This I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense until the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Someone asked a man from another religion, “Do you love your God?” His response was, “I never thought of my relationship with God as loving.” If you ask people of any religion in the world—Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Sikhism—”Do you love your God?” for most of them, a loving relationship with their gods would seem strange. All man-made religions don’t view their relationship with their gods as loving. More than love, their emotions are devotion and fear—fear of angering their god and a desire to keep him satisfied. Their gods don’t selflessly love their people, and in turn, the people don’t love their gods.
A great distinction of Christianity is that its sum and substance are love. God loves us, we love God, and in that context, we love each other, and that love is the highest form of divine love. True godliness and true growth in spiritual life begin with love. Only when our selfish, sinful hearts are filled with God’s love will we cheerfully do good things that please Him.
That is why Paul, after his thanksgiving, offers this central prayer for the Philippians: that they grow in love. This love isn’t isolated; it is balanced by the twin hands of knowledge on one side and discernment on the other. Knowledge and discernment without love can lead to selfish pride, which is useless to anyone. Love without knowledge can lead to uncontrolled emotions. So, we see a beautiful balance. This is a prayer for a heart burning with God’s love and a mind enlightened with God’s knowledge, as both will give us discernment.
The practical result of this prayer is that “you may approve the things that are excellent.” You can’t do it without a heart of growing love and a mind full of knowledge.
The word “approve” is like a quality check. Think of checking the quality of a product or a metal like gold. You test it to verify whether something is good, better, or best. It isn’t just the ability to distinguish between good and bad, as many can do that. It is the ability to distinguish between good and better, and better and best. Discernment in every life situation and decision allows us to know what is truly best. It is the ability to know what is most valuable, what is excellent, and what really matters. Can you understand what a blessing this is? Only when our hearts can imagine, know the value of it, and yearn for it will we join in Paul’s prayer for this.
This is the best prayer for you today. We all want our lives and families to be not just good, or better, but the best. That can only happen as an answer to this prayer. More than anything, we and our children need the discernment that assesses what is best. This is so crucial: being able to focus our time and energy on what really matters—approving what is excellent.
If you ask what separates people who are successful, who have achieved big things in a short time, or what the difference is between people who impacted history and those who waste their lives on unimportant things, it is this capacity to focus their lives on an excellent goal. They are not detracted by things that are less than excellent.
This is not how most of us live. The challenge of life is having the ability to pursue what is most noble and best. Most of us live our lives according to our moods and emotions, not seeking to do what is best at every moment. For many, our lives are a reactive lifestyle. Something happens, we react, and we try to fix it. We lead a reactive kind of life, simply doing whatever our impulse, emotion, or mood tells us, or what time pressure pushes us to do. We don’t control our environment; we allow circumstances to control us. Our minds don’t control our emotions, but our emotions control our minds, so we just react.
Like a bouncing ball that moves due to pressure, even if it goes into a gutter, our lives go wherever life’s pressure pushes us. We bounce around, doing whatever our mood dictates, accomplishing nothing that lasts. That is a life pattern where we don’t stop and think, “What is excellent? Is this the best thing to do in this situation?” We can’t think and control our thought patterns. We can see that in our society; people don’t think.
People live by emotion; they don’t live by thinking. Many studies show that a large percentage of men don’t even use a small percentage of their brains. One study estimates that five percent of people think, fifteen percent think they think, and eighty percent find it very difficult to think—they would rather die than think.
It is very difficult. We see that in churches today; there is no interest in thinking about deep truths. In our church, if I try hard to explain a deep spiritual concept and want you to gird your loins, think with me, and follow along, you eventually just switch off because you cannot think deeply. If it’s a simple sermon with jokes and practical applications, the sermon flies. But if it gets a little deep and makes you stretch your mind, it becomes difficult, and you switch off.
But as redeemed people, if we have to live for God’s glory, if we have to pursue what is excellent, we have to have a mind over our mood. You cannot be a slave to your moods if you’re going to pursue what is excellent. The Bible says that if life is to be transformed, we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Romans 12 says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” You’ve got to get beyond reacting to your mood and your emotion.
Take a look at your life. Are you really approving and pursuing what is excellent? Or is it filled with trivia that matters not at all but saps your thoughts, time, and energy? Do we realize the problems we face today are consequences of yesterday’s decisions? For such people, how important is discernment? If we can discern today, we have the ability to proactively foresee that if I do this, these will be the consequences. So what is the best thing we should do today so that tomorrow we get excellent results? How many times do we wish we could go back and rewind some things and do them differently, simply because we now know better? How good it would be to be able to see before it happens. That is what discernment will give you. That discernment will come when you grow in love and knowledge of God’s Word.
Now, the question is, why should we grow in love, knowledge, and discernment and approve excellent things in life? Paul’s thought is so deep and eternal, not just for a successful life in this world. In the next verses, 10-11, he tells us that this will affect our eternity. If you don’t aim to live like that, at the second coming of Jesus Christ, you may be shown to be a non-believer, deceiving yourself. This prayer isn’t optional, as in you can live like this or live as you like. If you don’t live like this, you may not even go to heaven. That is why I titled this message, “A Prayer for a Life Prepared for the Second Coming.”
Paul tells us why we should grow in LKD (love, knowledge, and discernment). Look at verse 10: “that you may be sincere and without offense.” So that, “in order to be,” you have to grow in love, knowledge, and discernment and approve the excellent things. This is for two purposes: first, that you may be sincere and without offense until the day of Christ, and secondly, that you may be “filled with the fruits of righteousness which are through Jesus.”
Paul says, “I want you to grow in LKD and approve what is excellent so your life will have these things.” Firstly, you live a life of integrity and a life filled with good works. Then Paul says, “Why should I live like this?” Because that is the only life that proves you are saved and can be glorified at the second coming of Jesus, and that is the only life that brings eternal glory to God.
It is a sequential, inseparably connected process: only when you grow in love will you grow in knowledge and discernment, and that leads to a life of integrity, which leads to a life of good works, which leads to the praise and glory of God. We can say that a victorious Christian life should have these six things: love in the heart, knowledge in the head, discernment in the eye, integrity in one leg, good works in the other leg, and all of this running towards the second coming of Jesus Christ and the eternal glory of God. See the depth of this prayer.
So we will understand this in three headings: a life of integrity, a life of good works, and the final goal of such a life.
The first word, “sincere,” talks about being pure and genuine. The original word used means “testing something by sunlight.” In those days, when a potter made a jar or a pot, if the clay material wasn’t pure or properly fired and baked, there might be some cracks in the pot that weren’t easily seen. Sometimes, a potter would hide those cracks by putting some wax or paste to cover the crack or would paint the pot or bowl. When an experienced person went into the marketplace to buy a piece of pottery, they would typically hold the pottery up to the sunlight and rotate it to see if it was without wax or any cracks. The sunlight could shine through a crack and reveal the wax, which would melt the first time something heated was put in it, and the pottery would be discovered as useless.
That’s the word used here. Your life has to be so sincere that when held up to the sunlight, it is shown to be without any flaws that are being falsely covered over by the wax of hypocrisy. That’s the idea of “sincere,” which means “without wax.” A life without any mixture, like gold mixed with even 1% of something else isn’t pure gold. Your life has to be 100% pure.
What does this mean for us? In the church, there are people who would like us to believe that they are a perfect, real, whole clay pot, a whole jar, but they are not. There are cracks and secret sins in their lives, flaws in their character. But they have covered those over with the wax of “churchianity”—a form of godliness, religious ceremonies, and religious activity. They cover it up. But when you put them into the heat of testing, temptation, trials, and life pressure, they’ll melt and reveal the crack, the split. But they can get by for a long time without that discovery if no hostility, persecution, or difficulty comes.
You don’t want to be a life like that. You want to be a life of integrity. You want to be without wax. You want to be sincere, pure, without flaw, real, genuine, and honest, with all parts touching. Such integrity rests on a foundation beneath the surface where no one but you and God can see. It’s living each day with your thoughts and private deeds laid bare before the God who sees all.
Men, you can be sitting in church looking godly but thinking sinful thoughts, allowing your mind to be filled with anger and lust. Or you are in a place where no one sees, out of town, where no one knows you. Is there integrity? Do you have a double life—one for the house, one for church, and some secret life of sin? Do you live in obedience even though no other human being is watching? Do you have integrity by praying to God daily, opening your heart to Him, and allowing His Word to search the thoughts and intents of your heart (Hebrews 4:12)? Do you judge sinful thoughts, confessing them to God and forsaking them as you seek, instead, to set your mind on the things above?
You’re not hiding some sin, some flaw, some blight in your life that is a current flaw in your character but is covered over so that when testing comes, you will melt and be shown to be a cracked pot. You have integrity in what you believe, living faithfully to the truths of God. Integrity is when every part of your life touches every other part of your life, and there’s nothing in your life that’s unrelated to what you believe, what you affirm, or what you say your creed is. So Paul says, “Look, I want you to have a life without hypocrisy.”
“Oh, how can I ever live like that? It’s impossible!” That is why I am praying this, and you also have to pray for this. When God grows your love, knowledge, and discernment, He makes you realize that the best and most blessed life before God is to live in His sight every day. “Oh, be careful little eyes what you see, For the Father up above is looking down in love, so, be careful little eyes what you see… Oh, be careful little ears what you hear… Oh, be careful little tongue what you say… For the Father up above is looking down in love, so, be careful little hands what you do… You want your life to be not good, or better, but excellent—learn to live a life of personal integrity.
Divine, growing love, with knowledge and discernment, leads to personal integrity—a life without a flaw that you’ve masked over. It’s a life with a character that can stand inspection, a life at which people can look with scrutiny and walk away saying, “He’s real.” Not perfect, but real, genuine, not a fake, not a phony, not a duplicate, not “seconds,” but an original, first-class kingdom product. That’s personal integrity.
The first word is “sincere,” and the second word is “without offense,” which means relational integrity. In verse 10, he says you are to be sincere and without offense. “Sincere” means you don’t personally stumble, but the second word means “not causing others to stumble,” and that’s relational integrity—not living a life that causes others to stumble. That’s very important; it’s equally important. You’re to live the kind of life that doesn’t cause other people to stumble, as taught in 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14. He talks about the fact that we’re not to cause someone to stumble or be offended by the way we live. We’re to be very cautious in how we live.
Many times, we may live a life without offense to people on the outside. In the church, our life may look so sincere and without offense, but how is our life in our family and before our close friends? We all struggle in those areas. How soon we get irritated, lose our temper, and do wrong things before our children and family. Relationally, we cause offense to our children and our family. Do we cause offense to the people we influence at home and in the office? We betray that there is a big crack in our soul, something that’s missing. While we can’t blame parents for all the misbehavior of their children, very often, if the pattern is consistent, children learn their behaviors from their parents. We find out later on that what we thought they were in the church was certainly not what they were at home, right?
Somewhere, there was a flaw that was somehow waxed over when we were around. But when the reality was known, there was a very large flaw, and under scrutiny and the pressure of another environment, and away from where they wanted to wear the mask, they were truly revealed to be less than perfect. We have cracks at home and cracks in the workplace. Our Christianity on the job may have so many cracks in it that we’re causing all kinds of people to stumble about the reality of Christianity, being a wrong witness for the gospel. As a child, you might be so covered with wax in church, but at school, your teachers see big cracks. You might even cause those other kids to stumble because of your own sin and your own offense.
That is what Paul is praying: “Look, I want you to have integrity—personal integrity and relational integrity. You don’t stumble, and you don’t cause others to stumble. You don’t have cracks, and you don’t cause others to have cracks.” Now, that means you’ve got to have a no-compromise attitude. We’re talking about a life that is not compromising, a life that is lived according to the Word of God, in the sight of God, in the presence of God, without any deviation, standing true to biblical conviction.
“Oh, Pastor, how can you live such a life? It’s impossible!” Look at what the verse says: “…sincere and without offense until the day of Christ.” It means you have to live such a life in view of, or in the light of, or looking towards, the day of Christ. You can live a life where you are personally sincere and relationally not causing anyone to stumble when you live in the reality of the belief in the second coming of Christ.
He calls it the “day of Christ.” As we studied in verse 6, this phrase refers to the return of Christ for the believer. The Day of the Lord is a terrible day of judgment for unbelievers, and all who act as believers will be exposed on that day; their wax will melt, and all the tares and wheat will be separated. Many will say, “Lord, we did preach in your name and came to church,” and Christ will say, “I never knew you.” It is a day of separation between the sincere and the counterfeit. In view of that day, you have to live sincerely and without offense.
So the first thing Paul wants and prays for is that we grow in love with knowledge and discernment, approving what is excellent, because that leads to a life of integrity that is sincere and without offense.
Then the second thing he wants in our lives is a life filled with the fruits of good works. Notice the next phrase in verse 11: “…being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ.” Integrity without cracks or offense is a negative description. He doesn’t stop there but moves on to a more positive description: they are to be filled with the fruits of righteousness.
The tense of “having been filled” is a continuous tense, implying an increasing and continuing result. This is the fruit that righteousness produces. Because if you’re growing in love, knowledge, and discernment, you’re living a life of integrity, which is a righteous life, and it will produce a certain fruit. “Karpos,” which means “fruit,” also means “good works,” “product,” or “results.”
This is a great doctrine of good works. Without them, we can neither have assurance that we have faith nor salvation. These good works prove our salvation and produce wonderful results in our lives, all fruits of righteousness. Notice that this fruit is not from our own efforts. The verse says fruit “which are by Jesus Christ,” meaning fruit as a result of our abiding union with Christ. This fruit is produced by the inherent divine energy of Jesus Christ flowing through us through all these graces. You don’t produce your own. They come through Jesus Christ working in you. We are like a hose pipe; unless we are connected to Jesus Christ, no good works will come.
In fact, the verb then looks back and sums up the life of the person. The day of Christ is also the day of eternal rewards, and that reward is based on our works. So Paul says, “When you stand at the day of Christ when he comes to reward each of us according to our good works, you will be filled with fruits of righteousness.”
This is the only right way to live as a believer who believes and lives in the light of the coming of Jesus Christ. We who realize what Christ has done for us in the past and what hope of glory we have in His second coming… all that knowledge isn’t just head knowledge. You have to grow in the love of Christ and grow in His knowledge so that you are a discerning person and live a life of integrity. You must grow in the fruits of righteousness so that when you arrive at the coming of Jesus Christ, you are not like the many false believers without any fruit, wasting their lives and time on useless things without seeking excellence. Instead, you are a discerning person who, in this short life, chose the best and is filled with the fruits of righteousness for which you will receive an eternal reward and glory. Your short life of discernment will result in eternal reward and glory.
The Day of Christ is when we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:9-10) to receive the things done in the body, whether they are good or bad. In 1 Corinthians 4, the Lord will assess the hidden things of the heart and reveal our motives and our intent. So until Christ comes to reward us, then every person shall have praise from God. This is the right way to live a life prepared for His coming: growing in LKD, approving what is best, maintaining personal and relational integrity, and producing good works.
So we see Paul’s prayer wanting us to live a life of integrity and good works, and what is the final goal of this life? Why all of this? The great, grand, ultimate, and capstone goal—the passion of the apostle in everything that he prays for the Philippians—is in verse 11: “To the glory and praise of God.”
The two words are “glory” and “praise” of God. The glory of God is basically the outshining of God’s perfections, the manifestation of His excellence and attributes. When a creature beholds the glory of God, the manifestation of His excellence, the only rational response is to praise God, to render to Him a delightful and conscious acknowledgment that we have beheld that glory.
Praise is a response to God’s glory. True praise can only come when we see God’s glory. For example, when people see the work of a great artist or movie director, they may already know he is a great director, but when they see his work—its wonder, beauty, creativity, and skill—they all respond in applause and praise. In the same way, when God’s glory is revealed, the whole universe will praise Him.
You know the wonder of wonders in this verse, the infinite depth of this verse. Do you know what will bring God the greatest eternal praise? Scripture makes it plain: God’s greatest glory is going to be revealed to the universe for all eternity, and the entire universe will praise Him for what? Not for the original creation, but for His work of redemption. God’s greatest miraculous work is to take depraved sinners like you and me, dead in sin and on our way to hell, redeem us, raise us to life with almighty power, bring us into a state of grace, begin a good work in us, and complete it, bringing it to such perfection without any mixture or stumbling and presenting us faultless before His presence with exceeding joy before the whole universe until the day of Jesus Christ. That is what will bring everlasting praise to God from His universe.
God is going to take you and me as saved sinners on that day. In a proud announcement, He will say, “Ladies and gentlemen, behold Murali, Vinod—a wonder work of My grace.” That will be God’s most glorious work of art and will bring the entire moral creation to be awestruck and bow in wonder and praise. When the whole universe sees God’s work in our lives, they will praise Him; we will bring praise to God. It is such truths that take away my sleep and make me have faith. Do you see how Paul takes our ordinary lives and the decisions we make today and connects them to this?
Do you see why this is the greatest prayer? It is so important. My brothers in Philippi, your life as redeemed people is not to be lived as an animal life: born, growing, studying, eating, drinking, marrying, having children, and dying. You should not live the low, vain life inherited from your forefathers. You have been redeemed, not with gold or silver, but with the precious blood of the Lamb for an eternal, glorious purpose. God has a gloriously eternal purpose for that. You should grow in love, knowledge, and discernment and approve what is excellent. Why? So that you live a life of sincerity without cracks, so you don’t stumble or cause anyone else to stumble, in the light of the coming of Jesus, filled with all the fruits of Jesus. Only when you live like that will you bring eternal glory to God. That is my prayer.
Because it is only a life growing in love, growing in knowledge, and discernment, approving what is excellent, a life of integrity, and a life of good works that brings eternal glory and praise to God. You are chosen to bring glory to the eternal perfections of God. What a calling! What a life you should live! Do you see a heavenly calling and an eternal vision?
When the light dawned on me last week, I realized, “Okay, I have to grow in LKDIF,” and then I realized, “Oh, I have to grow in love, knowledge…”
Applications
What a prayer! How cheap and low our prayer life is, with neither emotion nor deep thought. We may wonder whether it is prayer at all. This is true prayer. We all struggle with our prayer life. May we learn how to pray a true prayer.
- All true prayer begins with thanksgiving to God and ends with the goal of glorifying God. All prayer begins with God and ends with God. Verse 3 says, “I thank my God,” and how does it end? “To the glory and the praise of God.” Prayer is not primarily a subjective, inward, spiritual discipline and exercise where we use God for our peace, joy, troubles, needs, and purposes. The primary purpose of prayer is the glory of God. All true prayer begins and ends in God himself. Some of us have so many troubles, and we pray and complain that God doesn’t hear our prayers. James says, “Firstly, you have not because you ask not. When you ask, you ask with wrong motives; you may consume it upon your own lusts and pride.” The right motive for any prayer should be the glory of God. See why I need to grow in love, knowledge, discernment, approve an excellent life, a life of integrity, and be filled with fruits, so I can glorify God.
My friend, it’s not an easy thing, truly, to pray. Our selfishness would cause our prayers to begin with ourselves and to end with ourselves. The prayers of false prophets for 21 days are all selfish. I know that because of remaining sin and flesh, prayer is a very difficult act for us. Some of you don’t even pray regularly unless God sends you trials, and when we do pray, there is no thought—just “give, give me, bless, bless.” But may we learn from Paul. He is in jail with 101 problems, but no matter what our burdens and personal concerns may be, we should quiet our minds and, before we begin to cry, “Gimme, gimme, gimme,” stop and reflect upon all the things He has already given and lift up our hearts in thanksgiving and pray for everything in view of God’s glory. This is the pattern the Lord taught in the Lord’s Prayer. The primary concerns of the first petitions are, “Our Father, who art in the heavens, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” For that to happen, “give me daily bread, forgive my sins, lead me not into temptation,” not so that I should be happy, but so that “your name is hallowed… For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
- If this is prayer with the glory of God as the motive, do you realize that only a truly saved person can pray? The prayers of unbelievers and the Pharisees are an abomination to God. Scripture speaks of prayers that are multiplied but are of no account with God. Why? Because their prayers and lives are all centered on self and for self, on self-ambition. You cannot have any motive to glorify God. You see, by nature, the glory and praise of God are the farthest things from your concern. If you’re an unsaved man or woman, boy or girl, you’re living just to gratify your own temporal ambitions and your own temporal and earthly and sensual lusts and passions. That’s what you live for. You don’t live to the glory and praise of God. A heart that is still bowed down with the pressure of sin’s dominion knows nothing of rising to the heights of such concerns as the glory and the praise of God. My friend, you can’t pray until you’re a true Christian, and you can’t be a true Christian until you repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ. The only prayer God may hear from an unbeliever is a prayer for salvation.
Not only is there a lesson on prayer, but this prayer also teaches practical principles on how to live the Christian life. So many false prophets twist and teach theories concerning the Christian life, how it is to be lived, and what principles are to regulate that life. Well, when we come to a passage like this, we taste something of the pure water of the truth of God.
First lesson: The Christian life is a life that ought to be characterized by continuous growth and increase. There is no place for complacency or satisfaction. Convinced that God has begun a good work and that He will perfect it until the day of Christ, the Apostle is deeply concerned that Christians at Philippi may “abound more and more” in knowledge and discernment. Keep growing. They shouldn’t just have one or two fruits but live a life where they are filled with the fruits of righteousness. You have seen a tree so full of fruit that it may bend. If you are sitting here saying you are a believer, elect, and going to heaven, are you content with your present growth in grace and your fruitfulness and usefulness? Oh, you say no? How much discontent you are… Well, let me ask you something. Do your prayers prove it? You see, there’s the acid test. If you are discontent, it will show itself in earnest prayer.
When was the last time you pleaded with God for more love, more faith, more zeal for His glory, more compassion for sinners, more hatred of sin, more wisdom to be the husband, the father, the mother, the son, or the daughter you ought to be? When was the last time you consciously, earnestly, with every fiber of your soul, laid hold of God and said, “Oh, God, give me more and more”? Are your prayers some kind of a drowsy, droning on of the inner complacency of your soul? Are your prayers only for worldly needs?
Applications
When our Lord gave the Great Commission, He wanted every believer to live like Paul. Every believer should want to be like Paul. From this passage, what lessons do we learn to be like him? Examine your heart; I can suggest four things you have to change to become like Paul.
First, an Unshakable Life Passion for the Progress of the Gospel
Can I tell you the reason you don’t do anything for the gospel and your days are flying by to reach the Barzillai stage? It’s because you lack this passion. It’s not your situation, job, or responsibilities. Those are excuses to cover up a lack of passion. Do you ever think about your life? Why haven’t you done anything for the gospel last week?
Somehow, you may say to yourself, “I can’t go preach the gospel. I can’t be a missionary. I cannot even speak about the gospel to others. I’m stuck with my hectic job.” “I am stuck in family responsibilities with kids.” This is an interesting parallel, isn’t it? When you compare it to Paul’s situation, if anyone can give an excuse for not doing gospel work, it is him and his situation. Who would listen to a prisoner in Rome, stuck and chained to a big military man 24/7? Yet he accomplished so much while we are making excuses.
You know the reason you and I don’t have the joy of suffering for the gospel is because it is not our life’s passion. Paul was a living example of a man who saves his life by losing it for the gospel. Most of us are living examples of trying to save our lives, and we are losing it with no joy. What is the passion of your life? What do you live for? What motivates you? As you look at your own life, is your joy set only on earthly things? Isn’t that the reason your joy rises and falls with your pleasures? Does it depend on your circumstances, possessions, reputation, comfort, and fulfilled ambitions? You’re going to ebb and flow with the times of life, the changing times, the shifting sands.
But if your joy is tied to the progress of the gospel, and your life is committed to that end, then your joy is ever undiminished. The Lord’s will is that you should live for the progress of the gospel, because the chief end of man’s creation is the glory of God. The glory of God is most fully displayed in the gospel. It is through the gospel that God’s eternal purposes are fulfilled in people’s lives. So living for the progress of the gospel is living for the glory of God. Fix your heart on the progress of the gospel, and it doesn’t matter what happens to you as long as you can see God’s kingdom being extended.
You will never know this joy until the gospel becomes the primary passion of your life. Not just superficially praying and wishing for people to hear the gospel and for the gospel to spread, but that prayer, if it comes from a genuine burden, will use means. Prayer without using any means is mocking God. We pray every Sunday for the gospel to spread, yet we don’t do a single thing to spread the gospel throughout the week, running after other passions in life.
If you live for that, if that’s your passion, as you pour your life, time, energy, and money into the extension of the gospel, you’re going to find your joy there, too. It will be undiminished no matter what happens to you. That’s how Paul had joy in his ministry in the midst of very, very difficult circumstances.
Then, wherever you are, like Paul, are you chained to a computer table with your team members’ desks? Are you chained to a place of work? Are you chained to a classroom? Are you chained to a car as you move around from place to place, in a call center with people, or stuck in the house with kids? If passion is burning, you will find opportunities to further the gospel. Whatever it is, live in your place, live in your chained place in such a way as to make the gospel believable. Maybe it’s a hard place; is it harder than Paul’s situation?
NOTE: Do you view your present negative, restricted circumstances as an opportunity to advance the gospel and encourage others? Your prison may be a boring job or an illness that limits you. Perhaps you feel trapped being the mother of small children. You may be chained to a group of obnoxious colleagues, a boss, or business associates. Your chains may be that you are out of work. These are not circumstances that cannot provide an opportunity for the spread of the gospel. Our seemingly insignificant negative circumstances are part of God’s master plan to reach the world for Christ.
So, if you want to be like Paul, the first thing is an unshakable life passion for the progress of the gospel.
Second, an Unshakable Belief in the Providence of God.
Do you really believe in God’s providence? Paul’s joy comes from his unshakable high view of the providence of God. That’s the belief that God is in charge of everything that happens to us—the good and the bad, the positive and the negative—and that in some way unknown to us, He orders all things, including our own free choices, so that what happens to us is for our good and His glory. As he looks back, he sees clearly that everything happened for a divinely ordained purpose: the false rumors in the temple, the riot, the beating, the arrest, the four years of confinement, the public misunderstanding, the ruining of his reputation, the slanders, the shipwreck, the snakebite, and his house arrest in Rome. All of it is now clearly seen as part of God’s plan to bring him to Rome at precisely this moment in precisely this situation so that he would be where God wanted him to be.
Here is a principle of God’s government in this world: if we believe that Christ has all authority over heaven and earth and told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel, then all things that happen to us as Christians are designed by God to further His cause of the gospel in this world. Everything God allows to touch us is working to conform us to the image of Christ, making us Christ-like so we can be more effective in this world for the advancement of the gospel.
NOTE: Perhaps your plans for your life have been shattered by negative circumstances. Maybe you now know tears rather than laughter. Possibly you are experiencing personal pain, disappointment, or misunderstanding. Perhaps you are feeling insecurity where there was once vigorous confidence. Do you have the faith to believe this is happening for the advancement of the gospel through your life? Somehow, everything people do to us, all that happens in life, animosities, pain, lies, injustices, mental turmoil, the threat of death, and the suppression of truth, can be used by God for the advancement of the gospel. And though we often cannot see any rhyme or reason why things are happening, let us have unshakable faith in His wise providence.
So, if you want to be like Paul, the second thing is, no matter what is happening, to have an unshakable belief in the providence of God.
Third, May Paul’s Prayer Be Your Daily Prayer
I know with much struggle I taught you the depth of his prayer last week; how many of you practice it daily? I know some of you heard and went off and never progressed. Daily, go before God and say, “Lord, I need to grow in love for You. You are the only God who deserves all my love for all You did. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one; love with all my heart, soul, and strength. May I grow in love. Today, I need to grow in knowing You more than yesterday, so I may have discernment in all this. I should live a life of sincerity personally and cause no offense.”
See the power of one such life. A sincere life that causes no offense, what it can do even in jail. The whole town was impacted by that life. They looked at the man in awe, with respect, as some strange angel. What an advertisement for the gospel! We want advertisements for our church and our truths, but what can be a greater advertisement than one sincere and blameless life? Not only outside, but I myself am challenged. How did the brothers become bold in preaching the gospel? I have been telling you to boldly preach the gospel. He did not go to the church at Rome and exhort them and whip up their conscience. It was by the effectiveness of his own life and one example that the entire church was stirred to the depths without a verbal sermon from the Apostle.
It was the eloquence of an exemplary life which preached with such power that most of the brethren there at Rome were stirred up to a level of boldness and aggressiveness in the work of the gospel that hitherto they had not known. And oh, how desperately we need to remind ourselves again and again: just one picture is worth a thousand words. One exemplary life is worth 1,000 sermons.
Could it be that for some of us, the reason why the great things preached from this pulpit to your children, taught by you at family worship, have so little effect on our children is because our lives do not exemplify the power of the truth?
Someone said, “I have seen no cynicism like the cynicism of young people who sit under a sound biblical ministry, who are the children of parents who profess to believe and love the truth, but who don’t exemplify the power of the truth proclaimed in that ministry. I say there is no greater cynicism than I’ve ever seen. There can be ignorance where people don’t sit under a sound ministry, but not the kind of cynicism that’s seen when children, boys and girls and teenagers, sit in a place like this, right next to mums and dads who seem to support and believe and embrace a biblical ministry, but who do not exemplify in the nitty-gritty of life, day by day, the power of the truth preached in that ministry.”
The children gradually assume it’s all a bunch of lies, religious meaningless talk, empty wind, hot air religious talk. I ask you, dear parent, you want the truth to work on your children… could it be that the reason why the word does not have more of a grip upon the conscience of your own children is because that word is not being buttressed by an exemplary life? Including, it is one thing to preach here, but another thing to live according to my preaching: an exemplary life at any cost.
So, if you want to be like Paul, the first thing is an unshakable life passion for the progress of the gospel. The second is, no matter what is happening, an unshakable belief in the providence of God. And the third is, may Paul’s prayer be your daily prayer to live a sincere and blameless life, because that is what fills our life with the fruits of righteousness and results in the progress of the gospel and brings eternal glory and praise to God.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 