SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Here you go. I got a story to tell you. Back when I lived in um Virginia Beach, I used to go to this barber shop and they would call me Young Preach. Come on. I felt cool. And uh so they knew I worked at a church, and so they would call me that. And uh, this barber shop was literally like that barber shop from the movie. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie with Cedric the the entertainer in it. Um and uh and it was, I mean, people would joke each other. They're always talking about stuff, crazy stuff, stuff that my little ear shouldn't be listening to. Um, but um, but so there is this one particular weekend. I was preaching that Sunday at my church down in Virginia Beach. I was a youth pastor, and so I didn't get to speak every weekend, but when I did, it was always fun. So I was speaking that weekend, and I said, man, I'm gonna be bold. I'm feeling kind of bold. I'm gonna invite the guys to hear me preach on Sunday. So I'm getting a nice cut, get a nice little fade. And um, and I I told I tell my barber uh Terrell, like, hey Terrell, man, you should come to church this weekend. I'm preaching on Sunday. And Terrell, he don't miss a beat. He says, Nah, man, I can't go in there. If I walk in that building, I will burn up. I said, I'm like, nah, man, judgment free zone, dude. Come in, you're gonna love it. And he was like, All right, he's like, All right, what you what you talking about? And I said, Well, we're in a series on relationships right now, and I can see the whole barber shop, the whole mood shifting. And they all look at me, and I'm like, he's like, Yeah, in relationships, what are you talking about? Relationships? I said, Well, my message title is called Love is Forgiveness. And they all looked at me and started busting out laughing and like, love, we don't care about no love. What are you talking about? I don't want to hear that. I felt kind of ashamed, you know. I was like, Yeah, that's stupid. Well, how am I talking about that for? You know, but but they were they were serious, they were there, they didn't want to hear about it. And in their heads, in their heads, yeah, love sounds all good, but does love actually work? Does love actually work? And honestly, that's a lot of people's reactions because most of us want to love, but we don't trust that love actually knows what to do when life gets complicated. And that's why I love what the apostle Paul says, his prayer in Philippians 1. He doesn't pray God help them behave, he prays that their love would grow, that their love would grow wiser, that they will learn how to move, respond, and act in real life. In other words, Paul prays for a love that knows what to do, for a love that knows what to do. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. See, listen, we're not talking about that soft, romanticized, watching too many Twilight movies kind of love. Those are good movies now. Um, no, we're talking about a Jesus style, love your friends, love for that difficult coworker, and a love that you can display every single day in your life, okay? So we're in a series called an invitation to joy. We're as a church family for the for 13 weeks, we're gonna explore this topic of how do we choose joy, how do we live a life of joy, and we're gonna find our hope for this through what the Bible, what people call the Bible's joy letter, which is the book of Philippians. Which is the book of Philippians. And here's what crazy, here's what's crazy about this book. Paul is writing this from a Roman prison. He's writing this from Roman prison. He's not, but he's not focused on his chains, he's focused on his partnership with the church and Philippi. He starts this letter by telling the church telling the church of Philippi, I thank God for you. Why? Because joy isn't found in your circumstances, joy can be found in the community that you hang out with, and that's why small groups are so important. I love them. Okay, and we give this idea of a complete church, not a complete church, complete, not in perfection, but in unity and from people from different walks of life coming together with a shared mission and a shared kingdom vision. Last week I hit on how this complete church celebrates each other, and this complete church carries each other's burdens. And when I originally wrote that message, I was supposed to go all the way to verse 11, but the Lord gave me a word and said, break it up in two. And so now I took verses nine and eleven, and we got this message today. Okay? And God gives us, and Paul gives us in verses nine through 11 is is movements, four movements of how love grows, how love flows in our lives, and one thing that leads to the next. Okay? So from this short prayer, we see four movements of what love actually looks like. All right, so here you go. Let's dive right into it. Movement number one: love is not blind, love is educated. Educated. That sounds so like educated, sounds so formal, so lecture lecture, but isn't love supposed to be spontaneous and carefree and romantic? Well, yeah, but no, yes and no. Let's check this out. Paul says, and this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more. I love this word abound. This word abound is awesome. The Greek word there means abundance, more than enough, overflow. It's above, beyond, and all around. This love is above, beyond, and all around. And we see this same word used in the gospels when Jesus feeds the massive crowds of people and there were overflow. There was abundance, there was above, beyond, and all around of baskets full of bread and fish left over after this miracle. It was above, beyond, and all around. And again, we see Jesus use this word in Luke's gospel as well in Luke 12, verse 15. Then he said to them, Watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Life does not consist, check this out, in an abundance of possessions. Paul says that I pray that your love may abound more and more, overflow above, beyond, and all around. And much like Jesus, Paul does not point this prayer to the abundance of things. He doesn't point this prayer to the abundance of material possessions, because real life, a life worth living, does not consist of that kind of abundance. Instead, instead, but this abundance, this abounding, the abundance, the more and more that Paul says is this it's in knowledge and in depth of insight. Well, what does this mean? What is this? What is Paul getting to? Paul is praying for an overflow. He wants your hearts to be so full of God's love that you just don't have enough for yourself, but you have enough for everyone around you. He has an abundance of it for everyone, that our heads and our hearts will know the depths of God's love for us. Because, here you go, you can have all the possessions in this world. You can have all the possessions of this world, and you can lose all the possessions of this world. But one thing that the world can never take from you is your deep knowing of God's love for you. You can have it all, and here you go. And this is what we see a lot. People get it all and they discover I still don't have enough. And then people can lose it all and they discover that the one thing I needed was a life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ. And so, and so this is what Paul's hitting to. So, in prison, Paul is saying, in prison, God's love for me is deep. When I'm on the mountaintops, when everything is flowing as life should be, God's love for me is deep. And again, Paul, he's right into this church community. He's right into this community, and it's much like he's writing to us now, LBC, and Paul is saying, LVC, God's love for you is deep. It's deep. Paul starts. He says it's not, it's not blind, but it's educated, it's a taste and see the goodness of God, it's a all-around, it's a above, beyond, and all around. It's from head to toe, from heart to heart of knowing God's love. And Paul starts his prayer in a surprising place. He doesn't say, God, give them more passion. He doesn't say, God, give them more activity, God, give them more things to do and more things to add to their Google calendar. No, no, no. He says, God, let their love grow. Let their love grow. But not just emotionally, but let it grow in knowledge and in insight. And Paul assumes something really important here. Okay, he assumes something really important that love can grow up, that love can mature, that love can grow up and not just out. And here's the problem that a lot of us have because when we think about love, we think about love as a feeling. Well, I feel towards this person, and I don't feel towards that person. What I feel towards that person is not what I feel over there. And love is this feeling, and we just go with our feelings and we love because we feel this way or feel that way. And a lot of us think that love is just something you feel, but love, but Paul says love is something you learn. And I'm gonna I'm not gonna lie to you. Learning how to love your enemy will actually transform your heart more than learning how to love a friend. Let me just say it one more time. Learning how to love someone who isn't kind to you, how to pray for someone who curses you, oh well, God will do a transformation, a renovation in your heart with that kind of love. Okay, you go. Most of us don't struggle to care, we just struggle to know what love actually looks like because real life isn't simple. Real life isn't simple. For example, you may want to help someone that you know they are struggling, but you don't know if you're helping or you're or if you're enabling them. You want to be honest, but you don't want to wound someone you love. You want to forgive, but you're not sure if that door is safe to open yet. And that's why Paul doesn't just pray for more love, he prays for wiser love, he prays for wisdom and love, because love without wisdom can hurt people, and wisdom without love can harden people. But when love and wisdom come together, people get healed. Life change happens. When Paul talks about knowledge, he's not just talking about information, and this is so good, this is so good. When Paul's talking about knowledge, he's not saying just grow in knowledge and just know your scriptures. I know every single verse in the Bible in the King James Version. I know it all. My knowledge for God's word is good. I don't know about you guys, but I've met some people who are very knowledgeable about the Bible, but don't know how to love like Jesus. Just because you have knowledge of the scriptures doesn't mean you have a heart like Jesus. And so and so Paul is not saying, oh, just grow and just scripture memorization, which is a good thing to do. He's not saying just do that. He's saying, he's saying, he's talking about intimacy with God. He's talking about intimacy with God, not just knowing about God, but actually knowing God. Knowing God. I was talking to a guy one day and I said, I said, I think the Lord really wants to teach you that he loves you. He's like, Oh yeah, I know he loves me. I say, Well, well, do you? He said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he loves me. I said, I think you think you know that God loves you. But when you actually begin to know how much God loves you, it changes everything. It changes the way you respond to circumstances, it's the way, it changes the way you look at temptations and say, Man, my God has something more for me than that temptation, so I'm gonna walk a different direction. It changes the way we live. And so, so it's not just about knowing God, but actually knowing Him. And that kind of knowing comes from time spent together with God, from a shared life, from shared attention. Again, this isn't about knowing Bible trivia, it's not about religious vocabulary, it's not about winning arguments on the internet, it's about learning the heart of God, learning what God loves, what God grieves, what God is quietly doing in the lives of the people around you, and how he may want to use you to help people take next steps for him. It's when Paul adds, and Paul adds his depth of insight. He's talking about perception, talking about a perception, the slow, patient work of seeing beneath the surface. Check this out. Paul's talking about the difference of responding and not reacting, to be a person who responds and not just reacts, of noticing what's really going on in others and in ourselves. NT Wright says, Paul is praying for a community whose love is trained. I want you to get this, whose love is trained by closeness to God. Like, what a good community that our love, we're being trained by by because our closeness to God, our spiritual habits are putting us in touch with God, and and from our connection with God, we're learning how to love others. Some of you, some of us, we are in situations right now where you genuinely want to love. And if you're honest, you're not even sure what love looks like in that situation. You tried, you prayed, you cared deeply, and still you feel stuck, hurt, or disappointed. Here's the good news in Paul's prayer. You don't have to figure that out on your own. You don't. God is standing over, God's not standing over you with a clipboard, He's walking with you, He's forming you. God is showing you gently His love for other people. God can slowly grow your love, He can gently sharpen your wisdom, and He can teach you how to love well over time. And this is why spiritual formation or what I like to say, spiritual habits are so important. They're so important because when we get up in the presence of God, we can stop reacting to life based on what we think is fit, and we can start responding to life on what God thinks is fit. But that's that happens in our closeness with the Lord, and as and as love begins to grow wiser, something else begins to happen. We begin to see more clearly. Paul says it like this. Paul says that that love, that this love leads to discernment, that quiet ability to recognize what is best when life gets when life gets complicated. Movement number two is love that discerns what is best. Love that is one of the clearest signs. I love this. One of the clearest signs that love is growing wiser is the space between what happens and how we respond. Let me say that one more time. One of the clearest signs in your heart and in my heart, in my life, in your life, one of the clearest signs that love is growing wiser in your life is the space between what happens and how we respond to it. See, you see, we everyone can do good when things are going good. It's not that hard to do that, or when things aren't going good. When your kid yells at you, when when you're when you're in your class and you and all you want to do is look at look at YouTube videos instead of paying attention to the teacher. I mean, you know, it's how you respond to things that real that really matters. That really matters. Discernment shows up in that space. Philippians 1.10 says this, so that you may be able to discern what is best. See, emotionally healthy people don't just react, they respond. They don't just they just don't react, they respond. A reaction, let me get what's the you mean, what's the difference, Jacob? Well, I'm glad you asked me. A reaction is automatic. A response is intentional. It's intentional. Reactions are typically fast, automatic, fueled by anxiety, shaped by the moment, often louder than necessary. Reactions come from a place of fear, where responses come from a place of formation. Responses, a non-anxious presence. They're slower, thoughtful, rooted in identity, aware of the whole system, willing to absorb the tension of what's going on. A response doesn't hurry, it notices and it chooses. And when Paul prays that, praise that we would that we would discern what is best, he's praying that we'll learn how to respond and not just react in life. Discernment is the ability to pause long enough to choose wisely. Choose wisely. Look at the situation that I'm gonna choose, I'm gonna choose what God wants me. I'm gonna choose that. See, joy is found in discernment. You want to know it's not found when we don't discern? Not joy. I don't know about you, but I never walked up to my kids when they're being too loud, and when I yelled at them, at the end of that, I said, Man, I just felt so good. I yelled at my kids. Wow, that's brought me so much joy. I told them to shut up and stop playing so loud. I don't ever think that's how I feel afterwards, you know. But but there, but there's joy in discernment, in discernment in everyday life. Check this out in conflict, reactions, they fire back. Responses, they pause, pray, and retroise. In leadership, come on, this is important. In leadership, reaction, fix the problem immediately, even though sometimes in leadership, the loudest voice that is that doesn't mean that's the thing we necessarily need to go to and try to resolve, you know. But but uh but a response is clarify what actually needs to be fixed, clarify what actually needs fixing in relationships, reactions, they do two things they avoid or they explode. I'm getting away from here, I'm yelling at everybody, but a response, they stay present and they speak truth with life. Reactive life chooses what's easiest, a discerning life chooses what's best. Chooses what's best before you respond this week. I got a challenge for you, okay? I got a challenge for you. Before you respond this week, pause to pray and ask God what is the most loving and wise response for you in this situation? Reactivity asks, how can I make this stop? The sermon asks, who is God forming me in this situation right now, guys? This is serious. This is serious because the way the Bible says the way that you and know Jesus, the way that people will know you and my disciples is by the way you love people. And I'm not gonna lie to you, the thing that when the rubber meets the road is how we respond to people, our reactions to people, our reaction. We can tell people, we can tell our neighbors all the time, oh, you should come to my church, but then they see us yelling at our dog, and they may like, I don't know if I want to go to the dog yelling church, you know. You know, that's that's how they are, you know. You know, it does. Your reactions speak louder, your reactions speak louder than your actions, to be honest. And how you react, and I actually would even say this the real you is in your reactions, not just your actions. I'll drop that one on you guys. Because now, check this out because now this isn't just one decision, it's about the direction of your life, and this is where Paul takes us next. Movement number three, a life pointed towards God's future, a life pointed to towards God's future. So, what does this even look like? Here you go. Paul says this so that you may be able to discern what is best and be check this out pure and blameless for the day of Christ. What does that mean? How can I do that? Like, how can I be pure and blameless? Now, there's a few things happening here, so let's break it break it down. Damn, pure and blameless. We have this love that is growing in wisdom. We are discerning and not just reacting. So when Paul says that you may be pure and blameless, that can sound heavy. It can sound like pressure. It can sound like pressure on us. Some of us hear that and we think, well, I've already failed. I don't got that one. I'm not pure and I'm definitely not blameless. That's not realistic. That's not me. That's for Mother Teresa or someone. She did it. Good job, Mother Teresa. That's not me. See here you go. Paul isn't trying to scare the church. He's not tightening the screws of religiosity on them. He's actually casting hope. He's casting the net of hope for them. Paul is right into a real church with real people, with real issues. And these people are still everyday people who are learning how to follow Jesus, much like our church right now. We're everyday people. You and me, we're everyday people who are learning how to become Jesus followers, learning how to follow Jesus. And so when Paul uses words like pure and blameless, he's not talking about perfection, he's talking about focus and direction. He's talking about focus and direction. When Paul says pure, he means a heart that is focused, a life that is not divided, someone who's decided. I'm following Jesus. I'm following Jesus. Not fall, not flawless, just focused. And I want you to get this. And this is that this idea isn't new to Paul. Paul didn't just get this epiphany and just say it, this isn't new to Paul. He's actually echoing the teachings of Jesus. Jesus says, wide and large is the road, and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many find it. But narrow is the path, narrow is the gate that leads to life, and only a few find it. And when Jesus is saying that, this is so important. When Jesus is saying that, he's not saying narrow-mindedness, he's saying a focused life. He's saying, because the world will offer you this thing and that thing, and try this thing, and try out that thing, and try out that thing, and you can try out all the different tastes in the world. You can try out every single flavor in the world. But Jesus is saying, when you taste and see the goodness of God, when you taste and see the faithfulness of God, when you have a focused life on God, a life that is leading to Him, a life that's in direction to Him, a life that's saying, Whatever the world throws at me, life challenges hit me, circumstances come against me, problems mount up as high as the mountain, but my mind and my heart is focused on Jesus. I'm walking his path, I'm going his direction. Say and throw whatever you want at me. Problems try to overtake me. I'm focused on Jesus. And because, and because, because I'm focused on Jesus, the things that the world is trying to use to knock me out, God is using that thing to form me into the likeness of his son. Come on, come on. I'm saying I'm living a focused life. I'm living a life that is focused on him. And so when Paul talks about being pure and blameless, he's not talking about living scared or living boxed in. He's talking about a focused kingdom living. I'm focused on the kingdom of God. And here's the heart of this movement. God is not forming perfect people, he's forming people whose lives are pointed in the right direction. Because this is what Paul, this is what Paul knows, and this is what Paul is hinting at. I'm gonna talk about this more next week, but this is what Paul is hinting at. He's saying, Because I'm in chains, I'm in prison, I'm locked down, but my life is not my own. My life is pointing. I'm just a signpost pointing to a greater reality. I'm a signpost pointing to the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is at hand, and the kingdom of God is ready to move, and God can take my life circumstances, He can use me as a signpost to point to something that's greater and better and more important than my life. That's what he's getting at. So Paul's question isn't, did you get everything right? Paul's question is, where are you heading? Who are you becoming? Are you pointing towards Jesus? Are you walking with him even imperfectly? Because formation is about trajectory, not perfection. Come on. Oh, I love this. Spiritual habits are not about just getting it all right. Oh, I got 15 minutes in Bible reading, old and new testament, and a song. No, no, no, no. Stop being with Jesus. Jesus, I don't know. Jesus, I know what my prayer is. God, please stop letting my five-year-old wake up in the middle of the night and waking me up. That's my prayer. That's how deep it's getting at the games house right now. I'm trying to sleep. Well, God hears that prayer. And last night, last night, my little boy woke up. I went in his bed, and I laid with him, and I rubbed his back. And I see God more in that moment than me preaching the best sermons I can ever preach. I'm focused on the kingdom living. This is where Paul asks this interesting little line. He kind of just like slides it in a little, kind of like slides this in. May you be pure and blameless for what reason? What reason? What reason is so good? What reason? Why? Why? Be pure and blameless is so you can be a good person. You pure and blameless, so you can just have a lot of like Instagram followers or whatever. Like this, not what, why, why be pure and blameless for the day of Christ? For the day of Christ. And this is huge. This is huge because Paul doesn't just think about heaven someday, he lives with the king, God's kingdom future breaking into this present age right here and right now. And Paul believes that God has already begun his good work in Jesus, that the kingdom of God has already launched. Resurrection power is already at work, but but it is not finished yet. The world isn't fully healed yet, and we're still waiting for new creation. But we are to live pure and blameless because get this we are a signpost to God's future kingdom. A signpost does not exist for itself. That stop sign does not exist for itself, it exists to make you stop. A signpost does not exist for itself, and if you keep living your life thinking that your life is all about you, you will always feel a little bit empty. You always keep striving and striving and striving, and no matter what mountaintop you get to, if your life is always about you, that mountaintop will not be enough. Because a signpost does not exist for itself, it points beyond itself. And when people look at our lives, how we love, how we handle disagreements, how we forgive, how we stay faithful, they're supposed to catch a glimpse of God's future. And that's why life matters right now. Not someday, not just in heaven. Church, church, wonder church is not. Church is not a waiting room for heaven. We are not in a waiting room. We're not just in a because we're not in a waiting room looking at the magazines. Oh, they don't have any good magazines in this waiting room. Music too loud in this waiting room. The kids' church ain't doing what I want them to do. They ain't got a building yet in this waiting room. No, no, no. Church is more like a gas station, but like sheets, not amica. You get filled up to go out and be the people of God in a broken world. If it's a waiting room, I can complain. If it's a gas station, I'm getting out and making a difference. And we're gonna be with Jesus, we're gonna become like Jesus, and we're gonna do the stuff he did. So our teaching matters, our preaching matters, our living matters, our loving matters because we aren't meant to be, we are because we are meant to be living previews of what God is doing one day. Signposts don't have to be perfect, they just have to be pointed the right way. When a life is pointed towards God's future, when love grows wiser, when discernment chooses what's best, when our direction stays focused on Jesus, something begins to show up. And Paul, Paul says this Paul says fruit begins to show up in our last movement, our last movement, fruitful lives that point to Jesus, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through. Where does it come through? Where does it come? How do we get it through Jesus Christ? How do we access it through spending time with Jesus? Not just hearing me talk. I can talk till I'm blue in the face, and I can't change your life, but one moment with the Holy Spirit can change your life forever. And when we spend daily time with Jesus, we connect to Him to the glory and praise of God. Paul doesn't end his prayer with effort, he ends it with fruit. Because fruit is not something you force. I love this. Fruit is something that shows up. It shows up when a life stays rooted in Jesus. Fruit is the evidence, but not the achievement. It's how you know something is healthy. That's how you know something is healthy is happening honoring me. Paul says that this fruit comes through Jesus Christ, not through willpower, not through pressure, not through trying harder, not through eugodisms. Fruit is never just for the tree. Fruit feeds the people. So may the fruit of your life feed the people around you. Paul's praying that we will be fruitful people, that it will bless our families, that it will strengthen our friendship, that it will create healthier relationships, that will bring healing to our communities. Fruit shows up when we respond with patience instead of reacting. When you speak with grace instead of sarcasm, when you stay faithful, when it would be easier to jest. So we say God, Jesus, Holy Spirit. We keep our direction on you. We stay focused on you. Let's have this visual image of you're going down this journey, and there's this a wall of problems all around. As you're protected by the Holy Spirit, and no matter what life problems throw at you, the protection of the Holy Spirit is there. And God says, just one more step. Just keep moving forward. Just keep pressing on.

SPEAKER_02: 32:12

Come, voice. Come, voice.

SPEAKER_01: 32:21

You are in this place right now, boys. More of you. More of your life and you love.

SPEAKER_02: 32:58

Because when you love like Jesus, you taste and see that he's good. You discern what he has for you is better than what the world offers.

SPEAKER_00: 33:08

You're living a life directed towards him.

SPEAKER_02: 33:11

And you see a fruit from your life that comes from a loving relationship with your Father God. Oh Jesus, we say yes to you. Yes to you.

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Not perfect. Just yes. Don't have it all figured out.

SPEAKER_02: 33:31

But yes. Still struggling, but yes to you today. Yes to you. Yes to you. Yes to me. Be left me in this place today. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Give God some praise in here today.