Prayer for Excellence
Philippians 1:8–11 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
This is a prayer for Christian excellence. That Christians would love excellent things, and pursue excellence in their lives.
Paul, in this prayer, is not simply teaching us how to pray but he’s also teaching us what Christian living ought to look like.
A prayer for a growing Christian love.
Philippians 3:12 “Not that I have already obtained this, or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Paul urges the Philippians, and he urges us, to have an attitude and a disposition that is committed to pressing forward, to straining forward to what lies ahead to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also taken hold of us.
Paul wants their love and ours to be knowledgeable and discerning.
“Knowledge” is from the Greek word speaking of knowledge gained by experience
A Christian can have an “understanding” knowledge of the Word, without having an experiential knowledge of the same.
Hebrews 5:12-14, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child. Solid food is for the mature, those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
Paul is really praying for Christian maturity.
Truth people. We love doctrine, and precise distinctions.
Some of us, on the other hand, are far more relational. Love is something that just overflows from us. We’re all about relationships.
Truth without love produces coldness and ruthlessness and an impatience with other people’s sin.
Love without truth tends to sentimentality, and a kind of inclusivism that fails to make biblical distinctions between what is right and what is not, and to draw appropriate biblical boundaries.
Both extremes cripple churches.
The goal of that prayer, which is the pursuit of excellence.
The word “approve” is from a Greek word which refers to the act of testing something for the purpose of approving it
Paul wants us going hard after excellence. He wants to fire our ambition for holy things.
Christian excellence will always be a servant-hearted excellence.
Ambition in the heart of the Christian is ambition for likeness to Christ
The results will be holiness, and glory and praise to God.
Holiness is not simply the by-product of your diligent effort alone
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If you’re pursuing all of these excellent things, but you’re not pursuing Jesus, then holiness will always elude you.
As you go hard after excellence, go hard after Him, and as you do, then the fruit of righteousness begins to grow, and appear on the branches of your life.
Holiness is one of the great results of this pursuit of Christian excellence.
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