Leverage Point #3 - Dynamic Love: Philippians 1:9-11 - Philippians: Joy Leverage

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

You see, when we talk about authenticity, we mean at the road.

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We've been noticing it ever since we met you.

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We're all broken.

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At the road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We're in the book of Philippians, which I consider the manifesto of joy.

Book of Philippians is much like Paul's personal journal.

He's in prison, he's under dire circumstances, he could die.

He's not sure in a filthy Roman prison.

And he's full of joy.

This book is just full of joy.

Seventeen times we hear about joy.

And we've been talking about leveraging joy in our life.

And sociology and psychology and neuroscience and theology is teaching us today what Paul said 2,000 years ago in the book of Philippians, that joy is the key to victorious living.

I would call it triumphant joy.

Not just joy in our life, but a joy that brings triumph.

And so we use this here as a point of illustration that we have burdens in our life.

We have marriage burdens, we have financial burdens, we have concerns about our future, we have concerns about our kids.

And if we could get the fulcrum right, we can lift and triumph and find victory in anything.

And the book of Philippians is about this victory, this joy, this triumph we can have that enables us through that to lift, to lift the issues of life.

And that's what we're studying in Philippians.

So a couple weeks ago, when we started Philippians, we talked about, first of all, the first leverage point that Paul brings up is a love relationship with Jesus Christ.

An intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

Not a religious form or churchy form of knowing Christ, but a love relationship with Jesus Christ.

Those are the first two verses of chapter one.

Then last week we talked about the second leverage point being heart-to-heart connection with people.

We need people in our lives.

And around here we call them D groups.

Having small groups of two or three guys or two or three women that we can trust, that we can share our struggles with.

We call them blood-stained allies.

Not just friends, but people we can go deep with, that we can be vulnerable about our shame areas, where we can be vulnerable about our struggles with, that have our back.

But they're in the same mission with us.

They're on the same journey with us.

That's why we call them allies.

Allies fight together.

Allies battle together.

Allies don't quit in the middle of the turmoil and the chaos and struggle.

That's what I love about that first worship song.

It talks about the love that comes out of chaos, right?

How many of you are experiencing chaos sometimes?

And the rest of you need help with your understanding of reality.

But we all have struggles, don't we?

And we all go through chaotic times in our life.

So today I want you to look at chapter 1, verse 9.

That's where we are in our study of Philippians.

And Paul breaks off into a prayer here.

He does this in Philemon.

He does this in Romans.

He does this in Thessalonians.

He does this in Ephesians.

Paul has this way of writing a letter, and then he just breaks off into a prayer.

He's like writing, and he's probably in prison for half of them, and he's writing, and then he just breaks off into this spontaneous, spirit-filled, spirit-anointed prayer, and that's what he does here.

But look what he says.

Look what he says.

And this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere without offense till the day of Christ.

Wouldn't that be great if we could say in our lives that we're unoffendable?

I mean, what a radical statement to say, I'm living an unoffendable life.

People get offended so easy.

I mean, our culture teaches you to be offended.

Our culture teaches you to march because you're offended.

Our culture tells you to have lawsuits because you're offended.

But he's saying here that there's a work of sincere, discernible love that makes us without offense.

That our lives are not causing offense in others.

Till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Men and women, leverage point number three.

Leverage point number three.

Don't miss this.

Dynamic love.

Joy comes through abounding, growing, dynamic love in our life.

That's what Paul is praying in verse 9.

He says, I'm praying for this.

And oftentimes in our lives we may forget that the greatest way in which we begin to experience a prayer life is through love.

I don't know how many times I've said it, probably thousands of times as a missionary for so many years, and then as a pastor, we need to pray more.

I wish I could pray more.

Wish I could pray like Jay Hudson Taylor.

I wish I could pray like George Mueller.

I wish I could pray like Robert McShane.

All these great biographies that I used to read as a kid and stuff, as a new believer.

And yet, look what Paul's saying here.

This I pray that your love may abound.

You see, I think what Paul has an insight here about is the fact that when our love is growing, when our love is dynamic, we pray more.

The focus is not on praying more, the focus is on loving God more and loving him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The greater our love abounds, our prayer life will take care of itself.

I am not the greatest conversationalist.

Now, some of you have been with me and say, well, that's not true.

But if you really listen to me, I'm asking you guys questions about your life because I'm way more interested in your life than I am about telling you about mine, because I feel like mine's kind of boring.

But I find you guys fascinating and exciting.

I love to hear what's happening in your lives.

But let me tell you, when I met Liz, I started really yakking.

Because I asked her questions, but I wanted I wanted to know about her for sure, but I wanted her to know about me.

Because I knew there was competition.

And if any of you guys are still dating and stuff like that, you know what I'm talking about.

For you that are married, you know what I'm talking about in your past.

Hopefully it won't happen again.

But the reality is that when we start falling in love, we start talking.

And so that's the way prayer is.

I think as we fall in love with Christ, we start wanting to talk to him.

We start wanting to have a relationship with him.

We want to know him, and he wants to know us.

So Paul says, first of all, he says, look, this joy that I found is what I'm praying for you, that your love may abound, may be dynamic.

John wrote it this way: He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

In this love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

In this is love.

That we loved God not, but that he loved us first, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Isn't it interesting that in the fruits of the Spirit in Ephesians, the first two fruits of the Spirit are love and joy?

Love and joy.

Then peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control.

So love and joy go together.

Joy welling up within us comes from an abounding, growing love for people and for Christ.

And then he says this.

This is what's so cool.

He says, here's five aspects of love.

Five aspects of an abounding affection for Jesus Christ.

He says, first of all, you will grow and distill more and more knowledge.

You're going to grow in more and more knowledge.

This dynamic love gives us a passionate desire to know God, to know Christ.

Men and women, we can't know Christ without knowing his word.

So the word, this is how we know Christ is through his word.

So as we fall in love with Christ, we fall in love with his word.

As we fall in love with his word, we fall in love with Christ.

And this dynamic relationship of knowing God and his word.

It's arguably the most important thing we do to grow in knowledge of Christ is to begin each day in his word.

Men and women, if we're not spending time in his word to begin the day, our knowledge of God, our knowing of him in an intimate way, will be curtailed.

We'll not grow.

We'll be living in emotion.

We'll be living in circumstances.

We'll have this life that just ebbs and flows with how our circumstances are.

Remember before, a couple weeks ago, I talked about happiness versus joy?

Happiness is based in circumstances.

Some of you feel great today because you had a great week.

Some of you had a lousy week and you feel great today because you have a joy welling up within you.

You see, the well of joy comes from an abounding love with Christ and with people that is not circumstantial.

It's transcircumstantial.

And so that's the joy we're talking about.

So he says there's a growing knowledge in those who love me.

Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.

And my father will love him, and if you keep my word, you will abide in my love.

I love that.

If you keep my word, you will abide in my love.

Peter said it this way Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the people of God, fervently love one another from the heart.

Wow.

So there's this correlation between obedience to truth and loving people.

Well, you can't have obedience to something you don't know anything about.

Gotta know God's word, church.

I've probably read through the Bible, Old and New Testament, I don't know, maybe a dozen times.

I know guys who've read through the Bible, Old and New Testament, probably 100, 150 times.

They're just constantly in God's word.

Spend time in God's Word.

That's how we grow in knowledge.

But not just that.

Not just knowledge.

What does he say next?

He says that you may abound in discernment.

Discernment.

You know what discernment is?

Discernment is applied knowledge.

Discernment is applying knowledge to your circumstances.

It's knowing what to do.

And the word of God provides us with knowledge of God and his word.

And yet we love the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

But when do you, and how do you utilize the gifts of the Holy Spirit?

Well, that takes discernment.

And discernment is gained not only by what we read in God's Word, but also by getting trained and equipped.

And that's what we do at Outlier University.

So it's so cool to come early and see half of the parking lot full of your cars.

Because you're at OU, you're at Outlier University, and those rooms are pretty darn full with people studying and going for it.

And you know what I'm loving is there's younger and younger people in there.

So my two kids, Charity, Charity is 12, and Deborah, my daughter, is over the welcome team.

And she wanted to make sure there's people there to welcome people, even for Outlaw University, which means she asked Charity to come at 8 45.

Guess who's the taxi?

So I said, okay, you got yourself a deal.

I'll let you come and greet it.

She was really excited, and she's got Gabby, her buddy, with her.

But then you guys have to stay for OU class.

I said, okay, that's great.

We command our kids to do stuff.

I've got them until 18, man.

Let's get as much of Jesus in them as we can.

My mom used to say, if you can't get your kids to come to church, you have no business being a pastor.

So you knew where I was every Sunday for my whole flipping life in church.

Nine months before I was born, I was in church.

I was pretty used to it by the time I was born.

I've already been hanging out with all those people.

But the Holy Spirit gives us discernment, gang.

What the Holy Spirit does is we begin to meditate in God's Word.

Like I'm starting like two days ago I started the New Testament again.

So I started in Matthew, and so I'm going through the Sermon on the Mount this morning, trying to get happy in God.

Get happy in God so I can be happy with people when I get here.

Because if you don't get happy with God before you get with people, you usually won't get happy.

They'll hit you with all their problems and all their issues, even at your job, and all of you other, and you're like, suddenly you're so sad.

Start the day happy.

Yes! Woo-hoo! With Jesus.

And then you can get sad with people.

But the sad with people part gets pushed out more if you come in happy and joyful.

Hello?

Everybody go like that if you don't talk now.

So that begins a process of a holy habit in our lives of spending time in God's Word, worshiping Him, knowing Him, getting happy in Him, so we have discernment.

I mean, there are people in our lives that the most loving thing you can do is not do what they're asking you to do.

One of the most loving things you can do, sometimes with your kids, is not give them money.

One of the most discerning things you can do in a church is sometimes that's not a benevolence need that we're gonna give to because there's a discipleship process that needs to be worked out in that couple's life.

How do you know?

Discernment.

By being in God's word and knowing him and letting his Holy Spirit guide you and speak to you and lead you.

So God grows us through love, fervent love into discernment.

Then look at verse 10.

That you may approve the things that are excellent.

So God's in the business through love, knowledge, discernment, making us excellent.

Excellent in character, excellent at our jobs, excellent in our marriage, excellent in our relationships.

Now nobody's perfect in this by any means, but there's an excellence for the hungry.

You're here because you're hungry.

Anyone who would come week after week and hear some southern boy from Georgia who lives in Colorado, who's five foot nothing and a hundred and nothing, must be hungry for something.

So that hunger for God that comes through you being here, you're the hungry, you're the thirsty, eating God's word and beginning to go after it, it's gonna make you excellent, church.

It will.

It's always gonna be, though, two steps forward and one step back.

I loved watching the uh Olympics right now.

What I love about the Olympics is the human interest stories that they tell.

And I watched that guy, um, what's his name, Red Gerard, win the gold last night.

That was super cool.

He lives in uh Silverthorn.

They showed his house and all the rails that he and his dad and his brothers had set up where they can they could snowboard and stuff.

It shows this one part.

We went, well, I went and watched some videos.

I don't know if it was on the on TV or not, but we watched some videos of Red.

And it shows him his dad dragging him behind an ATV with a rope, and he's on his snowboard, and then he lets go of the rope, and it's giving him like 20 miles an hour of speed, and then he hits this jump.

This is in his backyard, and he goes into a spruce tree and does two flips.

So you see him hitting the spruce tree, do two flips, and then he lands the thing, and I'm going, now that is excellence.

In classical Greek, the meaning of excellence was a sailing metals for genuineness.

You tested metals to see if they were genuine.

Another word we use today would be integrity.

Integrity in metals means that through and through that piece of metal or that piece of steel has no bubbles in it, has no hollow places in it.

It is the same inside as it is outside.

Men and women, it's the same inside as it looks like it is on the outside.

That's integrity.

That's excellence.

There's a solidarity in the person that you can trust, what they say, because they live the life that they claim to have.

It was said of the sons of Issachar in the Old Testament, they were men of excellence because they could discern the times and they knew what to do.

They could discern the times.

So excellence comes through discernment.

The NIV translates this verse this way, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.

Later in Philippians chapter 4, verse 8, Paul says, Finally, brothers, whatever's true, whatever's noble, whatever's right, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think on those things.

Philippians 4:8

Paul says to the Romans, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect.

Paul reminds the Colossians, we proclaim Christ, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.

To the Thessalonians, examine everything carefully, hold fast to what is good.

When John Wesley went away to Oxford, his godly mother Susannah wrote him this letter.

Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the delight for spiritual things, whatever increases authority over your body and over your mind, that thing is sin.

God wants us excellent.

God wants us to be whole-hearted.

In a whole-hearted pursuit of God, it takes a renewing of our mind, passionate love.

So we talk about having hearts on fire and heads on fire.

That's what OU's about.

That's what the road at Chapel Hill is about.

We want disciples who have heads on fire and hearts on fire.

Passionate love, but passionate wisdom.

Fourthly, that you may approve the things that are excellent.

Listen to this, that you may be sincere and without offense.

This dynamic abounding love leads into greater authenticity.

Greater knowledge, greater discernment, greater excellence, greater authenticity.

In ancient times, there were two kinds of pottery.

There was the Walmart version.

My son, who's been an archaeologist in Israel, goes on these digs, and the kind of pottery they find is that.

It was your common man's middle class kind of poverty.

Didn't break very easily.

And so on a lot of your archaeological digs, that's what you find is that kind of pottery.

But what you're looking for is the thin, beautiful pottery.

But it was so thin, and they made it so thin, and it was so particular to the hands of the potter and so precise that it would often break when it was put in the fire.

So when it was in the oven, it would crack sometimes.

And so what unscrupulous shop owners learned to do was to take wax.

And they would put that wax right in the cracks and then paint it so you couldn't see it.

So in the regular light, you couldn't see the cracks.

So those who are looking for fine pottery would always take that pottery, and guess what they would do?

They would lift it up to the sunlight.

They would put it right in between them and the sun, and then you could see the cracks.

And so you had stamped on pottery at that time, sine sera, which meant without wax.

Are you without wax?

Many women, are you without wax?

You see, when we talk about authenticity, we mean at the road, it's okay to have cracks.

You don't need to wax them up.

I got cracks.

And we're all like, duh.

About time you notice that.

We've been noticing it ever since we met you.

We're all insecure.

We're all broken.

And guess what?

If you know Christ, we're all forgiven.

If Christ forgives you, so do we.

Let's work on it.

Let's work on it together.

Let's do it.

Let's quit being phonies.

Let's quit being fakers and acting like we're more than we are.

Let's be who we are.

Be authentic.

Be real.

Be broken.

No wax.

But then when we do that, 2 Corinthians 4 says that Christ lets his light shine on our shame.

So we see it for what it is.

Ugh.

Oh, yucky.

But with bloodstained allies, we start working on it together.

That's abounding love.

We don't cut and run when times get tough, do we?

No, we don't.

We work on it.

But remember, it's with discernment.

It doesn't mean we, hey, you get a, you know, you get$200 and you can go through, what is it?

You can go through go free.

I mean, the reality is that we will have to say the three most important words in leadership.

Three most important words in leadership.

Spiritual leadership.

At the road.

Listen, folks, if you can't apologize, you're stuck.

You won't grow.

If you can't apologize to your friends, if you can't apologize for being late, if you can't apologize for looking at porn, if you can't apologize to your spouse, you're not going to grow.

And I'd say to you young people that are looking at someone or dating someone, if you found yourself in some situations where that person never apologizes, dump them like a hot potato.

Get out of that relationship because there's way deeper stuff going on there.

So one of the tests that we do at the road, I do all the time, is, you know, I just, someone comes late or someone does this or that.

I don't say anything.

I'm waiting to see what they're going to do.

And if they can never apologize, there's deep issues of insecurity there.

And I'm not going to give up on the person because we're here to mentor people.

But the reality is that it's one of the great tests of leadership is authenticity.

Aren't you guys tired of faky church stuff?

I hate that stuff.

I grew up in it.

That's why I never wanted to be a pastor.

Never say never.

And so we want to be real about that.

And so you're growing in authenticity, but it doesn't stop there.

Look at verse 11, being filled with the fruit, and it's plural, the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

So this dynamic abounding love leads into greater fruitfulness.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control is growing within.

But also, he's speaking here of fruits of righteousness, which means our outer behavior is also changing.

So it's not just internal, it's external.

We're becoming more loving.

We're becoming more patient.

We're becoming more fruitful in our lives with other people, church, jobs, our work.

We become better.

The best thing we can inculcate in our kids as they're growing up is a vital, dynamic, authentic, real, sincere relationship with Jesus Christ and his people, because if we'll do that, we'll grow into excellence.

And I've never met a parent yet, I'm sure there are, I'm sure there's plenty, but I haven't met any parents yet that I've had a relationship with for very long that didn't want the best for their kids.

That didn't want their kids to succeed at what they do.

I love Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

Paul says, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints, that's where it starts, it has, your gospel has gone out to the whole world and is bringing forth fruit.

You see, what was bringing forth fruit in the Colossian church and the Philippian church and the Thessalonian church was their love for each other.

They will know that we're disciples because of our love for one another.

Abounding dynamic love results in abounding dynamic joy.

We're here because we want more joy.

And that comes through an abounding love.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.