(audience chattering) - Hello, hello, okay. All right, apologies for if you guys didn't get to finish talking about the passage. Let's all take a moment to go before the Lord and ask him to bless our review of the passage. Heavenly Father, we again want to express our gratitude. We thank you so much, God, and we really do pray that as we continue to discuss and study your word, help us, Father God, to grow.

Lord, I pray that we would, yes, grow in knowledge and truth, but I pray that we would not be those who are ever growing in simple propositions and yet not maturing. I pray, God, that the maturity of our thought, maturity of our even feelings, and of course, Lord God, the maturity of our obedience to you would be growing.

And God, that as you are guiding us along in being sanctified, being conformed to the image of your son, I ask, God, that you continue to bless our path. We thank you in Christ's name, amen. Okay, so what I like to do is just begin by reading our passage.

And so starting from verse three, I'll begin, and it says, "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 are all partakers of grace with me. "For God is my witness, how I long for you, "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, "so 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, amen." Now, I wanna make mention again that because the purpose of me going over the passage is to really highlight for you what are the essential portions, or I guess the major themes of the passage.

We're not gonna be able to cover every segment, but those observations are things for you to discuss, so I hope you guys had a good time of discussing with each other. What I'd like to do first is take a moment to really feel the thrust of this beginning paragraph.

And typically, as Apostle Paul is addressing the church, he describes and expresses his heart. And so in this very first section, I put a line in the paragraph and started to outline, or I guess break down, the passage into two segments. The first segment being verses three through eight.

And what I'm gonna do here is every aspect of what Apostle Paul feels in his heart, in every aspect of his attitude towards his church, I wanna make sure to highlight because clearly, he is expressing very vulnerably and openly how he feels about this church. So as I read this, I'm gonna highlight as I go.

Apostle Paul says this. "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you." So clearly, he is having this, you know, I guess you can call it a nostalgic moment. But he is, again, either chained to a guard or he is in prison. And as he's thinking about them, he is incredibly grateful, right?

He is very thankful. And then he says, "Always offering prayer with joy." So he is prayerful and joyful. "In my every prayer for you all, "in view of your participation in the gospel "from the first day until now." And then he says, "For I am confident." So Apostle Paul in his attitude has a great confidence of this very thing.

What is that? "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." So what he expresses is this feeling he has and what that is is I have you in my heart.

"Since both in my imprisonment, "in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, "you are all partakers of grace with me. "For God is my witness how I long for you." So there he expresses his heart again, "With the affection of Jesus Christ." All right, now as we think about this then, what I highlighted is Apostle Paul's heart towards the church.

And that's the first observation I wanna basically highlight to you. I'm gonna take a moment to write that down. Okay, so as we think about this though, I wanna highlight several aspects of what I notice here. Just so that we can really learn and glean from Apostle Paul's mentality, so that we would also follow in the same mentality.

As I observe this, there is definitely this gratitude, there is a joy, there is a confidence, but what he highlights, right, is his feeling towards them. And he says, "I have you in my heart. "I long for you all with the affection of Christ." So there are a couple things I wanna highlight here, okay, are these.

I wanna highlight those things. Now, we could actually spend a lot of time talking about all of those, whether it be the feelings of gratitude or the devotion in prayer, how, you know, we think about are there people in your life where you care for them so much that in terms of everyday prayer, like those are the individuals that come to mind, right?

The people you love the most, most often it's probably your family members, maybe family members who aren't saved or whatnot, that you pray for often, that you pray for whenever you get a chance, when you think about someone to lift up to the Lord, that's who you go to, right?

Now, as I think about that then, here's what I would like to say. Couple things. One, Apostle Paul has these interesting terminology where he says, "I long for you," right? He says, "I long for you." Now, I kind of mentioned to our group that's not normal dude talk, right?

When a guy is writing to people, he doesn't say it like, "I long for you," okay? Now, it is exactly as that sounds. In other passages, for example, within the same book, chapter four, verse one, Apostle Paul says, "My brethren, "whom I long to see my joy and crown," right?

He is literally talking about a strong longing to see somebody. He misses them, he wants to be in their presence. That's a really emphatic way of talking about how he feels about this church. What's more, he gets really descriptive. I would like to say he gets super emotional. Why am I saying that?

Because there's an interesting terminology he uses. Not only does he say, "I long for you," he says, "with the affection of Jesus Christ," okay? As you guys know, the Greek language is much more descriptive and also expansive than the English language. It has thousands more vocabularies, so there's different ways of articulating the same thought.

What's very interesting is this idea of affection literally means the inside organs, the bowels, the kind of feels that moves the insides, right? If you were to think about a moment where there was such emotion, you literally had a physical response, whether you were breathing hard, whether you got hot and you started sweating, whether you felt like you were gonna vomit, right, and your stomach was about to turn, typically those are the feelings of like when you get shocked and scared and when you get moved because of something you saw.

Here, Paul's talking about his affection, and then the term is, here, I actually have a excerpt, okay? It's an interesting term. It's splachnon, okay? It means the intestines bows, right? It is this visceral reaction to something. Now, as we think about that, I want us to take a moment to think about the way Apostle Paul is writing to his church.

Man, when he says, when I think of you, I'm like joyful, I'm thankful. I want you to see how much he's heightening that. And then we ask ourselves immediately this question, oh man, are there people in our lives whom we want to bless and minister to where we have that kind of range of emotion, right?

Now, let's take it another step, okay? If you take a moment to think about what the way Apostle Paul is describing this, he says not only does he feel this way, but he longs for them with the affection of Jesus Christ, of Christ Jesus. Now, if you're gonna say something like that, it's like I love you, now is he saying the same way Jesus does, right?

That would be crazy because Jesus sacrificed himself. The depth of his love where he goes from the heights of heaven to the bottoms, the earth below, the creation that he made. How can anyone say I love you the same way, right? That would be pretty intense. Now, I don't have the opportunity to ask Apostle Paul, Paul, what did you mean, right?

But very clearly, with the empowering love that he knows of Christ, with the kind of sacrificial, with the kind of brotherly, the kind of brotherly where he's willing to lay down his life for these individuals, could Apostle Paul say that? Absolutely. Think again about where he is. Apostle Paul loves these people with an incredible, incredible love, and then he heightens that even more, how?

If you notice, he says, "For God is my witness," right? Have you guys ever done that? Nobody was questioning him. Nobody was sitting there like, "Paul, do you love us?" At least the Philippians weren't, maybe other people, but at least the Philippians weren't. The Philippians actually received this word from the beginning.

The Philippians actually were really, really receptive to Apostle Paul, but he says to even heighten the degree and just expression of his love, "God is my witness," right? My conscience is absolutely clear. I absolutely love you. Now, not only then does he get emotional, not only does he long for them, in such descriptive ways, Apostle Paul's heart is deeply, deeply in care, concern, and love for these people.

And as a quick way of just kind of challenging us, man, I was thinking, like, man, outside of my family, outside of my wife, my children, people who are blood relatives, do I love people in this fashion? Where I would devote that kind of extensive time, that kind of investment in prayer, where I wouldn't feel crazy awkward saying, "I miss you, man," you know?

Like, "I wanna see you, it's been too long," you know? Like, am I in that kind of an expressive love to an individual that I could say all of that and be like, "God is my witness, I love you, "and look at the degree to which I wanna sacrifice for you." And the crazy thing about it is, yeah, this isn't like his literal children, these are full-grown adults.

These aren't people that lived 30 years with him, these are people he spent a season with. These are people he spent a time with as he moved along, right? But remember, the power of the kind of love that we receive in the gospel, the kind of divine love we receive through Jesus Christ, it is so powerful, it is not confined just because we spent tons of quality time together.

It is not confined just because we have all kinds of similarities and same ethnic group or same demographics and same all of this, it is superseding all of that, right? Can two believers come together and have incredible love for each other, even in a short amount of time? Absolutely.

Can two believers come together and express this kind of love, even amongst full-grown men who never ever communicated this way? Absolutely, right? And I just wanna challenge every single one of you. Perhaps you come from backgrounds that don't practice love like this, you know? You never say stuff like, "I miss you, "I really wanna see you," right?

Maybe you just never grew up that way, maybe you just never heard that in your home. But we're being challenged by Apostle Paul's love because this is the kind of love God desires every single one of us to show the people around us, especially those within our church, okay?

So that's the first observation that I saw. Man, what an incredible kind of heart Apostle Paul has for this church. Okay, oh man, that went kinda long on that one. All right, observation number two. Okay, observation number two. We have to ask this question, okay, Apostle Paul describes his heart, but he also describes what he sees within the church, okay?

So my main question really is, when Apostle Paul says, "I am so thankful "when I think of you," what is he thinking about? "I'm so joyous when I pray for you," what was he thinking about? And he actually says, right? So I'm gonna read it again, it's really helpful practice for us to read the passage over and over again, to soak in it, right?

And he says this, "I thank my God "in all my remembrance of you," okay? So he's just thinking about the church, and he says, "Always offering up prayers with joy "in my prayer for you all." He's thinking about the whole church, and then more specifically he says this, which is the giveaway, "In view of your participation," okay?

So here is a highlight. Now what's more, it says, "In the gospel "from the first day until now, "I am confident in this very thing," what is Apostle Paul thinking about? That there is a good work, that there is a process that Jesus Christ is working in you, and he will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

What's more, "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 my defense "and the confirmation of the gospel, "you are all partakers of grace with me." So we ask this question, man, what is causing Apostle Paul to be super thankful?

What is causing Apostle Paul to be super joyful, okay? And this is my observation too, okay? Whoops, I put a dot there, and then didn't really write it down, just for quick review. He said, "I long for you," which is one of the thing. The other thing is his affection, and then the last thing is of Christ, okay?

But the observation too is what is he looking at, and very clearly and specifically he says it is the participation, right? It is being partakers of the same grace. This term is koinonia. This term is fellowship. When he's thinking about them, yes, he is absolutely confident that Jesus is working in them.

Yes, he's absolutely confident that these individuals are in that faithful, believing process of being sanctified by Christ, but what he emphasizes is that there is a fellowship here. What he emphasizes is that there is a mutual participation in the gospel ministry, and what's crazy about that is he calls it grace, right?

His perspective on what they're experiencing together is a grace toward all of them. Now, as we think about this then, I want us to think about this idea. Is there joy in church fellowship? Is there joy between the relationships that you have amongst fellow sisters and fellow brothers in Christ?

Now, as we think about that question, we have to understand that this idea of a mutual feeling, like we're being blessed, is currently being experienced by Apostle Paul and the church. Why? Because they're participating in the gospel together, right? So as we think about this fellowship, we have to kind of think about our current state of fellowship and ask a really important question.

Is the kind of fellowship that we're practicing watered down? Is the kind of fellowship that we're practicing a little distracted? Because if we have a distracted or watered down fellowship, that means that the degree and the range of joy, gratitude, and the mutual experience is also going to be watered down.

What am I saying? Apostle Paul's gratitude and thankfulness and joy is up here right now, right? He's like, "Oh, I'm so thankful to God. "I am praying with joy all the time." Part of that is why. It's because of the kind of fellowship he's having with these brothers and sisters in Christ.

Think about that. That means if within the church we're having watered down community time, where we're just here in the same place, but there isn't actually a investment in the gospel together, there isn't actually a mutual experience of fellowship, of working towards exalting Christ, then honestly speaking, the range of emotions is also going to be here, right?

So as we think about this observation number two, we think about the kind of participation and fellowship has, and in all honesty, we want that. We wanna have a kind of fellowship that produces an incredible amount of encouragement, that produces incredible amount of thankfulness, and so we have to ask the question, are we then participating together in the gospel?

Okay? All right. Moving to the third observation. Oops. Moving to observation number three. What I'd like to observe here is to move to the next portion of the passage and say, okay, we've really seen Apostle Paul's heart and what he's viewing. Then let's move to the next section where he is talking about his prayer.

So today, I called it his heart and his prayer, the two parts of this paragraph. In verse nine through 11, he says this, "In this I pray, that your love may abound "still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, "so 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 the righteousness "which comes through Jesus Christ, "to the glory and praise of God." Okay?

There's a lot there, but we simply just have to ask the question, right? What's his prayer? I know sometimes it's just like a way too obvious of a question, what's there? But really, we should soak that in, right? What is he praying for? And what's really clear and evident is just simply this fact, number one, that your love may abound still more in real knowledge and discernment, okay?

And then it continues to move in this kind of chain-link fashion that they may be able to prove, that they may be sincere and blameless, and that this would all be to the glory and praise of God. So I'm gonna highlight a couple of those things, that they may be able to prove, they may be sincere and blameless, or filled with the Spirit, and then ultimately to the praise and glory of God, okay?

So we're seeing this progressive result of them growing more and more, okay? But let's take a moment to think about this. I hope you guys got a chance to ask this question. Hmm, what kind of love is this, right? Apostle Paul is praying that all these individuals would be growing even more than where they're at now.

I want you to take a moment to think about that. These individuals already love to a degree, but remember 2 Corinthians chapter eight, they are willing to sacrifice their finances even beyond what seems natural, even beyond what seems manageable, even beyond what seems safe, right? These are individuals who have participated by actually sending somebody to make sure that they're caring for Apostle Paul.

What's more, while Apostle Paul was ministering in Philippi, it's safe to assume that individuals from this church now, the people who are hearing the gospel, they weren't afraid to associate with him. They weren't thinking, oh shoot, look, he's getting arrested. Hey, hey, just stay quiet, right? Some of them were calling to say, hey, wait a minute, we're with that guy, you know?

I'm kind of reading between the lines here, but I'm assuming they weren't just stiff-arming him and pushing him off and pushing him off to a degree and just watching from a safe distance when Apostle Paul says, you are partakers with me, right? Okay, what I'm saying is these are individuals who already had a certain level of commitment and devotion that showed their love for Apostle Paul and ultimately for God.

Now, Apostle Paul says, I want you to grow even more, right? I want you to grow even more. So we think about this, and I kind of want to highlight this idea. Apostle Paul said, I am really, really confident and convinced of this. Clearly, Christ is working in you, and I am confident that he's going to bring it to completion.

Apostle Paul all the more desires that even if they're a healthy church, even if they're showing fruits of the Spirit, that they need to dig deeper and grow even more. He is encouraging a church that has good qualities already, but he's saying, remember, our standard is not better than others.

Our standard is not simply better than I was before. Our standard is the full measure of Christ. And if you guys remember in the book of Colossians, when Apostle Paul talks about his vision for that church, he said, I devote myself to teaching, admonishing, every single individual, constantly teaching about Christ to present you complete in Christ, that the image of Christ will be perfected in you.

And I want to make a quick challenge to you. When you hear the Bible tell you, still, more and more, I want you to abound even more, how do you receive that? For those of you who are already working hard, serving hard, loving, how do you receive that? Do you think like, yeah, man, you need to go and do this, you know?

Are you immediately thinking about the people who need to hear it, or are you receiving it as a convicting passage for you? That even though you are already laboring, that God desires for you to grow even more. And what's very interesting about this, he says, I want you to grow in love, and the term there is agape.

I want you to grow in that kind of relational, covenantal, unconditional love, which is the distinguishing mark of a true believer. Remember that if a Christian, if we were to think, what do we have to offer to the world? What do we have to give? If you're sitting there thinking, I don't know, I've got no skills, we're talking about serving, and we're talking about loving and stuff, I'm just, I don't know what I've got to give.

Remember that we, by nature of our salvation, and the love that we receive from God, have something so divinely powerful, it radically, radically changes who we are, right? And scripture says this is the defining thing about you. How do you know that you have passed from death to life?

Because you have love for the brethren. How does the world know that you are a Christian and a disciple of Christ? Because you love the brethren. This is the defining mark of a believer. So, I want to ask, for you, when you think about your love for the people around you, have you fallen into the generational standard of what's normal?

What do I mean by that? I believe we live, I'm sorry, I believe that we live in a very safe distance environment. Right? We don't want people to call us anymore, why? Because I gotta have time to think about what I want to say, right? I don't want to be too invasive.

We kind of live in a safe distance environment where we don't let people that close, right? The kind of love that we practice, we want to practice where we have control over how vulnerable we are. The kind of love that this generation practice is a very digital, like I want to be able to say, I want to be able to see what you're doing, da da da da da, but at a safe distance.

You guys know what I'm talking about. Have you settled for that? And the love for the people around you, are you just so afraid of awkwardness? Are you so afraid of getting into certain things that you don't want to get into? Or are you going to practice the love that you see the disciples practicing, the apostles practicing, and our Lord Jesus Christ?

So, with that said, I do want to highlight one more thing, which is this. Apostle Paul describes this love in a context that's kind of unique, right? He not only says, I want you to abound in this love still more and more, he says, he says, in all, sorry, in real knowledge and all discernment, right?

Did you guys talk a little bit about what does that mean? How does love, this agape love, knowledge and truth, and discernment all kind of mesh together? How does it plan to each other, right? Which is a good question to ask. I want us to think about this a little bit.

What would happen if your love didn't have real knowledge? If it didn't have as its agenda, truth? If it didn't have as its agenda, reality? What if your love didn't have discernment? What if it didn't have discretion of this is righteous, this is bad, this is healthy, this is not?

What would happen, right? Well, if you take a moment to think about it, love absolutely operates in the context of truth, and it needs, it needs to operate in the righteousness of God, why? Because love without those things would simply be uncontrolled emotion. It would be impulse and reactions to the things that you see.

And in a most perverted way, love that does not have as its context the righteousness of God, the truth of the Lord, or the reality and discernment of what is pleasing to God, would be adultery, right? An individual who is given to loving, wanting, desiring, affection without truth is going to be the individual who says, "But I love her, but I love him," even besides all the truth and standards of God, right?

An individual who has that kind of love can be perverted in all sorts of different fashion. What's more, on the flip side, it could lead to absolute domination. Love's supposed to be action. Love's supposed to be, "I do what's in your best interest." So you grab the back of their neck and you say, "Do it!" Right?

And some people think that's love. If love does not have reality, discretion, truth of God, and it's not pursuing the righteousness of the Lord, it's gonna fall to those two extremes, absolute perversion and some kind of permissiveness that leads to all kinds of unrighteousness, or it's going to lead to domination.

This is good for you, right? So what Apostle Paul says is, "Your love needs to abound "in real knowledge and all discernment." This world will say, "You know what? "Love is blind." False, right? Well, but we know what they're saying. Love is not blind. As a matter of fact, love sees everything.

Love, and I want to just take a moment to describe this. Love cares enough to perceive. Love cares enough to perceive where you're wrong. Love cares enough to perceive where you're in need. Love cares enough to perceive where you're hurt. Love should be the most informed, the most understanding, the most perceptive of all things, right?

And ladies, you can speak to this, right? Ladies, if you guys have ever been into a relationship and your guy is very, you know, doesn't have that kind of sense, doesn't have that kind of intuition, and they can't tell whether you're upset, they can't tell whether you're happy, they can't tell whether you're mad.

They're like, "Everything's cool, right?" And you're just like, "Do you even care?" No, you guys have never felt that way? Of course you have, to some degree. Why? Because yes, true love will know. Doesn't have the same kind of ring to it when the world says, "Love is blind." Okay, that sounds great, but as a matter of fact, no, love is most perceptive.

And this past weekend, if you guys were here for Pastor Peter's sermon, oh my gosh, it just like killed me. I was just sitting there crying because, think about that. Think about the love of God. The love of God that sympathizes with you. Just take a moment to think about that.

The love of God is not blind to you. The love of God is like, "You know what? "I just don't care." No, he sees all of it. He sees the filth, he sees the anger, the sin, he sees all of it. And then he loves you and then cares to that meticulous, detailed fashion to address every single need you have through the amazing power of the love of Christ.

And then what's more, the love of God does not just simply leave it there, but the love of God is sanctifying. The love of God that doesn't say, "I feel you, man," and then all of a sudden you feel bitter. No, the love of God walks into your life and it washes you, it sanctifies you.

And so I wanna read to you a passage, one of the passages that hit me from the last session of Colossians, was he said this, Colossians chapter 1, 21 through 22. Colossians 1, 21 through 22. And although you were formerly alienated, you were hostile in your mind, you were engaged in evil deeds, yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death.

It doesn't stop there. He says, "In order to present you before him "wholly blameless and beyond reproach." Oh my goodness. The amazing love of God. Just simply for him to listen to us would be grace upon grace. But for him to step down and walk our place, for him to step down and sympathize and empathize with us, that's grace upon grace upon grace.

But then to desire to make us wholly blameless and beyond reproach. We can't even describe that. The intention and love of God. And so, as we follow in the likeness of Christ and abound in that kind of love, we're going to be all the more godly, righteous, conformed to the image of his son.

And that's going to be glorifying to him, amen? All right, so today we highlighted, A, we have Apostle Paul's heart and expressed love and concern, thankfulness and joy over this church that he just sees this like precious, precious baby of his, right? And then we see his prayer. I am praying for you, not that none of this stuff happens to you.

I'm not praying that you would run away and not be jailed like me. I'm not asking for all your circumstances to work out. I'm not asking for a hedge of protection around you, right? I am praying for your faith, for your love to abound, for you to glorify God by loving like he does, amen?

All right, let's take a moment to pray and then we can jump into our application time. Lord God, we want to thank you. Father, we know that your love goes so much beyond just this period of time and it goes so much beyond our period of time. Father God, your love has extended throughout the generations of your people and through the generations of your people, you have sent your messengers, you have sent the revelation of who you are.

And now, Father God, for us, we're privileged because Lord, we can see this in your son, in your truth, that God, your love is truly poured out upon us. I pray, Father God, that we would respond to you with great thankfulness and joy likewise and God, that we would all the more be so eager, Lord, to grow as you want us to.

That Father God, we would not ask you to settle for whatever we're already doing. We would not ask you to settle for what's normal to our society, but God, that we would be fully, fully thankful. Lord, that you would cause us to grow and that you would complete your process, Lord.

We want to thank you again, it's in Christ. In you pray, amen. Thanks for watching!