Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Where Love Leads – Philippians 1:10-11

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Philippians 1:9–11

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

(Philippians 1:9–11)

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray. Father, help us to keep our attention on you, keep our affections on you, keep our focus on you. Help us to come humbly before you, Lord, and receive from you this morning. We thank you for the privilege of lifting up your name and exalting it. We thank you for the privilege that we have a communion with you, a fellowship, a koinonia with you and with your Son and with your Spirit. And we thank you that we have the same with one another, with all the nations. Lord, we pray for Raymond and Leanne Cook, their kids, God, as they are on mission in Asia, God, that you would continue to have them put their hand to the plow and not look back, that you continue to have them be faithful in their ministry. We thank you, Lord, that they have heard from you, received the call, and gone forth. So bless their efforts as they translate your word into a foreign tongue. And we know your word does its work. It always does. It always will. So we pray that for the people that they’ll be ministering to and reaching out to. That churches would be planted, that lives would be changed, that salvation would come to those people. Put your hand of blessing upon the Cooks, God, and continue to have your favor be with them. Lord, we thank you that we have your word in our native tongue, that we can see it, we can read it, we can hear it. So may we receive it as you fully intended, the word of God, and then may we act on it. We pray these things for your glory. Amen.

Approve What Is Excellent

Okay, we’ve been looking at verse 9 where it talks about love abounding more and more, and so we’ve been looking at, hey, what does that love look like, and what does love with knowledge and discernment do? And what good is it? What’s its purpose? So let’s just do a short overview of these three verses, 9, 10, and 11. And this is Paul’s prayer for the Philippians. First, that their love would overflow in knowledge and discernment. But where does that overflowing love go? Well, it brings them to a place where we see in verse 10 where they can approve what is excellent. Then we’re going to look at today, specifically where this love leads us. That’s going to lead us to approving what is excellent, to being pure and blameless for the day of Christ, and then that leads to being filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.

Let’s talk about this word approve for a moment in verse 10. We’ve already covered love, we’re going to briefly touch on it again, but let’s talk about this word approve. I think the NIV uses the word discern. The verb has kind of two senses. The first is used for assaying metals. You know what it means to assay a metal? You don’t, that’s okay. That’s why I’m here. You determine the quality of the metal. You determine the identity of the metal. You figure out, hey, is there a precious metal here? We’re going to look at it, we’re going to test it. We’re going to see what it is. Then we’re going to figure out if the metal is a metal that’s worth anything. So that’s assaying metals. That’s one aspect of that word here for the word approve. You could actually translate it like test, test what is excellent. The second meaning refers to the act of testing something for the purpose of approving it. It was used, and this is interesting, for the standing of candidates for the degree of doctor of medicine who had passed their examinations. So they were certified physicians. So here the word refers to the ability of the saints. So you get your doctorate, then you go through a testing. If you’ve ever heard about a dissertation, okay, so if you get your master’s, you have a thesis. Sometimes you have to defend the thesis. Sometimes you actually don’t have to defend the thesis. But if you have a doctorate, those are dissertations. The dissertation, you have to defend. And if you have a proper defense of it, so what are they doing? They’re examining you. They’re testing you. They’re wanting to approve that all the knowledge and all the things and all the training, it’s been a good thing and you can do it. So same thing with the doctors of medicine. There’s an examination. They have to go through a training period. They’re usually assigned to a practice where they’re under the tutelage of another doctor. They’re learning different things. Then if they specialize, they really have to go through some training. Well here the word refers to the ability of the saints. This is really the application: to sift or test a certain thing and its worth. So put their stamp of approval upon it is the idea. You’ve tested it, and you approve it, and you’re like, that’s a good thing. Think about what 1 Corinthians 12 says, verse 31: “But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.” Now that’s the very last verse of 1 Corinthians 12. Well, what is 1 Corinthians 13 all about? Love, right? It’s the love chapter. So he says, earnestly desire the higher gifts. 1 Corinthians 12 is all about the spiritual gifts. He says, earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you still a more excellent way. Well, what are the higher gifts we find out? The highest is what? Is love. So the focus of the next chapter is love. Love is the more excellent way. That’s what he shows them. I’m going to show you a more excellent way. What’s that excellent way? It’s love. But here’s the thing. It’s not an untethered love. It’s not untethered. It’s anchored. What anchors it? Ultimately, the love of Christ, but it’s anchored with knowledge and discernment. So then he says in 1 Corinthians 13, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” What do we see in 1 Thessalonians 5? “Test everything,” we’re told, real short command there, but test everything. Test everything, and then it says, “hold fast what is good.” Look at Romans chapter 2 just for a moment, because we’re going to see the same phrase used in Romans 2. Slightly different context, but same meaning. We’re going to start in verse 17, Romans 2:

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

(Romans 2:17–22)

So here, there’s an aspect here of what? Not just knowing, it talks about the knowledge of the truth, having the embodiment of it. So not just knowing the law, but actually following out and doing. Not just speaking, oh, don’t commit adultery, but actually not doing it. Not talking about stealing and saying, yeah, we shouldn’t steal, that’s not a good thing, but actually follow through and not stealing, and on and on. The point in the Romans passage is what? Approve what is excellent, yes, but then do it. There has to be action. There has to be action. So approve what is excellent. Listen, different loves drive us different places. They drive us different places. So love is like a car, it takes us places. Disordered loves will take us to sinful places. So love with knowledge and discernment, it’s going to drive us somewhere. It will take us somewhere. And it’s going to be a good place if it’s biblical love with knowledge and discernment. So a grounded love will lead you somewhere. Well, guess what? An ungrounded love will also lead you somewhere. And where is it going to lead? To bad places. Different loves ground you in certain truths and lead you to certain truths or falsehoods.

Tethered Love and First Love

You can have an eros love. Nothing wrong with eros love, rightly grounded, right? And what’s the grounding of it? It’s in marriage, right? That’s the proper setting for eros love, is marriage and only marriage. It’s okay to have an eros love in the context of marriage. Outside of marriage, it’s untethered. It misleads you. It takes you down the path of destruction. What about a storge love? You’ve maybe not heard of that before, but that’s a love between a parent and a child, the storge love. Well, that means it means training them. It means instructing them in the word. It means teaching them basic life skills. It means instructing them in the ways of Jesus. You love them. You want to see them succeed. You want to see them go far. I mean, even things like just basic life skills. That’s part of it. You love your kids, so you want to train them in how to do life, right? I mean, you have all this experience as a parent, and what is part of your hope, that you can help, maybe, lead and guide them to avoid some of the pitfalls that you fall into. And what sometimes happens with kids, that they got to make those decisions, right? And they reject the counsel. They think they know a better way, or they don’t want to go with it. But some of it is we’re just teaching our kids how to live life in God’s world. It’s interesting, they did, 800 employers were interviewed recently about job interviews that they did with college graduates. You’re not going to believe some of this stuff. So they interviewed 800 employers. One of the first things was struggled with eye contact. Did they struggle with eye contact? 53% of these, the 800 employers said in the job interview of college graduates, the college graduates struggled just with basic eye contact. Just looking away and not engaging. Asking for unreasonable compensation, 50 percent. Dressed inappropriately, 47 percent. I mean, you have a college graduate, you’re applying for a job. I mean, how are you showing up? You would think, you know, you’re going to wear, you know, some nice khakis and a dress shirt or something, you know, right? But 47 percent, dressed inappropriately. 27% used inappropriate language. I’m just like, wow. I mean, would you even dream of doing that at a job interview? Apparently 27% of people will. This one really got me. Refuse to turn on a camera during a virtual interview. 21%. Like you’re interviewing for a job and they asked you to turn on the camera, you won’t turn it on. Brought a parent to their interview. 19 percent. Not like dropping them off or waiting in the lobby or something like that. No, they’re in the interview. I mean, this is just like basic life skill stuff, right? Like, I blame the parents. Like, help your kids out just with basic life living. So, you know, most parents, all parents probably just about, they have a storge love. They love their children. But what happens? That storge love, even that storge love, it can be untethered. It can go in awful directions. It can go in bad directions. Their children fall into sin. What do the parents do? They excuse it, right? They excuse it. They deny it. They run interference. I mean, you see this sometimes when a child comes out as gay. And until then, the parents believed homosexuality was wrong, and they stood on the word of God, and then one of their children comes out as gay. And what have you seen time and time and time again? All of a sudden, the parents’ view on homosexuality changes. They’re loving their kids with an untethered storge. Really they’re loving their kids more than they’re loving God. There’s no knowledge and discernment there. That’s not approving what is excellent. Now, you have to take these situations and you have to test them. Find out what metal is there. So any love, it has to have knowledge and discernment. I mean, this is what Jesus is talking about when he says the gospel is going to divide families. Matthew 10:37: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” That’s Jesus’ words. You got to decide. You have to actually, in order to best love your parents or your children or your spouse, you actually have to love Jesus first. You have to love him first. And then that actually allows you to best love your parents, your children, your spouse. Earlier, Jesus says, again in Matthew 10:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

(Matthew 10:34–36)

You’re like, well, I thought in Luke, in the birth narrative it says, peace on earth. Yes, that’s true. But Jesus is saying here, if you choose him, it’s going to cost you. And if you choose him, guess what? You’re going to be in a place where you’re going to have to choose mother or father or Jesus. Who’s going to get the supremacy? Who’s going to get the first choice? The same with children. Who’s going to get the first choice? Who’s going to get the first love? It has to be Jesus. It has to be Jesus. A person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Some of you have experienced that. You have to keep choosing Jesus. All right, do you love Jesus and his ways more? Or do you love your child more and his ways more? Or your parents or your spouse. No, Jesus has to be the first love. So we need to approve what is excellent, but then really then we have to pursue what is excellent. We can approve all sorts of excellent things, but then we have to pursue excellence. This means a transformed mind. Some people say, I lust a lot, or I’m angry a lot, or I say curse words. I mean, that stuff has to stop. You have to approve what is excellent and then you have to pursue excellence. It’s one thing to be like, yeah, those are bad things and I do them. Like, really? No. Those are bad things, so I’m not going to do them. These are good things and I’m going to do them and I’m going to pursue them because I want to pursue the righteousness of Christ. So pursue excellence. We need a transformed mind. It’s not acceptable to have sin in your life that you routinely commit over and over and over and over. It’s just not. Don’t make excuses about it. Make progress. Look a couple of chapters later in Philippians in chapter 4. Look what he says here. 4, verse 8. “Finally, brothers,” he’s starting to wrap up the letter. We’ll expressly get there in about six months or a year. But:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

(Philippians 4:8)

I mean, so you think about those things. You think about the honorable things. You think about the just things. You think about the true things. That’s what you’re dwelling on. That sets your heart at a place to pursue the excellence. So love with knowledge and discernment, it leads you somewhere. Where does it lead? Well, to this, to excellence, to righteousness, to renewal. You come to a place where you can approve what is excellent and then you can actually do it. Think about this. You dwell on ugliness, what do you get? I mean, ugliness. You dwell on sad thoughts, what do you get? You get depression. You dwell on hurt, what do you get? You get angry and bitter. Those aren’t the things we’re supposed to dwell on. Those aren’t the things we’re supposed to be thinking about all the time, they shouldn’t consume us. We let them sometimes consume us, but we know what the fruit is. It’s not good fruit. So we don’t dwell on the ugliness, we don’t dwell on the sad thoughts, we don’t dwell on the hurt. These things aren’t excellent. We want to dwell on the things that are excellent. So we test the metal, so to speak, and if it’s a good metal, we choose that metal. You test it and, oh man, that’s gold. Well, you’re going to take the gold, right? You test it and it’s some fool’s gold, some fake gold, something not really worth anything. No, you reject that. It’s not worth your time. So again, the idea isn’t just to test, it’s not just to observe, not just to make notes, not just to come to conclusions about that particular thing, it’s to do it. Do it.

Pursue Excellence and Bear Fruit

Then we want to develop the fruit. Look back in Philippians chapter 1. There’s a train of thought going here. So we have verse 9, the love abounds more and more. It needs to have an anchoring in knowledge and discernment. What does that lead to? Oh, we can approve what is excellent. What does that lead to? We can be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Then where does that take us? Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. You ever heard the term fruit set? It’s a process in which flowers become fruit and potential fruit size is determined. Fruit set. I mean, it’s not just like all of a sudden boom, oh, there’s the grape or there’s the apple, right? It’s like in its infancy. That’s fruit set. The process in which flowers become fruit, fruit size is determined. Listen, it is normal for a large portion of flowers to fail and fall and never become fruit, even under the optimum conditions. So yes, like we’re blooming, but we want fruit. We want fruit. You know pretty flowers are nice to look at. You know you go to the Botanical Garden, all sorts of pretty flowers, but fruit nourishes and feeds. So you want to have fruit in your life. That’s what Jesus is saying here. Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. That word filled, that’s a passive participle there indicating that the one doing the filling is not you. It’s Jesus. And in this specific case, it tells us that comes through Jesus Christ. What does John 15 say? “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Without me, what? We can do nothing. We can do nothing. So the fruit comes from Jesus. How do we have the fruit? We have to abide in the vine. You’re in the vine, then the flowers are going to become fruit. You’re out on your own, then the flowers are going to fall to the ground. It’s not going to be fruitful. So it’s by his strength and grace that we are enabled. The fruit comes from Jesus. 2 Timothy 2:1: “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” He is the one that strengthens us. He is the one that produces the fruit. He’s the one that fills us. Ephesians 3:16: “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being.” Both those verses, 2 Timothy 2:1, Ephesians 3:16, again, they’re both in the passive, indicating that we’re not the ones doing the action. Who is it? It’s the Father, it’s the Son, it’s the Spirit. They’re doing the action. They’re the ones strengthening us. By grace, they’re strengthening us. That’s why you get verses like James 3:18, a harvest of righteousness. That’s what we’re looking for. Right? I want a harvest of righteousness. Some of us might not be. Maybe we’re harvesting unrighteousness. No, “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” So we’re walking in his ways, peace. Proverbs 11:30: “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.” So you’ve got fruit, and what is that fruit? It’s a tree of life to other people. They see that fruit, they’re blessed by the fruit. They’re blessed by it. They get to eat from that. They get the privilege of you ministering to them, of speaking truth to them, of being like Christ to them. You’re using your spiritual gifts from 1 Corinthians 12 that it talks about. And what is it? The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. Well, what if you don’t have fruit? What kind of tree are you? It’s not going to be very good, right? It’s going to be a barren tree. Listen, brothers and sisters, a man can’t give you this fruit that we’re looking at here, filled with the fruit of righteousness. A mere man can’t give you this fruit. I mean, consider that for a moment. No. Who can give you the fruit though? Jesus, because he’s the God-man. You wouldn’t want to depend on any mere mortal man to try to give you something that only God himself can give you.

And we see this immediately in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew knows, I mean he was with Jesus, he knows Jesus is not just a man and he knows he’s not just any man. And Matthew, I mean literally just listen to the very couple words of the very first verse of the very first chapter. Let us know if you know your Bibles at all that what Matthew is laying out is pretty serious and pretty important. He says, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” You’re like, well why is that important? Well I mean he’s going to lay out and talk about Jesus and he’s going to start giving his genealogy. But what’s interesting, in the Greek Old Testament, this is how Genesis 5:1 begins, the same exact phrasing. “This is the book of the genealogy of humanity.” And then what do we find? Oh, it’s the history of Adam, right? It’s the history of Adam. And what was David McNeil preaching on last week? There’s the first Adam and the second Adam. And Matthew is saying, hey, that first Adam, yeah, he has a genealogy. But guess what? The second Adam has one as well, and it’s more important. Even if you go back three chapters in Genesis, Genesis 2, this is the book of the genealogy of heaven and earth, of heaven and earth. And what’s Matthew saying? Yes, there’s the first Adam and we have a second Adam. And he’s saying, this is just as important as the creation of the world and even more so. It’s more important than the history of man. It is the history of the God-man. And what is Matthew about? The God-man. What a way to begin a gospel. Matthew knew what he was doing. And you have a Trinitarian theology present. I mean it’s all through the Scriptures, we’ve looked at it, but it’s all through there. But you know the oldest known Christian hymn goes way before the Council of Nicaea. The oldest Christian hymn goes back 1,800 years outside of the Scripture. There’s some hymns in here actually, but outside of the Scriptures goes back 1,800 years. They’re actually putting it, they just put it to lyrics recently. We’re going to play it after the service, you can listen to it. It’s the hymn, it was found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, preserved on a, you know, little Greek, you know, sliver of paper, dating back to around 250 AD, decades before the Council of Nicaea. It’s one of the earliest pieces of Christian music ever discovered. Listen to the words: “Let all be silent, the shining stars not sound forth, all rushing rivers be stilled as we sing our hymn to the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. As all powers cry out and answer, Amen, Amen. Might, praise, and glory forever to our God, the only giver of all good gifts.” I mean, notice the structure. Notice the structure, the hymn is sung to the Father, Son, and Spirit. So they’re praising the Trinity, three persons. But then it says, towards the end, it praises and glorifies our God, the only giver, one God. So three persons, but only one giver of all good gifts. Sound familiar? I mean, this hymn shows that the early Christians were worshiping the triune God long before any church council came along. And the two hundreds, I mean, that’s just the date of the hymn. So unless we imagine that this is the first time they start getting together to worship the Trinity, the hymn reflects far more ancient beliefs, which makes sense, because it would come from the word. So Christians wrote hymns about the Trinity because they had already long believed in the Trinity. As one Bible scholar notes, what is notable is the certainty with which the song presents the Trinity, although it predates by generations the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. He continues on, this is the doctrine of the Trinity, and you sometimes hear that the idea was only invented much later, saying 325 at the Council of Nicaea, when Emperor Constantine forced this doctrine on the church. But the thing is, here is the idea in a song from the previous century. Chris Tomlin took these words and put them to music. The first song once the service ends, the first song that you hear, that’s the song using these lyrics. Brothers and sisters, I mean, this is Jesus. This is Jesus, right? [audio unclear] with the Father and with the Son. You can commune, as Steve was talking about, you can commune with the Son. You don’t need an intermediary. You don’t have to go through Mary. You don’t have to offer incense. You don’t have to slaughter a bull. No, you can commune with him right now. You can commune with the Son. He is the one who fills you. So we should worship him. We should serve him. We should love him. Our love, yes, should very much be tethered to him. That’s where the anchor should be.

To the Glory and Praise of God

So what’s the final result of approving what is excellent and being filled with the fruit of righteousness? Well, we see it there in verse 11 at the end, to the glory and praise of God. What’s the result? We glorify the Lord. God is glorified. Look, when his children walk in righteousness, God is glorified. What’s the chief end of man? Yes, to glorify God. Our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. So you have the communion, you’re enjoying your relationship with him anytime, anyplace, anywhere, you have that communion. So our chief end is to glorify him. That’s where everything in verses 9, 10, and 11 leads us to, to the glory and praise of God. That’s our number one goal, our number one goal. So we want to live a life that glorifies the Lord in all aspects. That’s why we want to approve what is excellent, right? We’re testing it. We’re seeing if it’s good, and then we want to do those things. And then the fruit, you know, the flowering is turning into real fruit, and it’s growing. It’s not falling to the ground. And what’s that result in? Glorifying the Lord. He gets the glory through that. Look at 1 Peter 4, verse 10:

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

(1 Peter 4:10–11)

So 1 Corinthians 12 talks about spiritual gifts, but also here 1 Peter 4. This is another passage talking about the spiritual gifts. So you get the one who serves, right? I mean, that’s a gift. The one who speaks, speaking, teaching, or exhortation, those are gifts. What is it driving at? That in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. And even notice, by the strength that God supplies. We’ve already looked at the Ephesians passage and the Timothy passage, right? God is the one who supplies it. He gives us the strength to endure. God is giving you a gift. Are you using it to the best of your ability? I was talking to someone, and maybe I even shared this recently, so forgive me if I did, but I was talking to someone recently. And so, I mean, God’s given me the gift of teaching. Guess what? I want to make sure I use that gift as much as I possibly can in all reasonableness. So for me, I made a commitment to the Lord years ago. Like if I got an opportunity, all things being equal, if I got an opportunity to speak somewhere, I was going to take it. I was going to take it. Yeah, it’s going to probably be an inconvenience. Yeah, it’s going to take extra time. Yeah, maybe I might not particularly enjoy that particular venue. Maybe it’s not even my favorite topic to speak on. But who cares? I’ve been given a gift and I’m going to, I’m going to stand before the Lord someday and he’s going to be like, what’d you do with the one or the three or the five talents? What’d you do with the gift I gave you? Well, I want to be able to say, hey, every opportunity that you gave me, I took it. I took it, I prepared my best, I worked, I prayed, and I gave it my best. Right? So he’s giving me this gift. Like a lot of people are like, I’d give anything for that gift. Well, a lot of people say that, but then, but then God’s giving you a gift. And some people would give anything for your gift. What are you doing with your gift? What are you doing with it? We got to exercise it. We got to use it. So yeah, here, a couple are mentioned, speaking, an oracle. That could be exhortation. That could be teaching, serving. That’s broad. But I mean, serving. I mean, that should be the life of a Christian. But some people specifically have that gifting, and they’re great servants. But what are we doing? Because I want to bring the Lord glory. Here, I’m just following, brothers and sisters, what this verse says, right? The one who speaks oracles of God, whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God. By the strength God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified. I want him to be glorified through my speaking. Well, guess what? When I get opportunities to speak, I’m going to try to take those. I can’t remember if I’ve ever turned one down. The only time I would, like if I’m on vacation, you’re asking me to speak, it’s probably not going to work out. All right? So in all reasonableness, that’s what I mean. But I had a fellow pastor. And one of the reasons I like with the Foundations Conference, we’re bringing in speakers from outside. We’re trying to get different pastors. But I’m talking to one pastor. And I was like, hey, would you be interested in speaking at our Foundations Conference? And guess what his response was? That’s really not my thing. I was like, teaching is not your thing? If you’re busy, one person, I mean, last year, it wasn’t reasonable. They wanted to speak. They’re going to hopefully speak this year. It wasn’t reasonable for them last year. But when I reached out, I’m like, next year, count me in. They want to use their gift. But for a pastor to say, that’s not my thing, I was like, I don’t know what your thing is then. Seriously, you’re to shepherd and to teach. I mean, those are kind of the two primary things. So, I mean, it doesn’t matter. Like, I think a lot of people think like the Lord only gave him one talent. If I’m being serious, like, you know, like I only got one, it’s not that great. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what he gave you if it’s one or three or five. But the point of the parable is what? Whatever he gave you, what are you supposed to do? Use it. You’re supposed to use it. All right, so maybe you do have the one. I don’t know. He’s the one that only gave you the one. He’s not going to be like, I only gave you one. I can’t believe it. No. He wants to know what you did with the one. What did you do with the one? That’s what he wants to know. That’s what he’s going to, you’re going to have an account for, like, how did you use it? Well, I want to be able to say, I used it to the best of my ability, the opportunities you gave me. So whatever your gifting is, every believer has a gifting, at least one. So you’ve been given that talent, so to speak. You need to make sure that you are using that every opportunity you get. In all reasonableness, but every opportunity you should be exercising that gift. Why? Because your heart is to glorify the Lord. Right here we’re being told in 1 Peter 4 what happens, that in everything, but what is being specifically mentioned, the gifts. 1 Corinthians 12, what’s being mentioned, the gifts, then you go into 13, love. The point is you have to have love as you exercise those gifts. Same thing here, but it’s to glorify the Lord, to bring him the glory. It’s not about us, right? Right, it’s not about us, right? Okay, it’s about him. So we glorify him. God is glorified. So it means all aspects of our life, in everything God is glorified. So we’re using our gifts, we’re ministering to others, we’re helping others out, we’re standing firm on the truth, we’re sharing our faith. It’s 1 Corinthians 10. Paul’s already prepping them for 12 and 13, but 1 Corinthians 10: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” So whatever we do, glorifying God is the focus. Whatever we do. Whatever we do, glorifying God is [audio unclear] with his righteousness [audio unclear] about it. We want what Jesus can do for us and give us and bless us. I, I, know everything. [audio unclear]

Whatever it is that we have to lay down, whatever it is that we have to sacrifice, whatever it is we have to repent of, we need to. That puts us in a place to approve what is excellent. Because sin clouds the mind, it clouds the mind. If you’re walking in sin, you’ve been duped, you’ve been deceived, you can’t see clearly. What happens? The sin gets wiped away, you repent of it, you’re walking in righteousness. Yeah, and it’s like the fog dissipates. Because that’s what happens. You can start to see and you start to have a knowledge that’s what? Oh, a knowledge that has love at its foundation. A discernment that has love at its foundation. And then you can rightly, as Hebrews talks about, rightly divide the word of truth, walking in his ways and giving him the glory. So let’s walk in his ways. Let’s seek to approve what is excellent and then do those excellent things. Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Father, I ask that you would wipe away any unrighteousness in our hearts, that any of us need to confess sin now before you, that we may be dead to it and we would get right with you, we would repent of it, we would put your ways before our ways. And we thank you, Lord, that you give us your love, that helps us to love rightly. You give us a love that is anchored in you, the triune God. And so we can walk in that with knowledge and discernment. We can have things come our way, we can figure out by your Spirit, we can approve what is excellent. And then by your strength, we can do those things and we can abound and abound and abound because of who you are. So Lord, let us live lives that glorify you, that lift up your name as holy and shine the light on you, God. You deserve all the glory, all the praise, all the honor. Amen.