? Paul thanked God for everyone in his church. Now, notice also, he says, thank God with joy. End of verse four. Always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all. Now, you can't fake joy. You've either got it or you don't, all right? Now, some of us are more or less expressive. When we sing, I think some of you could be more expressive, okay? I think some of you could make an effort to show more joy, even if you are feeling it. But the truth is that Paul is talking about sincere excitement. He's not talking about merely an expression here. True biblical joy is not something that is simply expressed, but it is something that is felt. And you might be able to fake a lot of people that you've got joy, but you know what is true this morning? You cannot fake yourself. You cannot fool yourself. If you're not filled with joy. And, you know, if Paul were here, I think he might be curious to know of yourself, what is your attitude when it comes to praying for your brothers and sisters? Do you get excited? Do you get filled with joy to pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are you excited to pray for your church, for your partners in Christ? Well, it might be pretty difficult to work up that kind of a joy if you're not invested in those people's lives. If you never get to know them, if you never stick around for fellowship time and eat with them and spend time and visit their homes and come over to their homes, you know what? You're going to find it naturally hard. You're going to find it unnatural that you would be excited and invested in praying for their lives. So getting to know your family is equally important as praying for your family. The two go hand in hand. So this is how you are to thank God for partners in Christ whenever you think of them without discrimination, with joy. But what are we to thank God for regarding them? regarding our partners in Christ. Paul says, I thank God, verse five, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. Do you notice Paul's not excited simply about their political affiliation or their, you know, some kind of common interest they have in just anything or what these people can do for him? He's excited about what they do for Christ, that they are co-participants in the gospel. And just so we're all on the same page with the apostle here, the gospel is the good news, that he sent his son to be the savior of the world, to live the righteous life that we could never live, and die a substitutionary death we all deserve, and to rise victoriously from the dead. This is the truth of the gospel by which we are saved. And the implication is, if you're a Christian, you ought to be a participant in the gospel. This is not optional. Paul is thankful that these Christians are actually doing what Christians ought to do, participating in the very gospel, preaching, sharing, disseminating the very gospel by which they have been saved. Like Paul, we should thank God not merely for what our brothers and sisters do for us, but what they do for Christ. And that will be your heartbeat if you have a heartbeat for Christ. So we've seen how to thank God for these partners and what to thank God regarding them, but Why are we to thank God for partners in Christ? Paul supplies four reasons in verses six through eight. First of all, we can thank God for partners in Christ because we can be confident God will continue his work in them. Paul says, verse six, for I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. What's the beginning of God's good work? Well, if we look at the Bible, we see the beginning of God's good work begins with God breathing life into spiritually dead sinners. That's Ephesians 2. We call that regeneration. That's also a biblical term. God regenerated you. That is the beginning. It wasn't that you suddenly became smarter and wiser and better and softer and all that. No, God gave you a new heart. It's regeneration. In fact, Paul saw this very thing taking place during his second missionary journey in Philippi. In Acts 16, 14, we read that as he was preaching, a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening. And here you go. And the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. Has that ever happened for you? where God opened your heart, you were reading the word, you were hearing the word, somebody was talking to you, sharing with you the gospel, and God opened your heart to respond. The Bible teaches this is the beginning of salvation. It begins with an event. Like Jesus told Nicodemus, you must be born again. So question, how much did you have to do with your physical birth? Zero, all right? You were not involved, you were just there, all right? And the same is true of spiritual regeneration, your spiritual birth. God has to bring you into spiritual life. You can't deliver yourself in any such way. You don't contribute to it at all. It is the gracious work of God. But understand, birth begins a process of life. And this is what Paul is getting at here. He that has begun this good work of regeneration, he says, I know he's going to continue it. Paul's rejoicing because he knows what God begins, he intends to finish. You know, God doesn't lose his children. God doesn't lose his sheep. God doesn't leave off his people like unfinished projects. You could look at the person next to you and you know what they are? I'm not going to insult you, but a piece of work. I'm a piece of work. OK, we're all a piece of work. I think when the angels look at us, they're like, wow, that is a project. But you know what? God is going to get it done. God is not going to leave any one of his people as an unfinished project, because what he starts, he finishes. And Paul has this confidence in so much that he's excited. That is why he's thanking God for these people. He says, I know, man, they're struggling right now. This person's trying that brother, that sister, they're struggling. But I know I know them well enough to know this. God has begun to work. And I know my God well enough to know he's going to see them through. So pray for them. Thank God for them in such a way. Paul supplies a second reason to thank God for a true Christian partners. And that is because it's only right to thank God for them. He says, verse seven, for it is only right for me to feel this way about you all. The word right just indicates that which is just or proper. Paul saying, man, God has begun this work in me. God has saved me. He's so excited about it. He knows it is only proper for him to feel the same excitement toward his brothers and sisters. Now, he supplies a third reason to thank God for true Christian partners because of what Christian partnership means. Look at verse seven. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because here's what Christian partnership means. I have you in my heart. The partnership in Christ we're talking about this morning involves carrying each other around in our hearts. Now, that's not just some fluffy stuff like cracked up from Disney or whatever, OK? You understand what this means? To carry somebody around in your heart means that, yes, as long as we're together in church, it's easy to think about one another. It's easy to maybe enjoy one another's company and thank God for this person and pray for this person and be absorbed with their needs when we're eating with a meal, sharing a meal together with them. Well, what happens when we leave this place? What happens when you go back to your life and you're busy with all your business? Do you carry that person, their needs, their concerns, all that's going on in their life, the struggles and temptations they're up against? Do you carry that with you, around with you? So your lunchtime at work and you think, you know, I wonder how sister so-and-so is doing or this brother is doing. I'm going to pray for them. Are you bearing one another in your hearts? This reminds me, Paul's language here of his affection for the Thessalonians. He tells him in 1 Thessalonians 2.8, you know, you were so dear to us when we came to you. We did not just give to you, deliver to you the gospel only, but even our own lives, even our own souls, because you were dear to us. Here was a man who said, this isn't a Sunday only sort of affection. This isn't like a, I dress up. Hi, how are you doing? Shake your hand. You know, we have a time of greeting and then you're off my mind for the week. Thank you. Back to my life, back to my concerns. No, Paul was saying, I carry you around. You are my life. It's to live for you. We're going to see his life is really about Christ. But this is what that looks like. It's serving Christ's body, his church. Christian partnership means carrying each other around in our hearts, but Paul would also show us that Christian partnership means to bear each other's hardship. Because he says, I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers of grace with me. These believers did not abandon Paul in his hour of greatest need. When Paul was shamed, they didn't say, oh, we want nothing to do with him. But they hung with him. They ministered to him all the more. And this is how you can always recognize true Christian partners. They don't abandon you when the going gets tough, when things get difficult, when you're in great distress and tribulation. They don't abandon Christ, and so they don't abandon his people. They press on. That was the Philippians. Paul says, both in my imprisonment and the defense and confirmation of the gospel. So Christian partnership also means to advance the same cause or the same message in particular, the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you're a partner in Christ, Then you're pursuing the same goal. You're playing the same game. You're kicking the ball the same way. Sometimes you've got that kid who's always like doesn't know which way to go. Where am I trying to get the ball? You have got people like that in the church sometimes. They don't know what's going on. But to function as a partner in Christ is to mean you're playing with the same goal. You've got the same mission. And Paul summarizes this mission as what? Defending the gospel and validating the gospel. You know, these days I see a lot of Christians. I'm sure you see a lot of Christians. that are rallying around the wrong sorts of things. Not all of them are bad, but they're pushing out of the center the main thing. They're rallying around politics. They want you to think the church is about politics. They want you to think the church is supposed to be about some conspiracy theories and figuring out the Antichrist and all that, whatever, and chasing demons and prosperity and tongues and so on. But you know what obsessed Paul? In a word, the gospel, the defense and confirmation of the gospel. And by the way, that's why we we really give our life to studying the gospel in and out. That's why we do apologetics. We want to defend the gospel. That's why we're doing a study on Christology. We want to understand the interworkings of the doctrines of of a grace and on all of it. Now, finally, notice Christian partnership means to share in the same grace, to be partners in Christ means we enjoy a common source. A blessing in power, Paul says. He concludes, verse seven, you are all partakers of grace with me. That's what it means to be a partner in Christ, and that's a reason to thank God for one another. Now, here's a final reason to thank God for true Christian partners because of the inner affection that Christ gives us for them. Verse eight. Paul says, for God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. This is that sacred bond we're talking about. And it's a very bold claim. I mean, Paul's saying, I'm not lying. You could ask God about it. And in all honesty, God is Paul's witness because he's given us the scripture. We see what this man endured. If you think Paul is throwing words here, just read the book of Acts. See what this man endured for the sake of bringing the gospel to these people and building up their faith. Yes, he loved them. Yes, he had an affection that was supernatural. How did he get that? Where did it come from? He says it's the affection of Christ Jesus. That means this love flowed from Christ to Paul. And here's the good news. If you are in Christ, you can thank God for your brothers and sisters in all your remembrance of them, because Christ's affection can fill you to. Christ will give you a love for your partners in Christ. Now, to this point, Paul's prayer has been focused on Thanksgiving. But the second way that you must pray for your brothers and sisters in arms is Ask God to mature them. Ask God to mature your partners in Christ. This is verses 9 through 11. And there's three requests we'll look at briefly here in Paul's prayer. for maturity. They're all logically sequential. They build one on the other. Verse 9, he says, And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. So here's the first request. Pray for abounding love. The word abound is a Pauline favorite. He uses it all the time and he uses it four times in this small letter. if you just wanna get an idea of what it means, I was thinking this week of our fellowship times, or our get-togethers, like the Labor Day barbecue, or even the New Year celebration. I always make these announcements, we make these announcements, don't be afraid to bring lots of food, we can never bring enough, right? And sure enough, this New Year celebration, we had a table abounding with goodies, it was great. There's plenty and to spare. And you know what Paul says? He says, I'm praying that your love would abound still more and more. This is a fine compliment to his believers. He says, your love is already abounding. It's already plentiful and spilling over. But he says, I'm praying it would continue and I'm praying God would increase it. I'm praying it would continue to grow. Did you know in Christ Jesus, this is an exciting detail, your love may abound more this year. Your love may abound more and more in 2025 than in 2024. The mood here of this verb indicates that's possible. It's possible that your love can grow. Boy, that's good news because I, for one, need more love. I'd be the first to tell you, I need more love for my wife. I need more love for my children. I need more love for you. I need more love for nonbelievers. My friend, do you need more love? You could speak with mighty words, you could have mighty gifts, you could have mighty knowledge, you could have mighty faith, but if you do not have love, Paul says, you are nothing, 1 Corinthians 13, one and two. That's not an exaggeration because Jesus taught everything hangs on love. The first and second greatest commandments are to love God with all your being and to love your neighbor as yourself. If you don't love, you're nothing because everything hangs on love. And so abounding still more and more in love ought to be our pursuit for 2025, as well as our prayer for our partners in Christ. Pastor, how can I abound more, still more and more in love? How can I do that? Are you a child of the heavenly father? Then ask. Ask and it shall be given you. We've already seen in verse eight, Paul has in mind the affection of Christ Jesus. So listen now, Jesus is the unlimited source of love. And he's got plenty for you, you need love for someone this morning. Your enemy, someone who sinned against you. Good news, Christ can give you love for that person. Now, like anything powerful, love needs careful direction. Hence, Paul's second request for maturity is pray for spiritual discernment, pray for abounding love, pray for spiritual discernment. He says, verse nine, I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. Paul qualifies this abounding love in a couple of ways. First, our love must abound in real knowledge. And the knowledge here is not a word typically used of just knowing anything. It's a compound Greek word that Paul most often uses to describe our personal relational knowledge of God and his will. So. The Bible teaches that there is a direct relationship between knowing God and loving as we ought. I'll give you one example. There's many of these we can look at. But 1 John 4, 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Then he says, The one who does not love does not know God. You got a love problem towards somebody, you know what your issue is? You don't know God. You might think you do, but you don't, not in a real relational way, not in this sort of a knowledge Paul's talking about. And so Paul's praying that their knowledge, they would have this real knowledge of God that would continue to grow, that's going to help feed into their love and how they treat others. God is the source of love. So if you know God, you will love him and others, too, because you're getting to know the source of love. Paul says pray for love to abound in real knowledge, this knowledge of God and all discernment. There's another qualifier. While knowledge refers to a knowledge of God or Christ, this discernment refers to depth of insight, insight for knowing how to respond or what to do in any given situation. Imagine your Christian friend telling you, somebody says, I'm a Christian, I follow Christ, and they're telling you how their love is abounding more and more for this particular woman that you learn is not their wife. And you realize there's a problem here. Here is someone that says they're abounding in love, but without any spiritual discernment. The commentator G. Walter Hansen explains, without insight, love does not know how to express itself with words and actions that are appropriate to each situation in life. Often love asks the question, I desire to love these people with such great deeds, but what should I say and do to meet their needs? Only by insight does love have the direction to act wisely in ways that give healing, joy, and life to those who are loved. If love is the engine driving your life, it is to be, according to the greatest commandment, according to Jesus Christ, then this spiritual discernment is to be the rudder that directs your love. It gives it direction. Directing directed by the will of God, as G.K. Chesterton understood, love is not blind. Love is bound. And the more it is bound, the less it is blind. The more your love is bound to what is true, the more you will truly love, the more the truer your love will be. The bounding love we need, as well as our partners in Christ, must be qualified by knowledge and this discernment. Now notice the purpose for abounding love being guided by the spiritual discernment. Paul's praying their love would abound in spiritual discernment, verse 10, so that you may approve the things that are excellent. And the verb approve means to test something, to discover its genuineness. So you do this all the time, and we know how this is. Maybe you pay with a $100 bill to somebody, if you're ever carrying that much money around, right? And the cashier takes that, Bill, and what's he doing? He holds it to the light. He holds Ben Franklin to the light. And what is he doing? Like, are you trying to insult me? You think I'm going to give you a counterfeit? Well, he's he's testing it. He's using the light to test it to see. whether he discovers it's genuine or not. And if he discovers its genuineness, if he approves it, he's going to add it to his register. You know, that's exactly what Paul is praying that the Philippians would be able to do. He prays that they would hold things up to the light of God's word, that having approved them by the light of what God has said in his word, they might then add those excellent things to their lives. So how about it? Are you approving? Are you testing things in your life? Or are you just letting anything go in that comes to you, anything that feels good? You know, in this day and age, Christian, your media choices are imperative. They will affect your habits. They will affect the way you think. What are you looking at? What are you listening to? Are you testing what goes into your ear gate and eye gate? Are you testing it by what is excellent? You know, the word excellent, by the way, is not simply a distinction between what is counterfeit and what is genuine. What Paul is saying is you ought to approve what is best versus what is good. There are many things in our life this year that we might be doing that are good, but they are not best. You know what I mean? It's not best. And Paul wants us as Christians in 2025 to say, Lord, help me to approve, help me to test and discover what is best, the best way to spend my time. Now, why? Why? Why must we be so careful to approve what's excellent? Well, look at verse 10. He wants us to prove things that are excellent. Middle of verse 10. In order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ having been filled with the fruit of righteousness. This brings us to Paul's third request here for maturity. Pray for the fruit of righteousness. Brothers and sisters, here's why your love and discernment matters. You need to be ready for Christ's return. The day is coming. The day is coming when all that will matter in your life is the fruit of righteousness. And so we need to be approving what's excellent so that we will be found sincere at his coming. You know, our word sincere comes from two Latin words that mean without wax. without wax. And that's because the ancients discovered that if they placed wax into the cracked portions of sculptures, they looked like new. But of course, over time, that wax would yellow. and it would expose the inauthentic parts in the sculptures. So vendors began to differentiate their pure sculptures from their ones containing wax. And to do this, they would mark their pure sculptures with the words sine sera, sincere, without wax. You know, that's what God wants of his people. That's what he wants of you. He wants you to be pure without hidden motives, serving the Lord, not for selfish gain, not for selfish ambition, like he's going to go on to describe in verse 17. Some people are doing this. They're preaching Christ out of selfish ambition within pure motives. But Paul prays that his readers would be pure. And that in this context is the very same meaning, pure, sincere. And when Christ returns, the goal is also to be found blameless at his coming. And scholars tell us Paul doesn't mean by this word without any sin, because if you haven't noticed, that ship has sailed, okay? Yeah, that one's out of the bag. We've all sinned already, but by blameless, he means without offense, not causing offense to others. We need to be blameless when it comes to hurting others, causing others to stumble. And so we ought to be praying, Lord, keep my motives pure and keep me from causing others to stumble. Well, this is only possible seeing the fruit of righteousness produced in our life is only possible by verse 11. He says, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness. Now, you'll notice that righteousness generally refers to the things that please God. We kind of looked at that in the Sermon on the Mount in great detail. And the image of fruit would suggest to you that that here is something that is springing from coming from a particular source. So the question is, what is the root from which righteousness springs? Where does righteousness come to us from? Well, Paul answers. He says it comes through, which comes through Jesus Christ. That's the fruit of righteousness you need, the kind that comes from Christ. And to what end? So that you can improve yourself over 2025 and impress everybody. Look at me. Look at all I've accomplished. I'm a better person. I'm a better I'm a better man. I'm a better woman. I'm a better husband, a better co-worker, whatever. No. Here's the end game of Christian maturity. Paul says it is to the glory and praise of God. That is the reason you exist. This is the chief end of all being to glorify God. and enjoy him forever. Good news. If you belong to Jesus Christ, then you've got partners in Christ. You've got brothers and sisters in arms. And just as we see Paul doing, we must thank God for these partners and we must pray for God to mature them. Of course, Each one of these requests, the three simple ones we've seen, are those that they first pertain to ourselves. Let's pray these things for ourselves. But we must pray for our partners in Christ. Everywhere we look, we see society structured around partnerships. We see business partnerships. We see marriages and family. We see even recreational partnerships and so on. And while the world may not appreciate it, we who belong to Christ belong to one another. That's going to be the language and at the heart of this epistle. We have entered into a sacred partnership with Christ and with his people. What Shakespeare's Henry V then said of his partners may certainly be said of Christ's church. From this day to the ending of the world, we in it shall be remembered. We few. We happy few, we band of brothers. Let's pray.