A Love that Grows and Flows

Cole Edwards • May 12, 2022

Notes from Pastor Shu's message on Philippians 2:8-11.


We are all familiar with the story of the genie in a bottle. It’s this crazy story, where you find a lamp, a genie comes out and you get three wishes. And because we’re familiar with the story, we understand that there is pressure to make sure that you wish for the right thing. 


Now, of course, God is not a genie. He’s not at our beck and call like a genie, but God has given us prayer which the Bible describes with amazing language. James says “You have not, because you ask not.” One thing Jesus said of about prayer was “ask and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.”


The Bible makes clear that God really wants us to pray and that He really wants to answer our prayers. But when it comes down to it, what do we really pray for?


Typically we pray concerning that which is in front of us, the temporal, the physical, the tangible. We pray for safety, we pray for health, we pray for guidance. We pray for things we need, things we want, things that we think we deserve. To be clear, that’s not wrong, because God wants us to present all our requests to Him. But we see Paul pray differently.

Paul loves to pray for his people, and we see him pray for his people in Philippi in verses 9-11. But when Paul prays it’s not for the temporal or the physical, the here and now. Instead, he prays concerning the ultimate things. Paul prays that he wants you to grow in your knowledge of God, to understand how wide and deep and high God’s love is. 


And we can learn from how Paul prays for his people. If you feel pressure to pray the right things for your people, for those in your life, for your family, for your community group and if you don’t know what to pray, just open up here in Philippians 1 and pray verses 9 through 11. 


So we are going to look closely at this prayer. But first, we need to pause at verse 8, "For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus."


Don’t forget, Paul is writing this letter from prison. He’s in chains. He planted the church in Philippi. And we saw last week all the joy, love, and affection he had for this church plant. Verse 8 connects what was discussed last week with this prayer. 


And Paul says, “I yearn for you”. He has this longing for them. Because he is imprisoned, he can’t be in Philippi, but he has a great desire to be present with his people. That is how it ought to be. It ought to feel that when we are not with this gathering of God’s people that we greatly long for it. 


We understand that sometimes you have to be away from meeting with us here (the church), but when you have to be away, we want to see that you have a longing, a yearning, to get back with your people. These are your people. We, here, are your people. And we should miss this when we are away. 


The longing that Paul describes begins to make sense when you realize that you actually need people in your life. Not only do you need God’s people in your life, but someone else needs you here. We need each other.


Paul’s yearning informs his prayer. He treasures these relationships, these are his people in Philippi and so he is not going to simply pray for them, he’s going to pray the best for them. So let’s walk through his prayer.


Paul prays that we will abound in love, with knowledge and with all discernment so that we will approve what is excellent so that our lives will bring glory to God.



Paul prays that we will abound in love.


Look at verse 9, "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment."


He is praying for their love to grow. Out of all the things that he could wish for, out of all the temporal things he could pray for, Paul prays for their love to abound. He is praying for a love for God and love for each other. Paul has a high view of love here. He is not simply referring to a feeling, receiving kind of love.  Paul has in view a love that resembles Christ’s love.


“So when Paul prays that God will give his friends the heart to go on loving and to grow in loving, “abounding more and more,” he is talking not about our getting, nor even about our sharing, but about our giving, and then giving even more. This capacity to love is God’s gift, but it is a costly gift to receive. It involves investing your heart and hands in “meeting others’ true needs, whether or not they respond with emotional payback.”

— Dennis E. Johnson, Philippians


Paul is praying for us to have an unconditional love. Paul is praying for a love that is given even if nothing comes back, even if there’s no thank you, even if it’s not received. It’s a Christ-like love. That is the ultimate aim of Paul’s prayer: I want your love to abound.



Paul then gives specific ways that this plays out; that our love grows more and more with knowledge and with all discernment...


—with knowledge


Our knowledge grows in understanding who God is and what He has done for us. Paul is praying that we will continue to get to know God more and more. The more you get to know God, and see how much He has done for you, His qualities, and His character, then you begin love God more and more. We respond in love to God when we better understand Him.


But loving God wasn’t our idea. We love Him because He first loved us. We didn’t know Him. But the more you do get to know God the more you’ll find that you do love Him. But flip it on the other side. God loves us and He knows us. God sees everything about us, and He loves us anyway. He pursued us, even when we were in revolt against Him. He pursued us in that moment. God loves us even knowing everything we’ve done.


Mothers are maybe the best picture we have of this kind of unconditional love. Think of a mother holding her newborn baby and she thinks that baby is perfect. But then that baby grows and starts to interact with others, and you realize that baby is wicked. They all are. They’re professional sinners. They didn’t have to taught to rebel or to disobey. And moms see all that develop and they just keep on loving anyway. 


Mothers are a picture of what it looks like when someone knows everything about you and loves you anyway. That is why we celebrate them today. Mom loves you anyway. 


And that is the picture of God’s love for us. He knows everything about us, and He loves us anyway.


"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." - 1 John 3:16


We rebelled against Him, we turned our backs on Him, and God loves us anyway. When we get even a glimpse of God’s love, it starts producing in us a love for God that will then spill into others. We’ll sacrifice and give because God sacrificed and gave for us. God’s love is the motivation. 


That is the knowledge that Paul is praying for us to obtain, that we will abound more and more in our understanding of who God is and how much He loves us. And it will produce more and more love for Him and others. 


But Paul is praying for discernment along with knowledge.



—with all discernment


Discernment is necessary so you will know how to actually show love to others. Discernment informs how to meet needs, how to speak truth in love, how to walk in love and accountability, how to sit with those who are suffering. Paul prays that we grow in your knowledge of God’s love AND in our ability to show it.


Paul prays, that we will abound in love and then shifts his attention showing happens when we do.


[Phl 1:10 ESV] 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,



...so that we will approve what is excellent


When we abound in love we will test and see that God’s way is best – that it is excellent. You see how much He loves you, and you begin to trust, follow, submit, and surrender to Him. In doing so you discover that God’s way is what you needed all along. He’s praying for you to understand what is excellent and to follow that path.


We understand the difference between good and bad choices. But the hard choices are the ones where you must decide between what is good and what is best. That is why Paul is praying that you find the excellent path. All paths other than God’s paths are dead ends. Surrender and pursue Him, and you find meaning and purpose when you are on God’s excellent path. 


We gather on Sundays, in part, to remember how good God is to us so that we will stay on the path that He wants for us. Just like we sang today: All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. So I will sing of the goodness of God. 


I need to come here and hear the people of God sing that truth. Because sometimes I don’t feel it. I need to be reminded that all my life God has been faithful. All my life He has been so so good. And when I’m reminded of that and I understand how much He loves me, in response I say: my life is laid down, I surrender now, I give you everything. 


Why? Because God’s goodness is running after me. Despite everything I have done. He is running after us with His goodness, and grace, and love, and He is pulling us back to Him and His path. And I need that reminder every single week. Every single day. When I’m not reminded, I drift away and I think something else will give me the satisfaction I’m looking for. I forget God’s goodness, His love, His greatness, His faithfulness and I drift away. We all do that. That is why we need each other. I need you to remind me that God has always been faithful.


That is what Paul is talking about here, that you will approve what is excellent. You’ll test this out. You’ll trust God a little bit more, see how much He loves you, and in surrendering your life you’ll approve that this is really the best way. This is how life is supposed to be lived. You’ll see that this is where you find purpose, satisfaction, and joy. 


We didn’t know for sure at first, but now when we trust God, we can know for certain that we find in Him is best. And we trust Him when we know how much He loves us. 


Paul then gives three ways that this plays out in our lives. Verse 10, "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."



—be filled with the fruit of righteousness

This is the goal for us. Paul is praying the ultimate aim over us because this is what he wants to see in us. Paul wants us to be pure, to be blameless, he wants us to be filled with the fruit of righteousness.


And though this can seem discouraging , here is why it shouldn’t be. First, we are all on this journey together. It doesn’t matter where you are on the journey, you have a place here, with these people, where we can be in genuine life together. In Philippians 3, Paul says, “not that I’ve already attained this” but he is pressing forward to the goal. Paul hadn’t figured this all out, but we are all in it together. 


Second, you shouldn’t be discouraged because it’s not even up to you. Verse 11 indicates that it is the work of Jesus in us that makes us pure, blameless and filled with the fruit of righteousness. Our job is to trust Him more and more. The more we learn about Him, the more we see His love, the more we trust Him, and His power works through us to accomplish these things in our lives.


Philippians 1:6, "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."


It’s Jesus’ work in our lives. He’s going to finish it. So don’t be discouraged. Jesus is going to accomplish this work. We need not be discouraged because it is in God’s hands.


“Are we aware that what appears a hopeless goal is in reality a guaranteed outcome?” 

—J. Alec Motyer, The Message of Philippians


Pure? Blameless? Filled with the fruit of righteousness? It may seem hopeless, but what we see here is that this is a guaranteed outcome because of Jesus’ work in our lives. In fact, it is already who we are in Christ, and what Christianity is doing is calling us to be who we already are. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Father sees us as pure, blameless, and filled with the fruit of righteousness. Christianity is just calling us to be who we already are. 


...so that our lives will bring glory to God


Ultimately, how we are following Him and trusting Him is meant to give God the glory.


The more we see how much He loves us, it produces love in us for Him and for others. Then we begin to, with knowledge and discernment, show that love to each other, and when the world sees this love, God gets the glory. God gets the glory because it is His work. The whole world will know that we are Jesus’ disciples by how we love each other. And because of how we love each other, they’re going to know that we belong to God, and they’ll want to be with God, they’ll want that love too. 


Paul is praying for, it is his desire, that we would abound in love. Paul is praying for us to abound in love so that we will approve what is excellent. In approving what is excellent we will bring glory and praise to our God. Let’s be the people who do that.

Everything We Need

July 29, 2025
Notes from Ky Martin's sermon on Sunday, July 27, 2025. Sermon text: 2 Peter 1:3-4 We have everything we need for a godly life. Sentence has: 68 words 9 prepositional phrases 5 dependent clauses God called us. “By His divine power” The word here is summon Like Lazarus, come forth. English readers are apt to understand calling in terms of an invitation that can be accepted or rejected. Peter has something deeper in mind. Christ’s call is effective, awakening and creating faith. -Thomas R. Schreiner 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. By revealing Christ to us. “Through the knowledge of Him” Side note, ambiguity: The ambiguity in the text indicates that Peter does not clearly distinguish between God and Christ, which indicates that God and Christ were venerated equally. - Thomas R. Schreiner Excuses are Eliminated We need to note that this comes to us by grace, but also that we have a part to play here. Effort is not a 4 letter word. You have no excuse for: Pornography- You have everything you need. Substance Abuse- You have everything you need. Pride- You have everything you need Laziness- You have everything you need Anger- You have everything you need. Prayer and Scripture Reading- You have everything you need. Evangelism- You have everything you need. He’ll go on to mention supplementing He has given us what we need for godliness now, and He promises us even greater things to come. We will share in Christ’s Divine Nature 2 Pe 1:4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature Unusual word… The “divine nature” (Theos) appears only here and in Acts where Paul addresses the Areopagus an odd work choice and would have appealed to his pagan readers. Acts 17:29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. Redefining what it means to become like God. Christ shared in our nature that we might share in His. 1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. In 1:3, it’s through the knowledge of Christ that we are called to Him. Here, we see that a fuller revelation of Christ will conform us even more fully into His likeness. How so? Purity Immortality Restoration to Eden Christians also share in God’s immortality. They are not trapped in this world. Though ‘perishable’ now, Christians will be raised ‘imperishable’ -Paul Gardner Glory John 17:22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, We have everything we need for a godly life. English readers are apt to understand calling in terms of an invitation that can be accepted or rejected. Peter has something deeper in mind. Christ’s call is effective, awakening and creating faith. -Thomas R. Schreiner 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. The ambiguity in the text indicates that Peter does not clearly distinguish between God and Christ, which indicates that God and Christ were venerated equally. - Thomas R. Schreiner Excuses are Eliminated We will share in Christ’s Divine Nature Acts 17:29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. Purity Immortality Christians also share in God’s immortality. They are not trapped in this world. Though ‘perishable’ now, Christians will be raised ‘imperishable.’ -Paul Gardner Glory John 17:22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. Discipleship Questions: 2 Peter 1:3 says we’ve been given everything we need for life and godliness… Do you find that verse encouraging, challenging or both? Are there any areas of your walk where you struggle to believe that you already have everything you need for success? Do you ever make excuses to yourself or others for a lack of godliness? If yes, explain. How much work does it take to live as a Christian? What does it mean that we will be “partakers in the divine nature”?

The Genuine Gospel

July 21, 2025
Notes from Lance Shumake's sermon on Sunday, July 20, 2025. Sermon text: 2 Peter 1:1-2  Peter is warning us about counterfeit teaching and false teachers The genuine gospel came from Jesus through His apostles —servant (humility and honor) —apostle (called, unique, sent) The genuine gospel is just as precious to us today —received and believed “How does someone become a Christian? One person might say, ‘Because I believe,’ and another, ‘Because God chose me.’ According to Peter, both ways of stating it are correct. On the one hand, we believe. It is a fundamental definition of a Christian that he or she is a ‘believe-er’; that he or she ‘has faith’ But Peter also knows that it is not our feeble faith that holds us close to God. It is God who does all the holding, and that is the reality behind the word received.” —R. C. Lucas and Christopher Green, The Message of 2 Peter & Jude The genuine gospel is centered on the person and work of Jesus —God —Savior —Christ —Lord “This fourfold description of Jesus is important because it puts him at the focal point of human history. As God, he guarantees that his words and his works cannot be replaced or revoked; as Christ, he fulfills all the Old Testament promises; as Savior, he died on the cross for our salvation in the past, present and future; and as Lord he claims the right to our individual love and obedience—notice how Peter calls him our Lord.” —R. C. Lucas and Christopher Green, The Message of 2 Peter & Jude The genuine gospel transforms us as we grow in knowledge of Jesus —grace and peace multiplied Discipleship Questions: Why is false teaching so dangerous? How does remembering and focusing on the true gospel help us stand against false teaching? In what ways is the gospel just as precious to us as it was to the apostles? How do you relate to Jesus as God, Savior, Christ, and Lord? What is the difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Him?

The God of All Grace

July 16, 2025
Notes from Zach Snow's sermon on Sunday, July 13, 2025. Sermon text: 1 Peter 5:8-14 Why is the lion roaring? Wouldn’t it be a better strategy to be quiet…subtle…sneaky, in an attempt to “devour” Christians? I think that Peter, led by the Holy Spirit, was very intentional with his description here of the devil being a roaring lion. Went into a rabbit hole on a lion's roar…there are some spiritual applications to these: Can reach up to 114 decibels…almost as loud as a jet engine taking off They roar for social reasons (territory, create bonds, locate other members of their pride) as well as for purposes of intimidation. One of the primary purposes of the lion's roar is to strike fear in the heart of their prey. The lion will always start with a psychological advantage Fear, anxiety, depression, anger, hatred - these things can absolutely paralyse you spiritually The lion is not necessarily trying to kill you, but to destroy your faith Prayer: Be sober-minded - Have a clear and self disciplined mind - Titus 2 Exercise self control in thoughts, words, and action this is the 3rd time Peter has said this to us in 1 Peter - 1:13, 4:7 - it’s a call to remain alert and focused Being sober-minded means waging war against the things that are detrimental to the mind: fear, hatred, anxiety, depression, anger I believe these are specific things the enemy uses to derail our mental health and cause us to take our guard down Be watchful - this is the same word that Jesus used in the garden before he was arrested and crucified - this is a call to pray Prayers for others - Eph. 6:18 - Ephesians 6:18 - [18] praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, Prayers for yourself - James 1:5 - 5 j If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. So here’s the question… Do you believe in prayer? How much do you trust that God can do the things that you are not able to do? Do you trust God with the big stuff AND the small stuff? Discipleship Questions: 1.) In your personal life, what does being sober minded and watchful look like to you? 2.) Who are the people who help you stand firm in your faith the most? 3.) As a CG look at each of the points of the Theology of Suffering and find Scripture to support each one of those statements: God is ALWAYS good God is ALWAYS enough God will ALWAYS love you 4.) Discuss ways that the God of all grace has restored, confirmed, strengthened, and established you.
Show More