Paul's Prayer for the Philippians

Well, let's take our Bible. Let's turn to Philippians chapter 1. Of course, we're going to be in verses 9 to 11. We are in our series through the book of Philippians, and the title of that series is, "The Joy of the Lord in All Themes." And I dealt with the theme of the book and how I approached the theme of the book last week, and also in our first message. You can go get that if you have not gotten that. But tonight, we're still in this first section of teaching in chapter 1, and the first section is verses 3 to verse 11. Now, in some of your own reading, you may see that there are some who keep all of these verses together.

But you may see that there are some commentators or writers or scholars that will divide them. Those that divide these verses say that verses 3 to 8 are all about Paul's joy and thankfulness for their fellowship. And they go on to say that verses 9 to 11 are all about Paul's specific prayer for the Philippians. Now, for me, I think that these verses should be kept together. But we also must see that Paul had two purposes in these verses. From verses 3 to 8, Paul's purpose was to express his thankfulness and joy for their true fellowship. That's what we studied last week.

And then from verses 9 to 11, Paul's purpose was to express his prayer for the Philippians. That's where we are this week. Now, I want us to see how these verses are divided, but I also want us to see how they should be kept together, how they're connected. In verses 3 to 4, Paul wrote that he was thankful to God as he remembered them. He goes on to say that always in every prayer for them, he made his prayer with joy. Remember those verses? But he does not mention the specifics of this prayer until verses 9 to 11. Simply verses 9 to 11 are all about the specific things that Paul prayed for that he mentioned back in verses 3 to 4.

Now, before we get into Paul's prayer, verses 9 to 11, for the Philippians, we must see that Paul prayed much, much different than we normally do. Now, I'm not talking about his posture in prayer. I'm not talking about how long he prayed or how short he prayed, none of those kind of things. I'm talking about what he prayed for as he prayed for the Philippians. You see, for us today, when we think of praying for one another, more than likely we think of praying for physical needs. I'll give you an example. I'm going to give us an update on Evan and Devon and baby Allie Jones. Many of you already know what's going on there.

We have some legitimate physical needs to pray for, and that's good. Sometimes we have serious sickness that we pray for. Sometimes folks are dealing with things like jobs. Sometimes folks are dealing with family issues. There's a whole host of physical things that we pray for. Now, I'm not saying that praying for those things is a bad thing. James 5 says, "Is anyone among you suffering?" Form of a question, let him pray. Another question, "Is anyone cheerful?" Let him sing praise.

And then in verse 14, "Is anyone among you sick?" Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. That's James 5, 13 to 14. But here in verses 9 to 11, we will see that what Paul prayed for was much different than what we usually or normally pray for. He prayed for spiritual needs, not physical needs. And if we look at Paul's prayers in his other letters, that is what he did most all of the time. It was not that he thought physical needs were not important.

It was that Paul understood that spiritual needs were the most important things for the churches and for God's people in those churches. Now, I'm going to quickly give us a few examples of how Paul prayed for physical needs. I have three groups. Paul prayed for the lost and the unsaved Jews. He prayed with a deep burden for his fellow Jews who were lost because they did not savingly believe in Jesus as the promised Messiah of God. Listen to how great his prayer burden was for his fellow Jews, those who were unsaved. We see this in Romans. In Romans 9, 1 to 3, Paul said, "I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying.

My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh." What is he saying? I wish that I could even go to hell if they would be saved. And then later on in chapter 10, verse 1, Paul says, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved." Paul also prayed for the lost Gentile kings who were their cruel rulers. These were the rulers that he and the other believers lived under and suffered under.

They suffered great wrongs and affliction and persecution under the kings and the rulers that they were living under. But Paul commanded all believers to do what? Curse them, no pray for them. We know this passage of Scripture, 1 Timothy 2, 1 to 3. First of all, "Vien, I urge you that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who were in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way." But we see that Paul especially prayed for the church. He especially prayed for God's people.

He called on believers to pray fervently for one another, and he used himself as an example on many occasions. He called them to pray as he prayed constantly making petitions for all of the saints. We see this in Ephesians 6, 18. In Colossians 1, 3 and 1 Thessalonians 5, 17. We see this expressed beautifully in 2 Thessalonians 1, 11 to 12. He says, "To this end, we always pray for you." Notice that?

"We always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every good work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." So what is my point here? Paul prayed for the lost, and he especially prayed for the church, and he prayed without ceasing. But in all of his recorded prayers, all of the letters that contain these recorded prayers, he never prayed for physical needs or even the success of the church. He always prayed for spiritual needs and spiritual matters.

And here in verses 9 to 11, that is what Paul was doing. He was praying for certain spiritual matters for the Philippians. So let's go to our verses. I want us to read verses 9 to 11, but I'm going to read all of them together. So I'm going to go back to verse 3, and I think you'll see the prayer mentioned in verse 3 and 4, and then you'll see the prayer start of the specifics of the prayer in verse 9. So Philippians 1, let's start with verse 3. "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all." He mentions prayer twice.

"In view of your participation or fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, for I am confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and the confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.

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 blameless till the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and the praise of God." Now, as we get into the verses, I want to focus on two things. Now, I'll be honest with you, there's a lot here, but primarily, I want us to see two things. This would be the two major truths of the message. First, Paul's prayer for the Philippians, and second, the purpose in Paul's prayer.

So number one, I want us to see Paul's prayer, but Paul's prayer for an abounding love. Notice that Paul's prayer for an abounding love. Look back at verse nine, "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more." Now, the love that Paul is talking of here, we see this love in many, many places. Paul writes about this love in other places within the book of Philippians. One writer said that this love crowds the pages of all of Paul's epistles, and it does. Also, this love is at the very heart of biblical Christianity, and also, this love is produced in the life of all believers by the indwelling Spirit.

Now, let me unpack that a little. Specifically, Paul speaks of this love here in Philippians 1.9. That's where we are tonight, later in verse 16, and also in chapter two, verses one and two. And if we know the Scriptures at all, we know that love is at the heart of biblical Christianity. And this is a love that goes two different directions. Notice, this is a love that God has for men. It comes down from heaven to men and mankind. This is also a love that men have for God. It comes up from men to heaven when men are born again, and they truly love God. And this is a love that men have for one another. So this love flows horizontally.

In fact, the Scriptures say that God is love. First John 4.9, and that love is from God. First John 4.7. The Scriptures say that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever would believe in Him should not perish. John 3.16. And the Scriptures say that everyone who loves is born of God, and they know God. And the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him. First John 4.7 and verse 16. And if we know the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the life of all believers, we know that love is a part of the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5.22 in the first part of verse 23 says, but the fruit singular of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And get this. This love is produced in the heart of the believer and not by man. This love is produced by the Holy Spirit, and this love is in the heart of all believers. So the fruit of love is produced in the heart and the life of the believer. And this very love is what enables the believer to live out all other spiritual virtues properly. Really, this very love is what enables the believer to live out the true Christian life.

As a matter of fact, without this love, it is totally impossible, totally impossible to live out the Christian life. Some of you that might shock you. Yes. Without this love, it is totally impossible to live out the Christian life. Now, here's where I want you to turn to another portion of Scripture. This is important. 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I'm going to read all of the verses in the chapter. It's only 13, but you need to see this. If you can't read it as I read it, go back and study it on your own. Notice what Paul says here.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clinging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all that I have and I deliver up my body to be burned, but I have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. Ouch, that hurts. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. For as prophecies they will pass away, as for tongues they will cease, as for knowledge that will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes the partial will pass away. When I was a child I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I gave up childish ways. For now we see a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall fully be known, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide these three, but the greatest of these, what does he say? Is love. What's the question? What is this love that he's talking about here in Philippians? If we really pay attention to what Paul is saying in verse 9, he sheds a lot of light on what this love really is. And this will help us, and other passages will help us, these insights will help us truly see what this love is. So now let's go back to verse 9. "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more." Now notice what Paul is saying. First he is saying that we see that this love is from God.

We see that this love is from God and that Paul prays. He prays and he asks God to bestow upon them this love that would come from him. Think about it. If this was a love that could come from within them, Paul would have commanded them and not prayed for them. And then Paul says, "Second, we see that this love was really within them." We see this in two ways. First, Paul had already said that he was thankful for their love and for them. And we will see that more later on in the book. But second, and what he says here in the verse, Paul prays that their love, a love that they already possessed, would abound more and more and more.

And then third, Paul says, we see that this love can grow and grow even more. We see this in Paul's prayer. In this prayer, he says that they already have this love, but he moves on to pray that their love would grow and grow. This word abound has the idea of growing and overflowing, even growing and overflowing in great abundance. One writer said this is too super abound to be even in excess. So Paul knew his much-loved Philippians possessed this love that only comes from God. They had been born again, and they had been living and abiding and walking in the love of God. He knew that they had been loving one another.

They had been loving him, and this love had not come from them. It had come from God. And you know, we saw this earlier in verse 8 last week. Look back up at verse 8. Paul says, "For God is my witness, how I yearn for you." Notice how personal that is. "For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all." With the affection of Christ Jesus. Here we see that Paul yearned. That meant he strongly desired for all of them. With what? The affection of Jesus. Paul strongly desired them with the love and the affections of Christ and this love and this affection that was within Paul. Where did it come from? Christ.

So Paul knew that this love of God resided within these believers that he loved so much. And he knew that they were abiding in that love. And here he prayed that that love would abound more and more and more. He prayed for that love to super abound to even be in excess over and above. I love what Hendrickson says here, and I'm quoting him. He says, "Paul does not pray that the Philippians may begin to exercise this love." "But that the ocean of their love may rise to its fullest height." Overflowing its entire perimeter. In fact, that it may thus abound more and more.

Now here I've just got a couple of things in application before we continue. Look, I believe we're a loving church. I see it, I watch it, I hear it. I believe we are a loving church. I believe we love the Lord and we love one another. We love brothers, we love sisters, we love needs. We love the work of the church and we love the Lord. And when we have visitors come in here, they will see it and they will identify. Wasn't that long ago, Pastor Jason Johns was here for almost a week. And he noticed the love that is here. The year before that, Brother John O'Sims was here and he noticed that.

So I do believe we love one another, but we must see we do not love God and one another enough. Our love must rise to its full height. It must be overflowing. It must be super abundant. It must be in excess more and more and more and more. And then I turn it around. It's so sad, the churches that do not love at all. It's one thing for a pastor to say, "I believe you love and I believe you love well." Oh, but we can love even more. It's another thing when someone says about a church, "I don't even believe they love at all." And many of you have come from churches that really did not love you at all. But Paul does not stop there.

We need to see that Paul does not leave this love out in the clouds. He connects this love to other Christian virtues. Hendrickson says that this love never travels alone. That stuck with me all week. He said this love never travels alone. He says this love functions in beautiful cooperation with other Christian virtues. And here Paul gives two virtues that he was praying for. And he was praying that these virtues will be connected to or in cooperation with what? This abounding and more abounding love. Look back at verse 9. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more. Notice what's traveling with that love.

With knowledge and all discernment. And notice two things. Paul's prayer for an abounding love alongside knowledge. And what Paul is saying here is simple. He was praying that their growing abundant love would be rooted in and grounded to a real knowledge of God. But where does this knowledge of God come from? Scripture. This knowledge is found in God's Word. But not just knowing the facts and the stories and even the commands from the Scripture. This knowledge is knowing the Scriptures as well as living and obeying the Scriptures.

This knowledge is knowing and living the Scriptures in such a way that the life is characterized by obedience, holiness, and living for the purposes of God. MacArthur says here any love that is not grounded and growing in the truth and in the standards of the Scripture falls short of genuine biblical love. And what did Jesus say? Jesus is the best commentator we could ever refer to. John 14, 15. He said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." In verse 21 he says, "He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me." That's inseparable. So the million dollar question for us is this.

How can our growing, abounding love be rooted in and in cooperation with knowledge by studying, knowing, and obeying, and living the Scripture year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day? I know some of you are into Bible reading plans. They're all great. Unless you just don't do them. Find one that works. It's a topic of conversation in my family yesterday at the dinner table. I mean, find a Bible reading plan that works for you. I've known people that read the chronological Bible, and the through the year Bible, and plans that take you here, there, and everywhere. Find a Bible plan that works.

The worst Bible plan is the one that you don't use. And study what we study together. Now, I'll be honest with you. If you have a Bible reading plan and you don't study what the leadership of the church give you, you're out of balance. We faithfully, systematically teach you God's Word. You can read along in Ephesians and in Philippians. And if you read and study all along, when you come out of a study like we give you, you'll know that book backwards and forwards. Study your small group material. I mean, we give you good small group material. Study what we study together. Yes, study other stuff. Yes, read other books.

There's nothing wrong with listening to other sermons and such. So the point I'm making is here, we have to study the scripture. And look, listen to your pastor. I know people who have gotten off in the bad doctrine. I've known people who followed the wrong spiritual leaders. I've even known Christians who got off into cultish type churches, all because their love of God was not rooted in and in cooperation with the knowledge of God's Word. They were ignorant. And they had a zeal without knowledge and that recipe led them down a road to a lot of error and a lot of pain and a lot of heartache and a lot of destruction.

As a matter of fact, years ago, I had a friend that loved the Lord. He got off into one of these cultish type churches. And I prayed for him and prayed for him. And God got him out and I counseled him for a long time through that. And having the knowledge of a particular set of doctrines isn't enough. And being on the bandwagon of the latest Christian movement, that's not the same thing. Being superzealous for good things like missions, evangelism, Christian music, that's not the same thing.

Our abundant, growing love for God and other believers, and even the lost must be rooted in a growing, balanced, holistic knowledge of God's Word, all while being rooted firmly in a local church. Year after year, month after month, day after day. And then we have Paul's prayer for an abounding love notice along with discernment. And what Paul is saying here is simple. He was praying that their growing abundant love would be rooted and grounded in a real ability to discern or to be judicious. But what is discerning? Is this the ability to determine what is right and wrong?

Yes, but that is just a very, very, very small part of what discernment truly is. Having discernment speaks of having a great level of biblical, doctrinal, and spiritual perception and understanding, even having a moral perception and understanding. But that is connected to a correct application of those things. As a matter of fact, without the correct application of biblical, theological, and spiritual understanding and perception, all that you have is just head knowledge. I need to repeat that because you need to get it.

Without a correct application of biblical, theological, and spiritual understanding and perception, all that one has is nothing but head knowledge. That's like having a fast car, but you do not know how to back it out of the garage. Hendrickson says, "This super abundant and growing love must be judicious." That's where I got that word from. That means this love and knowledge of Scripture must be characterized by sound judgment and a life of sound judgments. I would say decisions that come out of sound judgment.

He goes on to say, and I'm quoting it, I'm adding a little bit to what he says, "This keen discernment or perception born of experience is the ability of mind and heart to separate not only the good from the bad, but also the imported from the unimportant. In each case, choosing the former, that would be the good and the important, and rejecting the latter, that is the bad and the unimportant." And look at what this looks like.

The person that has an abundant and growing love and knowledge of Scripture, but that person has no discernment, they are like the man who owns that fast sports car, and he's all excited, but he can't back it out of the garage. Let me show you what this looks like. This person has loads of spiritual zeal, and they want to sell their house and all of their possessions, and they want to give all of the proceeds to feed the poor, but they have no idea how they're going to house their family and feed their kids.

This man has great zeal and determination to go into the ministry, but he has no idea that the missions organization of the church that he is connecting with has terrible doctrine, terrible practices, and probably led by unqualified men. This is the one that has a great desire to go into business, and they want to go into business for the right reasons, but they just can't see the fact that their future business partners are not Christian, and they may even be shady. This is the man or the woman who falls for bad doctrine. They follow the wrong pastor or the wrong spiritual leader.

They join the church that has unsound doctrine and practice, and it is led by men of questionable character and Christian witness. They may even spend years in those situations, and there are even ministers who do the very same thing. So I could give you more examples. So our super abundant, growing love for God, other believers, and even the lost, must be rooted in a growing, balanced, holistic knowledge of God's Word. And these things must be rooted in sound discernment that leads to sound decisions, all while being firmly rooted where? In the life of a local church, day after day, month after month, year after year. So there's a lot there.

I think you can see in Paul's prayer for this abounding love. And let me tell you, this is good stuff. It is much needed. A couple more questions. Is this normal today? It should be, and this should be how we live. And then number two, I want us to see the purpose of Paul's prayer. We see this in verses 10 to 11. We'll get to the verses a little later. The purpose of Paul's prayer. Here in these verses, we see that Paul moves from his prayer for his beloved Philippians to the purpose of his prayer or what he wanted his prayers to produce. That might be a good way to see it. What he wanted his prayers to produce. And to me, Paul says this.

I'm kind of putting this in my words. Paul says, "Brother, sisters, oh, you Philippians that I so love, I pray these things so that certain things may happen in your lives." And he gives four things that he desires for them. First, Paul prays these things so that they may approve what is excellent. Now, there are two key words here. First, this word approve. And we see this word in all of the translations that we use. This word approve can simply mean to discern. And this can be seen as a continuation really of verse nine. Scholars tell us that in Paul's day, this word was used for testing metals to determine that metal's purity.

It simply means to examine, to scrutinize, and to prove. It means to prove so as to see if something is approved or disapproved. And then second, this word excellent. Some see this word as referring to what is good as compared to what is bad. But that does not adequately capture what Paul is saying here. What is excellent is best understood as that which is best compared to that which is good. Simply that which is excellent is far above that which is bad, and even far above that which is good. That helps us see the error that some can make here. This is not simply identifying good from bad.

That only requires a simple knowledge of scripture and even a knowledge of right and wrong. Look, even Satan and his demons know good versus bad. They know true versus false, righteousness versus evil. James chapter two tells us that Satan and his demons know all of those things. Here Paul is speaking of a true desire and an ability to work hard to correctly discover what is approved or disapproved. And what is excellent is not what is good as compared to what is bad. What is excellent is that which is even far above which is good. What is approved is the excellent. What is disapproved is the good and even the bad.

Now occasionally, I will run across some things that I just can't say it any better. And I want to read to you a pretty big chunk of quotation from John MacArthur. He explains this and he applies it. This really ministered to me yesterday and today. So follow me here. This is going to explain it and even apply it. Notice, and I'm quoting, "The idea here is rather the desire and ability to rightly discover the things that are excellent so that believers can live their lives at the highest level of spiritual devotion and obedience.

That ability separates the fully committed believer from the less committed, the mature from the immature, the strong in the faith from the weak, and the effective servant of the Lord for the ineffective. Christians who live at the noblest level of devotion to God and his will are single-minded. They are highly focused and do not become preoccupied by the countless distractions that inevitably come their way." And he continues, "Tragically, many Christians are easily led from one thing to another, bouncing from one commitment or interest to another.

They wander about continually reacting to whatever circumstance comes their way or to whatever idea comes into their mind. Consequently, like young children, they are tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming." Ephesians 4, 14. "Even when they attempt things that are good and biblically correct, their lack of discernment and persistence prevents the work from being truly effective.

Worse than that, their immaturity prevents them from finding and pursuing the things that are the most important, most vital, and most necessary to the kingdom, the things that are excellent." And so my question for you is this. Is John MacArthur describing you and how you can live the Christian life? I've known boatloads of people that are just like what John MacArthur described, bouncing here and there with no persistence, no discernment. They're just like a leaf floating in the wind. And then second, we've looked at first Paul's prayer in these things so that they may approve what is excellent.

Second, Paul prayed these things so that they may be pure. Now here we see some different wording in our English translations. The ESV says pure, the King James, the New American says sincere. And when we get into the meaning of this word, there is a little debate as to the meaning, but it is best to see that Paul was speaking really of both purity and sincerity. Paul was saying that he prayed these things so that they would be pure and sincere. Paul wanted them to live a life that was pure from sin, but he also wanted them to live a sincere life. And this spoke of a life of honesty and spiritual integrity. And there's another layer here.

The word in the original speaks of a unity or a oneness. This means that the believer lives a life that is one with or unified with God's word and holy living. So Paul prayed these things so that they would be pure from sin, sincere in life, and one with God's word and one with holy living. And that is what God wanted from them. My question for you is, do you have purity and sincerity in your life? And third, Paul prays these things so that they may be blameless before Christ. Here, the English standard reads blameless for the day of Christ. The King James says without offense to the day of Christ.

Now, this word blameless simply means without offense, not causing to stumble, not causing offense. But this in no way speaks of some kind of a perfection. Nothing like that. This is simply living the Christian life free from offense, free from causing others offense, much like we see with the qualifications of church leaders in 1 Timothy 3. But for how long? Just a few years, just a year or two. While one is young and in high school and then they move off? No, no. Until Christ returns, until Christ returns, or the believer leaves this earth and stands before Christ.

So Paul prayed all of these things so that they may be blameless or without offense and all of life until they stand before the Lord. And my question for you is, are you leading and living a blameless life before Christ? And then fourth, so that they may be filled with the fruit of righteousness. Now, here Paul was writing about something that they had already experienced, but he wants this to continue as well. Let me explain this having been filled, the construction of the language speaks of something that has happened in the past, but it speaks of something with continual results.

This is what Paul was saying and is saying, when these Philippian believers savingly believe in Christ, they will fill with the fruit of righteousness. This means that they were placed in a complete condition of divine righteousness, past tense, meaning this happened when they believed. But this is a continual work. There are continual fruits of righteousness in the heart, which comes out in the life. Barnes says those fruits are honesty, truth, charity, kindness, meekness, and goodness. MacArthur says this includes good works. We can add to that list. I think you see what he means here.

And why are these fruits of righteousness deposited within the heart of the believer at the new birth? And why are these fruits of righteousness to be seen continuously, continuously in the heart and the life of the believer? Verse 11 tells us to the glory and the praise of God. So Paul prayed these things so that they would be filled with the fruit of righteousness continuously, not just when they were first converted. And my question for us is, do we continuously see the fruit of righteousness in our own lives? Now, as I begin to close, I want us to see that tonight's message is much like last week's. There's a big adjustment here.

There's even a big correction here. Let me show you what I mean. Last week we saw that we defined fellowship completely different than Paul. Remember? We see fellowship as eating a meal or visiting together. There's nothing wrong with that. We see fellowship is centered around shared hobbies, shared interests, like baseball, football, sports, hunting, fishing. We see fellowship is centered around work and career or having those things in common. We see fellowship is centered around common causes, even great causes, maybe being against abortion or being for adoption, things like that.

We see fellowship is centered around shared concerns like politics, world events, culture, things like that. I could continue. But Paul, he defined fellowship for us, and he defined true fellowship. And true fellowship is a common fellowship or a partnership, even a participation in the total work of the gospel, the gospel enterprise. And Paul and the Philippians are exhibit A for what true fellowship, true fellowship is. And I'll be honest with you. I am so thankful. That's what I see in our Anchored in Truth network and our Anchored in Truth family of churches. I could continue there and I preached a few messages around that.

But this week, tonight, we see that Paul's great prayer burden was not for the Philippians and their physical needs. Did they have physical needs? Yes. If we study on our own, we'll see that they were very, very poor people. He could have prayed for their poverty. We will see that they were facing tough persecution from a very Roman and anti-Christian pagan culture. He could have prayed for those needs. But Paul's great burden in prayer was for their spiritual condition and health. He prayed far, and I'm going to read the verses in the Amplified. Listen to what he prayed for.

"In this I pray that your love may abound more and more, displaying itself in greater depth, in real knowledge, and in practical insight, so that you may learn to recognize and treasure what is excellent, identifying the best and distinguishing moral differences, and that you may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ Jesus, actually living lives and lead others away from sin, filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God, so that his glory may be both revealed and recognized." And so maybe for you, maybe for us, this is a little bit of a correction, like we had last week.

And you know, I see two marks of maturity that come from living and seeing these things. Listen, if we fellowship like this, if we seek a fellowship like this, that is a mark of maturity. If all we do is fellowship over fried chicken and we never have a kind of fellowship and partnership like we see with Paul and the Philippians, we're immature. And the other mark, if we have a prayer life like this, oh, we pray for physical needs, yes, but oh, we put spiritual needs at the top of the list. And if all we do is pray for physical, physical, physical, and we never graduate to pray for the spiritual and even knowing the spiritual.

So I'll see these two things as marks of maturity. Now, what have we looked at tonight? The title of the message is Paul's Prayer for the Philippians. Now I'm going to add to that. This is Paul's Prayer for spiritual growth and godliness in his beloved Philippians. And I pray that these things will be made real in our life so we could attain these marks of maturity and we could grow in our godliness, much like the Philippians.