Abounding in Christ's Love: A Prayer from Philippians 1:8–11

Good morning, and what a blessing it is to study God's Word with you today.

My name is Pastor Simon, and welcome to the Preaching Ministry of Dillingham Moravian Church.

Here at DMC, our focus is to make disciples of Christ as we study the Word of God together.

According to the Alaska News Source, river breakup season is the most dangerous

flooding event that recurs in Alaska.

Typically taking place between the end of April and the end of May,

ice breakup along Alaskan riverways can pose a threat to surrounding and low-lying communities.

Between the two types of breakup, thermal and dynamic, dynamic breakups are

the most dangerous, often influenced by heavy snow depth, prolonged cooling

trends, or deep river ice.

This 2026 breakup season is showing signs of a dynamic breakup,

as this year has created concerns for forecasters.

Below normal temperatures through the winter season, and even leading into April,

have prevented snow melt and

ice melt, adding to the threat of river ice buildup before breakup occurs.

Areas that typically see the most issues and where threats are actively being

monitored include areas along the

Yukon, Tanna, and Kuskokan Rivers as ice thickness remains above normal.

Villages including Galena, Crooked Creek, Circle, Stevens Village,

and from Eagle up to Fort Yukon are areas of high concern as they reside either

downstream or in low-lying areas.

The Yukon River remains one of the areas of highest concern As thick sea ice

has packed into the mouth of the river One of the most important prayers That

we as Christians are called to pray for For ourselves and other Christians.

Is that Christians would abound in love for God and for others.

And that love would overflow our lives and flood those around us. Let's pray.

Oh, Heavenly Father, we are so grateful. Grateful that you are our God.

And in Jesus Christ, you loved us so much that he died on the cross,

granting us your righteousness and

in christ now your love abounds to us lord

it overflows us and we pray that

you would grant us this love so that we can bless others that we can share your

love with those around us we praise you we bless you i pray that you would work

your holy spirit in my life and my heart as I preach,

but also for those who are listening,

Lord, that you would interact with their hearts and their minds.

Use them for your mighty glory, oh, precious God.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

Recently here at Dillingham Moravian Church, we have started a preaching series

on Paul's letter to the Philippians.

Last week, God through Paul taught the Philippians and us as slaves of Christ

that our joy and thanksgiving grows as we remember other Christians'

participation in the gospel and their close relationship with Christ.

We also learn that we are to have absolute confidence that God will perfect

His good work in us and in others.

And the more we trust and believe God, the more our joy grows.

Lastly, the more each of us as believers share or partner in the work of the

gospel, the more our love grows for each other.

And today we're going to continue in Philippians chapter 1, verse 8 through

Philippians 1:8–11

11, where Paul wrote, For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the

affection of Christ Jesus.

And this I pray that your love may

abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment so that you

may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless

until the day of Christ having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which

comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

I have broken this passage into two sections for us to more easily understand

what God is instructing us about.

The principle for the first section is that as Christians, we are to long for

each other with the affection of Christ.

One of the challenges of not being originally from Alaska is that our families live far away.

It has been over two years since I last saw my mom and brothers and sisters,

and then 10 years before that.

Although phone and FaceTime and Zoom can help us communicate more,

It's not the same as physically being together, is it?

There are times when I really miss my extended family, especially after my dad died a few years ago.

Even though none of us in my family have a perfect relationship with each other,

they are still my family, and I long to see them.

And this concept of longing for loved ones with affection is what Paul was sharing

to the Philippians about, except that Paul longed for them with the affection of Christ himself.

Paul wrote in Philippians 1, verse 8-11, For God is my witness,

Philippians 1:8–11

how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

Paul deeply longed for the Philippians with the affection of Christ.

I want you to see that Paul started this verse with, for God is my witness.

Paul used this type of language almost as an oath when he was trying to get

across to his readers that he was telling the complete truth and that he was not lying.

Why? Because God is his witness that Paul holds the Philippians with such affection.

The word translated affection literally means the internal organs,

also thought of as the bowels, regarded by the first century reader as the center

of the deepest feelings.

Whereas the heart is the seat of reflection, Paul now speaks of his affection,

his deep feelings for the believers.

However, I want you to see that Paul did not view the Philippian congregation

with his own affection, but with Christ's affection.

Paul viewed the Philippians with Christ's eyes and Christ's heart,

and out of that affection, Paul longed to be with these folks who so loved God in him.

The Philippians and the Thessalonians as well were Paul's greatest financial

supporters and defenders, even though they were the most persecuted.

Paul taught later in Philippians 2, verse 1 through 2.

Philippians 2:1–2

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any constellation

or consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit,

and here's the same word,

if any affection and compassion, feel my joy that you think the same way by

maintaining the same love,

being united in Spirit, thinking on one purpose, do nothing from selfish ambition or vain glory.

How then do we do that we have this same affection that Christ has for us?

And here it is, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important

than yourself, not merely looking out for your own personal interests,

but also for the interests of others.

Humility referred to valuing or assessing oneself appropriately,

especially in light of one's sinfulness.

So for us to be able to see others as more superior than ourselves,

we must see ourselves in the light of our own sinfulness in respect to the overwhelming

love of God that we do not and cannot ever deserve.

What humility does is lower our perspective of ourselves to see ourselves as

sinners before the mercy of our holy, loving God,

and raises God and others to be better than ourselves.

It raises God to be our treasure and our delight.

The first way that I believe that we can apply this verse to us as Christians

today is that God calls us to have very deep feelings of affection towards other believers in Christ.

Now, there has been a movement in the universal church since the time of the

apostles to divorce feelings or emotions from the spiritual life. It's not a new thing.

Although emotions can be fickle, and when uncontrolled, they can lead us down

some very evil paths, rightly guided by the Holy Spirit, written Word of God,

and Spirit-fueled self-control.

Emotions can powerfully enhance our life with Christ and our effectiveness for Christ's kingdom.

Trust me, I understand the challenge of this. God made me an emotional man.

And if I'm not continually in the word of God and praying and treating my God-given

body right, then I can sometimes be an emotional mess.

But here's the great truth. Negative emotions can be turned into godly emotions.

And the question is, how do we cultivate in ourselves godly emotions and deep

compassion and longing for other believers in Christ that Paul and ultimately Christ had?

The answer to this leads us to the second application I want to point out to you.

As Christians, we are called to have deep feelings of love for each other based

upon and out of Christ's love.

You see, it's not our love that we are calling upon, but the affection that

Christ has for his people.

So how do we get this affection of Christ for other believers?

First off, we must get to know Christ and his character and his love for his church.

It's about changing our thinking to match Christ, to focus on Christ as our

love that we are delighted in.

How we do that is by, with prayer, reading and studying Christ's word,

the Bible, especially the Gospels and the Scriptures that write about Christ

and his examples of love for us.

Also essential is that we ask God to instill in us the same affection that Christ

has for us because this is something that we cannot accomplish on our own.

Another helpful endeavor to cultivate God's love and longing for believers in

us is that we must intentionally, in prayer,

lower ourselves in our own perspective before God and others and get to know

Christians around us, especially ones that we don't know really well.

I say this because to know how God is working in others, we have to get to know

them by cultivating a relationship with them.

And just as Christ did not stay in heaven, but came to earth to be with us,

so also we, you and I, must humbly and lovingly get into the lives of those

in our congregations and those outside the church as well.

Not only did Paul longingly love the Philippians with the affectionate feelings

of Christ, Paul also communicated to them the prayer that he prayed for the

Philippian congregations.

Thus, now we are going to take a look at Paul's prayer for the Philippians.

In the first part of his prayer, Paul prayed that the Philippians' love may

abound in real knowledge and discernment.

In Philippians 1, verse 9, Paul continued in his letter by praying,

Philippians 1:9

And I pray this, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.

The question is, after telling the Philippians about his Christ affection for

them, why then did he pray for them?

First off, the outflow of God's love is prayer.

Paul loved the Philippians, so he prayed for them.

Secondly, Paul prayed for the church in Philippi because he knew that growing

the character of God in them and faith-filled obedience are not works of people.

They are works of God. And thus Paul started off his prayer by praying for the

Philippians that their love would abound, meaning abundant to the overflowing.

Agape love or God's love meant to have a strong non-sexual affection and love

for a person and their good as understood, and please listen to this,

as understood by God's moral character, especially characterized by a willing

forfeiture of rights or privileges in another person's behalf.

You see, loving with God's love is having a strong affection for others based

upon God's character as we willingly give up our rights and privileges for them.

Paul went on to pray that the Philippians' love would abound more and more in

real knowledge, which is more than just mental or brain knowledge.

Rather, it expresses a more thorough participation in the acquiring of knowledge

on the part of the learner.

What Paul meant was that a believer is to have an active part in acquiring knowledge of Christ.

Yes, it is God who gives us knowledge of him, but we are also to actively pursue

knowing Christ by being in His Word, prayer, and participation in God's work.

And the more we seek God, the more we find Him, and the more Christ's love grows in us.

Another aspect of Paul's prayer for the Philippians to abound in love is discernment

or depth of insight into God's ways and how God would deal with situations to

be able to love God and others.

For example, many of us here in Bush, Alaska have family members who are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

We want to see them and be around them, but it's challenging because we don't

want them to be a bad influence on our children or grandchildren or be a danger to others.

We understand this dilemma here, don't we, in Bush, Alaska?

Would it not be wonderful to be given God's perspective on that situation and

how to deal with it the way Jesus would?

Paul's prayer for the Philippians was that they would be given by God,

God's discernment in order to know how to love God and people in all circumstances.

Paul went on to pray for the Philippian congregation, that they would understand

what is truly important to be sincere and blameless.

Philippians 1, verse 10, Paul continued, so that you may approve the things

Philippians 1:10

that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.

In verse 10, I want you to see three words that will help us understand more deeply Paul's prayer.

Paul used the word approve, which meant to judge, to be right or commendable, to think well of.

The word sincere meant without hidden motives or pretense, pure.

Paul also used blameless that did not just mean that the believer was without

blame before God, but also that the believer does not cause stumbling.

He's not promoting a person sinning by one's actions or lifestyle.

And thus, Paul prayed that the Philippians'

love would abound in the real knowledge and discernment of God,

so that they may judge to be right the things that God deems to be excellent,

so that they could be without hidden motives or pretense and be blameless before

God and not cause others to stumble into sin.

What then can we learn from this part of Paul's prayer? We can learn that to

be able to view as right what God sees as excellent,

nor to be without any hidden motives or without blame and not cause others to

stumble, we must grow in the love of God by knowing God and His ways and having God's insight.

One of the signs of living in Satan's darkness is that people view that which

is evil as good and right.

Tolerating sin like homosexuality and other vices of LBGTQIA and others has

become seen by much of our Western culture as love and as goodness.

And yet from God's perspective, explained in His Word the Bible, those acts are evil.

Unless from God's understanding preaching the truth of God, part of which is

denouncing sin, is good and right.

Yes, we are to do it in love, but we are also to teach God's good truth.

Yet the world today sees God's right behavior as hate speech or evil.

Of course, as I said earlier, we preach or speak with respect and compassion.

But the psalmist taught in Psalm 119, verse 7 through 9, the law of the Lord

Psalms 119:7–9

is perfect, restoring the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of

the Lord is pure, enlightening, or giving light to the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord, and here it is, are true.

They are righteous altogether.

Yet we cannot come to a point where we treasure God's word as good and right

unless God implants His Spirit within us and grants us His love so that we can

know God and discern His way,

so that we can love God and others properly.

And the more we learn to love God and others, the more we will be able to discern

rightly what is good and not cause others to fall.

So far, Paul prayed for God to give the Philippians the ability to be able to

judge what is truly excellent so that they could live sincerely and without

causing others to stumble into sin.

And for us Christians to abound in God's love, in the real knowledge and discernment

to God. so that they may judge rightly and live sincerely and blameless.

We as Christians must be filled by God with the fruit of Christ's righteousness.

As I see spring slowly coming upon our southwest, it makes our family talk about berry picking.

We have all kinds of berries in Dillingham area that are great for eating.

Salmon berries, huckleberries, blueberries, low and highbush cranberries,

red and black currants, crowberries, and blackberries.

As we go searching for these berry plants, we're not searching for the plants

themselves, but for their delicious fruit.

Yet without the plants and the bushes themselves, there would be no fruit to pick, would there be?

My point is that similar to berries being the fruit of the plant that produces them,

so also the fruit of the Spirit, the characteristics of righteousness,

cannot be received without the sacrifice of Christ and His righteousness imparted to us.

Paul finished his prayer in Philippians 1, verse 11, having been filled with

Philippians 1:11

the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

I want you to notice that the NASB and the LSB translated this verse,

having been filled with the fruit of righteousness,

meaning that love, knowledge of God, discernment, judging rightly,

sincerity, and blamelessness are all the fruit of righteousness.

Before I go further into this, we need to ask the question, whose righteousness was Paul praying about?

To answer this question, we need to read Philippians 3, verse 8-9,

Philippians 3:8–9

where Paul wrote, more than that, I count all things to be lost because of the

surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,

for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish,

so that I may gain Christ and be found in him. And here's what I want you to see.

Not having a righteousness of my own, which is from the law,

but that which is through faith in Christ.

And here it is, the righteousness which is from God upon faith.

Paul also taught in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, He made him who knew no sin to

2 Corinthians 5:21

be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

It is God's righteousness which has been imparted to us by God through the death

and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We cannot abound in God's love, in knowing God,

or in discernment or sincerity or purity without Christ first dying for us,

paying the penalty for our sin and imparting his righteousness upon us.

And the fruit of Christ's righteousness or his rightness imparted to us means

that now, by the Spirit's power, we can love God and others.

We can know Christ. We can judge and live rightly and blameless before God.

All of what Paul prayed for could only have happened because Christ,

who knew no sin, gave his people his righteousness in the first place.

What was the purpose of Christ's righteousness working in our lives?

All to the glory and praise of God. The main truth that we can learn from Philippians 1,

Philippians 1:11

verse 11 is that we cannot live with the fruit of righteousness without first

being made righteous through Christ's work on the cross and his resurrection.

This means that Paul's prayer can be made a reality in your lives and in mine.

And if you've responded to the grace of God and surrendered through faith to

Christ as your only Lord and God, then Christ can grow you and in you the fruits of his Spirit.

I encourage you to pray to God, for God to grow his love, his knowledge,

his discernment, his sincerity and blamelessness in you so that you can be ready

for the coming of Christ.

But I also encourage you, encourage all of us to pray for the believers around

us so that God may grant them the fruits of righteousness.

The righteousness of God. However, if you are here or listening and you have

not put your faith in Jesus Christ,

the only way you can receive the fruits of God is by praying to God for mercy,

recognizing that you're a sinner before the Holy God and surrender your life

to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

And the promise is that Christ will give you his righteousness and start growing

in you the characteristics to be like Him.

What then have we learned from our passage today? The first truth that we have

learned today is that God calls us as Christians to have very deep feelings

of affection towards other believers in Christ.

Secondly, Paul modeled a prayer for the Philippian church that we as Christ

believers can use to pray for others and ourselves.

Paul's prayer can be summed up by praying for Christ believers,

that we would abound more in God's love, in knowing God, and having Christ's

discernment, His sincerity and purity,

all to the glory of God, to be ready for when Christ returns.

I want to encourage us today to use as a model the prayers of Paul.

Wouldn't it be amazing if all believers were overflowing with God's love for him and for others?

What a marvelous gift it would be to be able to know God deeper,

having His judgment in order to know what is right and good in every situation?

Wouldn't it be wonderful that we would live out our days in purity and not have

any selfish motive at all?

Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to go through life knowing that we're not

causing anyone to stumble or fall into sin?

You see, these are the kinds of prayers that God through Paul deemed as essential

for the growth of a Christian and for the growth of God's church.

These are the kinds of prayers that God loves to answer so that strongholds

are broken down and mountains are overcome in Christians' lives.

All of us need more of Christ and His characteristics in us.

And we can pray for and receive these gifts from God because God in His gracious

mercy has made us righteous or right before God.

And this was all accomplished, not in your strength, not in my strength,

but through the sacrifice of Christ's precious blood on the cross. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful for you.

We're thankful that you love us so much in Jesus Christ, that you in your righteousness

have made us right before you.

You've made us whole. You've made us clean. You've made us pure. Thank you, Lord.

Grant us your gifts of righteousness, your fruits of it, so that we can go out

and be ambassadors for you, so that we can go out and share your love in Dillingham,

in Bush, Alaska, or wherever we are,

that we can be a testimony, a light to this dark world.

Thank you, Lord, for your love for us.

And I pray that you work in all those who hear your word through me today.

Use us for your glory and may you be praised through us and by us.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

I'll leave you with this blessing from Psalm 67, verse 1 through 2.

Psalms 67:1–2

May God be gracious to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us,

that your way be known on the earth and your salvation be among all the nations.

Amen. Have a wonderful Sunday. May the Lord bless you all.