Philippians 1:6-11
Sermon Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.
Philippians 1:9
Starting in verse 9: “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment.”
Opening Prayer
Let’s pray. Father, we thank you, God, that you have a love for us that is infinite and eternal, that will last forever. And it’s because you loved us that we can love you and we can love others. So we pray, God, that you would increase our love, that you would do what this verse says, [audio unclear] would be able to get things back in order and people [audio unclear] We pray that you continue to keep the chemical and medical [audio unclear] out of this state, out of the states that currently have it, and rooted out of others as well. Father, life is precious to you. It is precious to you. And so Lord, I pray that believers would stand for the issue of life. Lord, I pray for the state of Colorado and the unrighteous bill that was just passed into law. I know many pastors in that state today are preaching against it and taking a stand and openly defying that law, God. So I pray that you give them strength to stand, give them backbones. I pray that you would protect them in their churches, and that the church in Colorado would be the church. Lord, we also pray for our moms here, the pregnant ones, that each of those babies would be born healthy, that the pregnancies would go well and smooth, be with the moms, minister to them, let them keep the long goal in effect. We pray, God, that each of those kids would grow up to know you, to love you, to fear you, to serve you, God. And we pray for our kids now in the back, learning about you, and we ask, God, that you would be merciful and gracious to save them, to draw their hearts to you, to rain down mercy and grace, God, that they’d see the excellencies of you and your Son Jesus. And we pray all these things for your glory. Amen.
Biblical Love
All right, we have been looking at the last couple of verses and kind of focusing on verse 9 here, where a couple weeks ago we looked at love. We’ll quickly kind of recap that. And then we’re going to look at two more words today in verse 9 where it talks about knowledge and discernment. And what we talked about last, when we were looking at love, is that God’s love is a willful love. It’s a willful love. He did not choose to love us because of what we could do for him or what we could give him or what he could get out of it. No, it’s an unconditional love. Our challenge today is biblical love. But here is the thing. Love is at the core of Christianity when we talk about the different virtues. So 1 Corinthians 13, verse 13 says, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” So you’ll find different virtues in various religions, but the virtue of love is at the core of Christianity. And verse after verse after verse, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world.” Romans 5:8, God demonstrates his own love for us in this. 1 John 4:9, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world.” And then think of the greatest commandment. What does Jesus say is the greatest commandment? [audio unclear] Jeremiah 31: “The Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” Isaiah 54:10: “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you.” I mean, you see that over and over again, yes in the New Testament, but yes in the Old Testament. Psalm 86: “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” And that’s the refrain even in Exodus. Over and over again we looked at it, it’s been a few weeks, but when we were looking at that Hebrew word hesed, which is there in Psalm 86, but that theme that you see in Exodus when God appears to Moses, right: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” All of those things, that is the refrain you see throughout the Old Testament.
Now other religions really don’t have that theme. All religions are not the same. Let’s just be clear about that. But if you’re a Buddhist and you follow the teachings of Buddha, you don’t love Buddha. You don’t love Buddha. And if you’re a Muslim and you follow the teachings of Muhammad, you don’t love Muhammad. Even Hinduism, the ultimate goal for Hindus is moksha, which is just basically liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. The gods punish you, you’re fearful of them. So if something bad happens and you’re a Hindu, you’re trying to figure out what you need to do to appease the god because he’s angry at you. These concepts, if you think about it, affect cultures. Hinduism, you go into a Hindu culture where the Hindu religion is, they have a culture. Same with the Muslims, they have a culture. Same with the Buddhists, they have a culture. Anywhere you look, you can see whatever the dominant religion is, it has affected society. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. So as you stamp it out, you stamp out different religious influences, well it can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing, but you lose the influence that came with it. I told this story, it’s probably been a couple years, but a gentleman came over, and he was a believer. He came over from a country that didn’t have a Christian influence, and they’re driving along with his wife and the friends in the car, and there’s a bunch of traffic, and ambulances come in. And what do people do when the ambulance comes? What do we do? Well, we pull over, right? So everyone’s pulling over, so the ambulance can get by. This man breaks down in tears. And his friend is like, what’s wrong? And he’s like, we don’t do that in our country. We don’t do that. You know, the ambulance just has to wait, just like everybody else. But what is it? When we’re pulling over, what are we saying? I mean, we’re going to get to it in Philippians 2, others’ interests above our own. And we know that that ambulance has a much greater interest than what we’re doing going to the store. So we pull over so they can get to where they’re going. That is the effect of Christianity on a culture, brothers and sisters. It makes a difference. Small things like that that don’t even occur to us because we’re in the culture and that’s what we’ve grown up in, in ways we don’t even realize. So there are differences in love. People try to say love is love. No, love is not love. And the love we are to have and cultivate, it is not an empty love or a baseless love or a groundless love. It’s grounded in truth and it’s founded on Christ. And our biblical love fuels knowledge and discernment. So look back in verse 9, we want the love to abound more and more. Yes, our love should grow. But here’s the thing. It’s not aimless. We want it to grow, but we want it to grow in which direction? In a righteous direction. We want it to grow with aim. You actually wouldn’t want an aimless love. What if you have a love for something that was sinful? You wouldn’t want that love to grow, right? True? So it has to be grounded in something or someone. In this case, when we’re talking about biblical love, it’s God and it’s his will. What does God have for us? What does he want us to do? Look at, just briefly, keep your place in Philippians, but 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 1:
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.
(1 Thessalonians 4:1–5)
The “more and more” there, right? I mean, what’s the idea behind the more and more? Sanctification. We’re growing. We’re becoming more like Christ. So, yes, do it and do it more and more. You’re going to continue to grow and become more like Christ. You’re going to continue to become more like him. You’re going to continue to grow in the faith and exercise and show characteristics more and more like Christ, less and less like your flesh. You’re going to abound more and more in the fruit of the Spirit and less and less in the weeds of the flesh. This is the point. Sometimes we’re like, what’s the will of God? What are we supposed to do? God lays it out very clearly in his word how he wants us to walk, what he wants us to do. If we have any uncertainty, we can turn here every single time. If we’re not sure, we go ask someone spiritually more mature than us, but he makes it very clear the path we’re supposed to walk. Now we’re going to be into discernment a little bit because sometimes you’re like, you have better and best options. Sometimes you’re not sure what to do in a situation. That’s where discernment comes in, which is where we’re headed. But we want an informed love. That’s really my point, an informed love.
Knowledge
So, you know, have you ever learned about some situation? And then later you learn more details about it, and it completely changes the way you now look at that situation. You were thinking one thing, and then more details came to light, and it completely changes how you see that situation. Well, why? Information. You didn’t have knowledge on that particular thing. Well this word knowledge here back in Philippians verse 9, all versions translate it like that. In the Old Testament and New Testament it refers specifically to a knowledge concerning or about, listen to this, God. Every time that word’s used it somehow references our knowledge about God. So when it’s talking about growing more and more, abounding more and more with our love with knowledge, it refers directly to our knowledge of God, not just like knowledge of, oh let’s go learn mathematics or let’s go learn about literary styles. No, that’s great stuff. But this is specifically talking about knowledge of God. So it almost always relates, Old Testament and New Testament, to knowledge about God. But here’s the thing, you have to do something with the knowledge that you gain. You have to know how to discern what is good and accurate knowledge. You have to know what is legit. And when we come to love, a lot of times people treat love and knowledge like an either-or. It’s not an either-or proposition. It’s a both-and proposition. So when you have knowledge without love, the knowledge is lacking. In 1 Corinthians, just listen, chapter 8 verse 1: “Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up.” Here Paul is contrasting it and saying you can have a knowledge that is completely devoid of God and that knowledge is just going to puff you up. It’s going to make you think better of yourself than you do of others. It’s going to get you prideful. And even in a couple chapters later, 1 Corinthians 13, well-known passage, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” So he’s like, you can have all those things, you do have to have the love. Now that’s why Paul is making it clear in Philippians here, we have to have the love, so we can rightly have the knowledge, the knowledge of God and discernment that comes with it. So, knowledge without love fails and love without knowledge fails. One theologian said this, when the domain of knowledge is devoid of love, knowledge has no value. But when love abounds in the domain of knowledge, knowledge then serves. So the knowledge of God is essential for the people of God, right? We got to have a knowledge of him. Hosea, let’s just turn there, Hosea chapter 4. Hear the word of the Lord. Hosea 4, verse 1: “Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land.” I mean even here, notice the connection of love. He mentions love, the steadfast love, that’s that word, hesed. But there’s a connection between that and no knowledge of God in the land. I mean, this is the knowledge that we need, a knowledge of God, a deeper knowledge of God that is linked with love. It has to be linked with love. I mean, consider this. An eternal God who has infinite knowledge is a God that we can grow in our own knowledge and love for him for all eternity. So you won’t ever come to the point where you’ve gained all the knowledge about God that you can. You won’t. And that’s a good thing. Why? Because that means you can grow in your knowledge of God for all eternity. And that knowledge fuels love and the love fuels the pursuit of knowledge. So yes, you come to a finite time where you initially begin your knowledge of God, you get saved. But that knowledge is meant to grow. It’s meant to grow. Consider your spouse. You can be married 10, 15, 20 years and you’re still learning things about your spouse. It’s kind of crazy. But it’s true. I mean how much more so with God? He goes on a couple verses later, Hosea 4, verse 6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you.” What knowledge is it that they’re rejecting? The knowledge of God. They’re rejecting him and what they know to be true about him. They’re turning to the false idols. Two chapters later in Hosea chapter 6, in verse 1:
Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
(Hosea 6:1–6)
Their love just disappears, you know, like the dew in the morning is just gone. You know, like a cloud, it just kind of floats on by. Again, notice love and knowledge of God linked together. They go together. When we talk about like aspects of biblical faith, there’s three aspects to a saving faith or a biblical faith. You have to have the knowledge, then you have to assent to it, and then you have to trust. But those are the three aspects: knowledge, assent, trust. But you can’t have a biblical faith in that which you don’t know of. That’s why knowledge is that first step. Now you can know a whole lot of things about a whole lot of things but that doesn’t mean you have faith in those things, and you can even assent to certain things but it doesn’t mean you trust. Trust is essential to salvation, but those are the three aspects of faith, but knowledge is important. But what knowledge we learn matters. Where we focus our learning, it really matters. What we study, [audio unclear] The end is death. So false knowledge is knowledge that doesn’t encourage or help you love. It lacks love. It’s not motivated by love. The focus is on the self, not on others or God. So you’re like, well, how do I get this real knowledge? I mean, how do you get real knowledge? I mean, God is gracious to impart that to us. But one, there’s a couple ways. And some of them are, I mean, are obvious, but I mean, reading the word and really reading it. I mean, really spending time. You want to know the Lord, then know the words of the Lord. I mean, when people study famous people in the past, I mean, what’s the best thing for them to access? Other books that people have written, or access the material the person themselves has written? I mean, it’s really the material that the person themselves has written. So if you can get access, you know, some of the people they wrote, we send emails, right, but they wrote letters. But if you can get access to those letters, you can find out a whole lot about people. Well, I mean, here’s the letter. Here’s the letter. So we can read it, but not just like that, we can study it. I mean, it is amazing. You can live your entire life and get into your 80s and 90s and you’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the riches that are here. I’m serious. I mean, I continue to be blown away by things that I see in the word. And sometimes I’m like, man, that thing was not there last time I read it. It was there, but God wasn’t ready to show me that, right? But other things, you’re just reading it. I’m like, oh, I never really thought about it from this particular view or angle, right? So then I’m digging in. And sometimes it’s just one verse. But look, when you got like an itch to scratch, I mean, you should scratch that itch. Like if something sticks out to you, you’re not sure. And we have so many resources available to us today. And we’ve got no excuse not to. So you can go online and find all sorts of free commentaries and concordances and all sorts of stuff like that. All right, there’s many good resources. If you need some, let me know, I’ll help you. But many good resources. So I’m talking about studying the Bible, right? Really getting into it. I mean, you should read, and you should read and you should read, and you should have a Bible reading plan, it keeps you on track. But you should also have times where you’re kind of digging into a particular thing. Also, you should read books on the Bible. Some are going to aid you more than others. But you should read books about biblical topics. You’re trying to gain knowledge of the word. You’re trying to gain knowledge of God and his creation. How has he set up his world to run? And let me tell you, if you really want to grow in this area, I mean just read a book on the attributes of God. Read a book on the attributes of God. I mean really, what the one life group was doing, the Knowing God book, I mean that’s basically studying the attributes of God. But if you’re really reading through that, I mean, that will bring you to a greater, I think some versions say, a greater depth of insight in verse 9 here. The more clearly you see God, the more you will come to love him. It’s true. The more clearly you see God, the more you’ll come to love him. I mean, you think if God shows you more of himself and reveals more of himself to you, you’re going to be like, oh, I don’t want that? No, you’re going to be like, I want that. As a believer, you will want more of the Lord. You will want to know him deeper, greater, better, and you will want to see him more clearly. How are we seeing now? 1 Corinthians 13, like through a glass dimly, right? We got brothers and sisters that have gone before us. They’ve passed away. That glass has been removed. They’re seeing face to face. But you know what? We can shine up that glass as best we can to see him as clearly as we can right now. The other thing is this: prayer, coming into the presence of the Lord, not just talking like five minutes a day, that’s great, you should definitely do that, but I’m talking about getting alone with the Lord and really letting him and you commune, fellowship with him, just you and him, spending time in prayer, long time in prayer, okay, not just a few minutes, but you and Jesus spending some time together. But the other thing, and it’s really interesting, is praying with others. Praying with others. There’s something about praying with others that nurtures our relationship with the Lord.
Discernment
So what about this word discernment back in Philippians verse 9. The King James puts the word judgment, NIV uses depth of insight. It has a similar meaning to knowledge, but it is distinct. So Paul’s just not like, oh, I got to have some filler here. No, knowledge and discernment. He uses the word to emphasize that knowledge has practical use in real-world everyday life. So it’s not just meant for theoretical, but it’s meant very much so for practical day-to-day living. Biblical discernment leads to wise thinking, wise choices, and wise living. So it has the knowledge and realizes what the path forward is. This word refers to a spiritual perception, if you will, and one of the meanings that you’ll find in the literature of the time is it was used of hunters when they picked up the scent of the animal that they were tracking. They would discern it. And in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, the term most commonly refers to spiritual or intellectual discernment. So the idea is you have an ability to grasp something mentally with some sort of spiritual consciousness or comprehension. So usually you’re talking about understanding or insight or wisdom. Those things are all kind of together with discernment. Think of what Paul says in Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Right? Discern what is the will of God. You can know it. You can walk in it. That’s the passage earlier in 1 Thessalonians 4. Here is the will of God. He kind of lays it out. Now we have two aspects of God’s will. You have his revealed will and you also have his hidden will. We don’t know his hidden will, but we know his revealed will. His revealed will is the way he wants us to walk before him. His hidden will, you know, might be regarding things of, you know, who’s going to win the next presidential election. Well, we don’t know that. God has a will for it. We don’t know it. Things like that. Well, we want to use discernment, so then, but notice again what is linked with discernment in Romans 12. Don’t be conformed, right? So don’t walk the way the world walks, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God. If we want to have discernment, if we want to walk in discernment, we have to have a renewal going on. We have to have a transformation that occurs. In Ephesians 5, Paul says, “try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” So knowing what to do and how to act in certain situations, essentially like moral discretion. Now sometimes you might be like, I want to love these people and help them out. You know, if something happens to someone or a family’s dealing with something or they’re going through something and you’re, man, I love these people, I want to help them out. But what’s next? Where do you go? Like, have you ever been in a situation where you genuinely wanted to help, but you had no clue what to do? Well, you need discernment. And discernment is the compass that takes knowledge and love, right, those two together, and then it points the way. It’s like a moral compass pointing the way for you. So you have the love and the knowledge and you can look at the situation and rightly discern what to do. You can rightly discern the best path forward.
Now listen, some people have a lot of discernment. They have a lot of discernment. They’re great at it. They’re like wise sages. But why is that? Well, I’m going to put before you three reasons. One, they spend time with Jesus. A lot of time with Jesus. Like a whole lot. Not casually, but seriously. Not lightly, but in depth. They know him, they know his word. If you want discernment, I mean, that’s essential. But two, and this is important, they’ve been around others. They’ve been around others and learned from them. You know, one of the things, if you go most counseling graduate degrees, if you’re going through counseling, one of the things they make you do as you’re learning how to counsel, what do they do? They put you in the office with another counselor for you to observe how he counsels or how she counsels. Well, it’s very similar with discernment. You’re around people and you see them exercising discernment, people who have discernment and they are good at exercising it. Hang around them and you see, wow, okay, how did they handle this situation? What did they do with this situation? This is a tough situation. How did they work their way through it? And you learn from them. You glean from their knowledge and you learn from them. So they’ve been in the trenches. It’s just that simple. They’ve been in the trenches, and these people have the scars of battle. So they’ve been in challenging situations, and sometimes they’ve made bad calls. And sometimes they’ve made poor choices. And so they’ve learned from the school of hard knocks, if you will. They’ve learned. They’ve had to work through painful situations. And they can reflect back, okay, next time I need to go this way. They didn’t realize that at the time, but God was training them. He’s training them. He was sharpening them. He was helping them. He was growing them in their discernment. So listen, most people, most people think they do pretty good with love. Seriously. Most people think they do pretty good loving others. And most people think they do pretty good with knowledge. If you’ve been saved more than five or 10 years, you think you’re pretty knowledgeable. And most people think they’re just fine with discernment. Let me tell you, discernment is at an all-time low. I mean, it couldn’t be lower. Well, it probably could be. But, that’s pretty low. I mean, it’s like low, low. And listen, it blows my mind that God has given some people great discernment, and other people don’t even think about asking for their advice or input. I mean, we’ve been blessed, you know. We want to have a multi-generational church. One of the blessings of that is the younger can seek out the wisdom of the older. So it blows my mind God has given some people great discernment, and just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’re wise, okay? I mean, hopefully you are, it’s true. But you got to keep growing as well regardless of your age. But knowledge, like it’s kind of a knowledge thing that you would seek out people wiser than you and more discerning than you to help you out in situations. Right? So if you’re not doing that, it actually shows you’re lacking in the knowledge. Because if you had it, you’d know the importance of seeking out godly counsel. You’d know that’s what the word says. There’s safety in a multitude of counselors, Proverbs says. So it’s like some people say to themselves, well I have this super huge, greatly important decision to make and I’ll make it on my own. That’s foolish. That’s foolish. That’s not wisdom. That’s foolishness.
And it’s very interesting. The best commentary on the New Testament is the Old Testament. And one theologian I follow, he’s working on this project, it’s probably accessible in various forms, but he’s working on this project, they’ve done it with different books, but he’s working on this project where every single verse of the New Testament they’re linking with what it references in the Old Testament, whatever verse it references or story it references in the Old Testament. And you’re thinking like, you take a book like Titus, right? Not a very big book. Like, oh, how many Old Testament references are there? And I think he had like 59. Yeah? Right? Matthew, I believe it was over 500 references to the Old Testament. So they’re working on this project where they’re going to make it accessible to people, and oh, you’re reading, and I mean so there’s references all over the place, brothers and sisters, we’re just missing it a lot because we don’t know our Old Testament. I think like two-thirds of the verses are referencing something in the Old Testament. So if you don’t know your Old Testament you don’t got a chance. But what we’re seeing is like Paul was so filled by the Spirit and God was speaking through him, right? That there’s just this Old Testament weaving right into the New Testament. So there’s not like this, oh, broken divide. No, there is this influence of the Old Testament. It’s all God’s word. That’s why. So yes, the Old Testament is influencing the New Testament. So the best commentary on the New Testament is the Old Testament. The best commentary on the Greek New Testament is actually the Greek Old Testament, called the Septuagint. All these verses and proverbs you can go and look when it talks about knowledge, sometimes that word is not actually the first word here in Philippians, the knowledge word, epignosis is the Greek, but it’s actually the discernment word. So they saw knowledge being linked even then with discernment. You want knowledge, you got to have discernment. You want discernment, you got to have knowledge. Like, you can’t have one without the other. You have to have the knowledge first. So you have a verse like, “The wise,” Proverbs 10, “lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.” Well, that’s really referencing the discernment. “The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge,” Proverbs 15, “but the mouth of fools feeds on folly.” Okay, so you have understanding, yet you have that wisdom, you’ve gained that knowledge, but you want to seek more out. In this case, it would be you’re seeking out the discernment. Like sometimes, you have a decision to make, and it’s between better and best. I mean, sometimes it’s very clear. God’s word is very clear. Sometimes it’s like, what is the best path forward in this particular situation. Yes, you can’t choose the sin, but sometimes you have decisions put before you. You have to make a decision. And you’re trying to use what? You’re trying to use discernment. So you should be praying and asking God to give you insight in that. But you’re seeking out the wisdom of others. Hey, I’m in this situation, what is your counsel? What is your counsel? And God has, don’t think you’re the only one that’s like God’s gift to mankind, okay? He’s gifted other people, some in greater measure than you, to help you walk through life. We’re not meant to walk through this life alone. So you have to be willing to humble yourself and go seek out that counsel.
Think about, let’s just look at Acts 17. I’m going to wrap it up here in a few minutes, probably. Acts 17, verse 10: “The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” Right, so they received the word, unlike the Jews in Thessalonica. They received the word, they’re excited about it, and then what do they do? They’re examining what? The Scriptures to see if what Paul and others were saying was accurate or not. Did it line up with the Scriptures? But what are they trying to use? They’re trying to use discernment. They’re trying to figure out is what they’re saying lining up here. So they get the word, it looks like they receive it. A lot of times that word receive, you know, it talks about they received the word, it actually is like they got saved. So they received the word with all eagerness. They’re excited about it. You should be excited. But then what do they do? Examining the Scriptures daily. You know, as they’re being taught, like they’re looking at what the word says. They just had the Old Testament, right? That’s what they’re looking at. That’s what they’re studying. So, knowledge and discernment. They’re gaining that knowledge, but they’re trying to exercise discernment. Look at 1 John 4. 1 John 4, verse 1: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” What does it say? Test it. Don’t believe every spirit. Test the spirits. There’s some different blogs out there, and they kind of follow different things and show errors in different ministries and things like that. I don’t know what they call themselves, but they’re like discernment blogs essentially. Don’t believe every spirit. And you watch some of these things, you’re like, I cannot believe people are believing that. You’re like, really? Well, why? Because they’re believing every spirit. Every little spirit that comes along, oh yeah, I like that and I like that and that sounds good and I like that. No, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” No one raises their hand and says, I want to be deceived, but many are. Stick to the word. Stick to the word. So you can’t test that which you’re unaware of. You need knowledge. If you want to test the spirits, you got to have knowledge about the spirits. Right? You have to have knowledge to test. So knowledge without, [audio unclear] of how flippant people are with demons. I’m like, dude, demons are real. There’s a real spiritual world going on out there. And you think of that story in Acts, right? Where they’re like, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize,” right? And then what happens? Like this possessed man jumps on top of these guys. Like there’s a spiritual world out there. So knowledge without discernment, these people, they know the demons are real but they don’t have the discernment to realize how serious it is and not easily trifled with. Test the spirits. Don’t believe every spirit.
What about Solomon? You know, God appears to Solomon. And what does he say? He’s like, hey, what do you want? Right? “Ask what I shall give you,” 1 Kings 3. What does Solomon say? “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind.” Right? And what does the Lord do? He gives it to him, he answers the prayer and gives it to him in abundance and adds on top of that riches. As you say, hey, because you didn’t ask for it, I’m going to give you a whole lot of it and people will be talking about you for a long time, and here we are still talking about him. So he gives it to him in abundance, adds on top of that riches. Listen, that’s been one of my prayers, like Lord, basically Solomon’s prayer, like give me wisdom and [audio unclear] Listen, we want to be people that as we’re growing in our faith, as we [audio unclear] So if we want to talk about inconsistencies in that. [audio unclear] generations and generations and generations ago. From the beginning of time, he has founded the earth and his truth has not changed. So we don’t wake up tomorrow and be like, we change things? That’s what those churches do. What’s the new thing that we need to change? No one was talking about transgender stuff 40 or 50 years ago. Now they’re all talking about it because that’s the new rage. No, we’re going to stick with what God laid out in his word thousands of years ago, because the culture does not know God. They don’t fear God. They have no fear of God. But guess what, brothers and sisters, that’s the culture that definitely and desperately needs God. And that’s where we come in. We’re like the anchor. We’re an anchor. They’re all being tossed about. God’s given us to be the anchor. We can anchor them to the truth. Something to keep them from rolling all about. Right there, the anchor. You need an anchor. You need an anchor. I saw this gigantic ship, I think it was actually yesterday, this Mexican gigantic ship with the Mexican Navy was going along and crashed because something went wrong with the engine. I mean, crashed into one of the bridges up in New York. Brooklyn, I believe, right? Where was the anchor? Where was the anchor? Like, just put the anchor down, right? You need to put the anchor. If the engine goes, put the anchor. Why? That grounds you, literally. It grounds you. Well, listen, that’s how we are for a dying world. Like they’re all floating around and being tossed. Like we can be an anchor to them because Christ is an anchor to us. He grounds us in what is true and faithful and right. We can come along and share that truth with others. We can be bold and we should and speak the truth. No fear of man. We’re supposed to fear God, not man. How do we do that? Yes, we need knowledge and we need the discernment. So the love is abounding, is growing, and that gets put together with the knowledge. And then as we’re pursuing that, guess what? We continue to grow in discernment as well. It is possible to grow and grow and grow and become a mature believer. And that’s what God wants for us. Right? And if you’ve been saved for five years, you know, you shouldn’t be wearing spiritual diapers anymore, right? I mean if your five-year-old’s wearing diapers, that’s not a good thing. If your ten-year-old’s wearing diapers, that’s not a good thing. And what does it say in Hebrews? Well, I wanted to give you some tougher teaching, but you really can’t handle it. So I’m going to have to water it down again for you. Right? No, I want us to be at a place where we can continue to receive from the Lord. He can continue to challenge us. We can continue to receive it. He is getting us ready for many things that lay ahead. All of us, all of us have trials ahead. He’s preparing us for the temptations that have come so that we can say no to them. He’s preparing us for the day of victory. That is his. He is coming very soon. We want to be prepared. We’re called to disciple who? Matthew 28. Who are we supposed to disciple? The nations. Think about that just for a minute. In the Old Testament, what was the promise? There’s the land, little geographical land. I mean, it’s okay, decent size, right? But it was the land. But what happens in the New Testament? It’s not just go conquer the land, it’s go conquer the nations. How do we conquer them? With the gospel. The gospel of truth has slain many men’s hearts. So we have a much bigger scope, and everything lays out there for us. By God’s mercy and grace, it is there for the taking. What does Jesus say? The harvest is what? Plentiful. The harvest is plentiful. The wheat fields are out there, just waiting to be harvested. So what do we do? We walk in the love and the knowledge and use discernment as we reach out to them. We do that abiding in faith by the grace of God for his glory. Let’s pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, continue to grow in us more and more your love, that we would have a love for you that grows and we would have a love for others that grows. Lord, there would be a knowledge that we would come into a deeper and a greater understanding of who you are. And Lord, give us discernment to know the path to take, the wise choices we want to make. Not just good choices, but the best choices, Lord. Give us discernment to walk in wisdom before you. We can’t do that on our own strength. We can’t do that on our own knowledge. So help us, Father. You are more than sufficient for these things. So do that by your grace, we pray. Amen.