[0:00] Philippians chapter 1, and if you would stand with me to honor the reading of God's word. Philippians 1, verses 1-11 says, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
[0:22] I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
[0:33] I'm sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Indeed, it is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
[0:52] For God is my witness, how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And I pray this, that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
[1:16] Let's pray together. Father God, thank you for your word. Thank you for this truth that we're going to study today. Let our lives be transformed by your word. Let us love you and let us grow in our affections toward you after we study this passage today.
[1:29] And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, you can be seated. So this prayer is what we're looking at today, the prayer that Paul offers for the Philippian church.
[1:43] And as I was studying, he says, and I pray this, that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment. And I was wondering, guys, what is, like, he says that he wants their love to grow, and then it shows in these different ways, knowledge and discernment.
[2:01] And I found myself asking that same question that Tina Turner asked. What's love got to do with it, you know? Yeah.
[2:13] Yeah. That was before my time, but I know some of you got it. No, but what does love have to do with this knowledge and discernment? Knowledge and discernment.
[2:24] How does love have, what does love have to do with any of that? And so that's what we're going to kind of look at. How love impacts the way that we live, and then what the ultimate end result of that love in our lives is.
[2:38] And so he starts off here in verse 9. He says that he prays, and this, of course, it goes back to verse 4. He says that he always prays with joy for all of you, with every prayer, in my every prayer.
[2:51] So he tells the church that he prays for them, then he thanks them for their partnership in the gospel, and then he moves in now to explaining some of what he prays for them. This is what Paul prays for the church in Philippi.
[3:03] His prayer is that their love would overflow. So I'm reading from the Christian Standard Bible, and I really like this translation of the Bible, but I think that this specific verse is translated a little weak, okay?
[3:18] Because verse 9, where it says that your love will keep on growing, it just doesn't really do justice to what Paul's trying to say here. He's saying that he wants their love to abound, to overflow.
[3:29] And then what Paul does whenever he wants to emphasize something is he throws in like, he kind of will add in multiple adverbs, okay? So he says that your love would overflow or abound more and more, all right?
[3:42] He's like putting the exclamation mark on it. He's like, this is important. I want your love to abound more and more. And as their love abounds, it would be shown in different ways.
[3:56] His prayer is that they would be just irretrievably consumed by their love for Christ. And that as they love Christ, they would love others well.
[4:08] So as we continue through the letter of Philippians, what we'll find is that this church, while this is maybe the kindest letter that Paul wrote, this church was not perfect.
[4:19] The church in Philippi had issues. They had some unity issues. They were a little bit disunified. They had some people who were seeking to put themselves, elevate themselves above others in the church, evidently.
[4:31] They had some things that needed to be worked out. And Paul's prayer, as we'll see, kind of addresses those things that he'll later detail in the letter. And he's explaining to them, before he teaches them that things need to change, he explains that his prayer is that things would change, right?
[4:50] That God would change their hearts, and that God would be the one at work. So that's what he's praying. He's praying that their love would overflow, that they would just be so full of love, a complete love, a love for God, that results in a love for others.
[5:04] It's an important thing, because we will not ever, as Christ followers, we will never love each other well until we love Christ supremely. If we don't love Christ above anything and everything else, then we can't love each other to the greatest extent possible.
[5:25] It won't happen. We have to love Christ first. And this love for Christ will kind of generate within us knowledge and discernment, and it'll be applied in different ways as we'll see it here in a second as well.
[5:41] But let me ask you a question. How do you know that someone loves you? How do you know that someone loves you? And I want to get a show of hands on this, so help me out, okay?
[5:56] I want to find the couple in the room who's been married the shortest amount of time, and the couple in the room who's been married the longest amount of time. So we'll start with the shortest. Has anybody been married this year?
[6:08] Anyone? No? Okay. Has anybody been married in the past two years? Three years? You people need to get married, I think.
[6:19] Okay, no. Four years? Okay, well, so me and Audrey too, so we'll go with y'all. For the sake of the illustration. Okay, no.
[6:29] Okay, now, who has been married for more than 40 years? Okay, so now that's impressive. All right, praise the Lord. That's cool. All right, 50 years, anybody? Oh my goodness, the same crew.
[6:41] Okay. 60 years? We got 60. We got 60. Okay, 65. When were you married?
[6:53] How long have you been married? 65? How long have y'all been married? 61. Okay, winner. Okay. I'm just kidding. That's amazing. That's amazing.
[7:04] 61 years, that is like what we all hope for, right? Okay, so that's, praise God. So, all right. I have, I would bet every, not, I mean, look, I'm not saying you should gamble.
[7:15] Don't do that. But, if I did, I would bet every dollar that I've ever earned, or ever will earn, please don't take offense to this, that he knows how to love his wife better than you do.
[7:27] Right? I'd bet anything that after 65 years, he knows how to show love to his wife better. I think that's just practical, right? Over time, life, long time together, 65 years, he knows how to love his wife really, really well.
[7:43] So, how, but how do you know that people love you? That's the, that's the question that, that's worth considering here. You know, Jesus said it like this. Jesus said in John chapter 14, if you love me, you'll keep my commands.
[7:55] That's what Jesus said. So, how does Christ know if we love him? Well, we keep his commands, but how do we know if, if someone loves us? Well, usually, what we'll find is that when someone loves us, or when we love someone, we, we try, we make a good effort to learn about them as much as we can.
[8:13] Right? Learn as much about them as we can. We grow in knowledge about the object of our love, the, the person that we love. So, for our spouses, we try to learn as much about our spouses as we possibly can.
[8:27] And then, from there, we don't just take that knowledge, hopefully, we don't just take that knowledge, put it in our back pocket, and say, yeah, I know all this stuff about you, but that doesn't mean anything in practice.
[8:39] Hopefully, instead, we learn about the people that we love, and then we act in a way consistent with what we know, right? Our actions, by our actions, we show people that we love them.
[8:52] So, if I know that my wife doesn't like it when I leave the cap off the toothbrush, or toothbrush, toothpaste, and I do it anyways every single morning, that's not very loving of me, right?
[9:05] It's not very loving. It's a pretty simple task. I could probably stand to do that more often, put it back on, but, but my point is, what we do whenever we love someone is we learn about them, we gain information, and then we let that information change the way we live for their good.
[9:22] So that we can show them that we love them. So, what does love have to do with knowledge and discernment? Well, everything. If we love Christ genuinely, supremely above everything else, if we love Christ, then we'll learn more about Christ, right?
[9:41] We'll study His Word. We'll know His heart, His desires, His commands by studying His Word. And then, this is the step that we often kind of forget.
[9:51] We don't just learn it, we actually apply it to our lives. We live in a way that's consistent with what we know about Christ.
[10:01] Christ. This is not to earn salvation. This isn't because it gets us a better standing in the church or anything like that. This is out of love. So, what we're studying, what we're talking about here is a genuine love for Christ that's reflected in how we love others, all right?
[10:23] And for the church in Philippi, they needed this reminder so that they could love each other well and be unified as a body of believers who is about to undergo persecution. And for us, as Christians today, I'm not saying that we're going to experience persecution like the early church did from Rome.
[10:41] But, we do live in a culture that's fairly hostile to the gospel. We're not being killed for our faith in America, praise God.
[10:51] That is happening in other parts of the world. But, we can be ostracized, we can lose friends, we can lose jobs, we can lose standing status, whatever it is, because we live in a culture that's fairly aggressively opposed to Christianity.
[11:07] Maybe not violently, but opposed nonetheless. So, as a church today, we need to be people who love each other well out of our love for Christ so that we can be unified.
[11:21] We can be unified together. The love that we live with, the love that lives within us because of Jesus, changes everything about the way that we live.
[11:35] So, because of our love for Christ, we love others well. So, I have a couple of quotes today. Can you pull that first quote up?
[11:48] I was reading this book. I put it on. Oh, it's way past that. Yeah. I didn't really line up the slides too well today. Keep going for it. I'll tell you when to stop, okay? Keep going.
[12:00] Keep going. Keep going. These are other prayers that Paul prayed, and I might reference them later, but I don't want to write this. I, okay, keep going. Two more, I think.
[12:11] We'll see. One more? Oh, okay, click into that one. Let's see what happens. Yep. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Try it again.
[12:23] Let's see. Hey, here we go. All right. Our love produces knowledge and discernment, which produces right living and unity. Okay, so this quote here, you can hit the next slide. It's going to pop up on the bottom. Okay, this guy, A.T. Robertson, he is a professor at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky for a long time.
[12:41] In the early 1900s, this dude was a genius, okay? And on that reading guide for the book of Philippians that I gave you, I put his book that I've been using Paul's Joy in Christ as a reference that if you want to study more than I would encourage you to get this book.
[12:58] It's fantastic. But what he's talking about is the way that our love changes the way that we act. And when we aren't in Christ and we're living in sin, the way that we see and perceive everything is off, and so the way that we act is off.
[13:15] When I say off, I mean not in line with God, okay? So he says, So when we're living in our sin, when we haven't been changed and transformed by the love of Christ, by falling into the grace of Jesus, we live in this place where everything that we see is askew.
[13:40] It's off. It's not right. But as Christians, as Christ followers, who have Christ living within us, the Spirit of God living within us, we're able to love well.
[13:53] We're able to love him supremely and love others well out of that. And in that, our knowledge will grow and our discernment will grow. And this knowledge and discernment, this has the, so like we'll know what Christ says.
[14:06] We'll know what his word says. So that's the first very practical step. If you say you love Christ, but you don't know his word, how does that work? You know what I mean? It can't.
[14:17] You have to study scripture. You have to know Christ. You have to love his word. You have to live in his word. So knowledge of him, knowledge of his commands, knowledge of his word, and then discernment, meaning we know right from wrong, okay?
[14:29] We know good from bad. What honors God, what doesn't honor God, okay? This is the overflow of love. This is the overflow of love. That we'll have more knowledge and that we'll have better discernment about what's right and what's wrong.
[14:45] And the next step is right living in unity. And so this next kind of section here is the application of love. This is applied love. So this is abounding or overflowing love that produces knowledge and discernment.
[14:59] And now, how do we apply that love? How does it change the way that we live? So if you go to the, I think, two slides. We'll keep on going here. Verses 10 and 11. It says, So that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
[15:22] His prayer doesn't end with knowledge and discernment. It keeps going. And he identifies three goals that he's praying for the Philippian church.
[15:33] And these three goals aren't just for the Philippian church. These are three goals for the Christian, for the Christ follower, okay? The three goals are proper discernment, preparation for the day of Christ, and that our lives as Christ followers would be to the glory and praise of God.
[15:51] Our entire being would be to the glory and praise of God. So proper discernment. Proper discernment. What is proper discernment?
[16:03] What does that mean? Because we just talked about discernment, and now he says it again. And really, it says that you may approve the things that are superior. The idea here is that you'll be able to test.
[16:14] So like, you know, like a metalsmith, a person who puts metal to heat to test the purity of the metal, right?
[16:25] They melt the metal down, and then the impurities will rise up and things like that. They're able to test the purity of the metal, and then they can approve it. They can say whether or not it's good. It's that idea that we'll be able to, as Christ followers, we'll grow in discernment in such a way that we'll be able to not only know what is the difference in right and wrong, but what's the difference between good and best so that our lives will be to glorify God.
[16:52] Because like, we get these gray areas sometimes where it's like, it's not bad, it's good, but is it the best that we can do? Is it the best for our church? Is it the best for my spiritual life?
[17:03] Is it the best for the spiritual life of those around me? It's good, but is it best? And so that's kind of what we're talking about here. And I have another quote from A.T. Robertson.
[17:14] It's a long quote, but here you can put it back up. Yeah, there we go. It says, We can't settle for what's good as Christians.
[17:45] We have to be pursuing what is God's best. What is the best way to glorify God, to love others, to love Christ?
[17:58] Not just checking the boxes, right? Like, it's good to come to church on Sunday. It's extra good if you come to church on Wednesdays, too. But we can't just stop there.
[18:12] If you only come to church on Sunday, and then you leave, and for the rest of the week, not a single person could look at the way you live and say, Man, that guy, that girl loves Jesus.
[18:24] Then something's not clicking. Don't be a Sunday-only Christian. We have to live for Christ day in, day out.
[18:37] Coming to church only is settling for good. But pursuing Christ daily, sharing the gospel regularly, showing the love of Jesus to people who need to be shown love, being merciful, being kind, being forgiving, that's God's best for us.
[18:57] Don't settle for good when God wants us to be his very best. So, Paul talks about this throughout this letter a few different times.
[19:14] This idea of, you know, proper discernment and growing in Christ and all these types of things. But it's just, it's so important.
[19:25] This is like, we as, like, I just came out of youth ministry, okay? I just came out of youth ministry, and now I'm a pastor. And, like, one thing I can tell you is that young people, they have, there's one question that just always seems to come up with young people, and it's, I say young people, I'm pretty young.
[19:43] But I'm bald, so I feel like I'm old. So, but one thing that young people, they just, like, they always ask, is, like, how do I know that this is the right decision?
[19:54] I know that, like, I have two good options, okay? So, like, you get a senior in high school, and they're praying about trying to decide where to go to college. And it's, like, two good options, two schools where they can glorify God in either place and be filled, you know, in either place.
[20:09] Good churches in the area, whatever it is. And then they just get in this place where they're frozen and trying to understand, how do I know what is best, though? How do I know what is the right decision?
[20:20] And then you get this, the terrifying question, how do I know what God's will is, right? These questions are, this is hard stuff. These are hard questions, especially for young people trying to figure these things out. But as we grow in our walk with Christ, as we love Christ more, as we love others more, and we grow in knowledge and discernment, this spiritual insight grows in such a way that we can assess situations in a way that we can understand truly what God is leading us to do and what is best to bring Him the most glory.
[20:49] And that's the hope. That's what we want to do. So if you're at a place where you don't just have no idea how to decide what's good, what's best, if you don't know what's right or wrong, then that's a different issue.
[20:59] But if you can't get from good to best, then pray and ask God to open your eyes, open your mind to understand what He wants for you so that you can honor Him in your life.
[21:11] Don't settle for good when God wants what's best. The second goal is that the church would be fully prepared for the day of Christ. And this is something that He could also mention.
[21:24] We talked about this last week in verse 6. It says, I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. So that we would be, so pray that we would be able to discern, approve what is superior, approve the good things, and be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.
[21:44] So His prayer is that the Christians, the Christ followers in Philippi, would be fully prepared for the day of Jesus. That is Christ's return. And as I said last week, I'll repeat again, this work of sanctification, of preparation, only occurs by the work of Christ.
[22:02] He who started a good work will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. He is the one at work in us, preparing us, perfecting us, making us look more like Him, making us more like Himself.
[22:16] So it's not anything that we do on our own to earn this, you know, this salvation, or this sanctification, or anything like that. But we do have a role to play here.
[22:28] Remember we talked last week about the human responsibility, and the sovereignty of God, and that, how that kind of, you know, that mingling of ideas can be kind of hard for us to gather. But it's true, Christ is the one who works in us to perfect us, to make us look more like Himself.
[22:42] And it's also true, we have to do things in His name that honor Him. Right? We have to do good works. So how does that work? Well, Paul talks about this again as well.
[22:53] In Philippians chapter 3, when he's talking about how his, basically Paul lists his resume, we'll get to this eventually, but Paul lists his resume about why he should be able to brag about his faith, that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, that he was a Pharisee, that he was a zealot, and he persecuted the church.
[23:13] Like all of those things would be reasons for him to feel really good about justifying himself before God. But he says he considers all of those things as loss, and now he's pursuing this righteousness that's not his own, not a righteousness that he can earn, but the righteousness of Christ Jesus.
[23:28] This pursuit is the good works, living for Christ in real life, you know, in everyday life. And in verses 12 through 14, he says, not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect.
[23:40] By the way, there's a, you know, theological idea that at a certain point in time, Christians can attain perfection on earth before they go to heaven.
[23:51] And I've met a few people who've made me wonder if that's real. But, if the Apostle Paul said that he's not perfect, I have a hard time believing that any of us are going to reach perfection on this side of heaven.
[24:04] I just want to throw that out there. Not that he's already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I have also been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
[24:15] So, he hasn't reached the goal, he isn't perfect, he hasn't, he's not stood before Christ, pure and blameless, but he says that he makes every effort to reach towards that goal.
[24:28] We have to put in effort. We have to put in effort. We have to do good works. Not to earn our salvation, not to earn the right standing before God, but because we are in right standing before God by the work of Jesus, we have to put in that effort.
[24:40] Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching toward what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
[24:57] So, Paul understood that he wasn't perfect, but he needed to still work to attain this, knowing that he couldn't do it himself, knowing that he was not responsible for his own sanctification.
[25:09] His good works were to attain this goal, to reach this goal, and we have to have the same mindset as Christ followers. To be fully prepared for the day of Christ Jesus, this whole idea builds upon itself, so our love overflows, our knowledge grows, our discernment grows, the ability to discern even the more difficult things grows, and then when we discern, that's our actions follow, right, that's the idea, we discern what's good, we discern what's best, and then we do those things, and then from there, we move to this place where we actually are prepared for the day of Christ Jesus.
[25:50] And it's not that we're doing this on our own so that we can be prepared, but it's the call that we have as Christ followers to live in God's, live according to God's word.
[26:01] I went to the Marshall County game on Friday night. I wore a Marshall County shirt and everything. I'm an officially Marshall County guy, you know, and played pretty well.
[26:13] Yeah, it was good. Good job. They won, by the way. Beat Columbia. Ugh, Columbia. Is that a thing? Do we not like Columbia? Can't stand it.
[26:28] Okay. All right. There's this cool thing, like football players, they have to study, you know, the game to get better, right?
[26:42] Like, you're a defensive end, right, Reed? I'm going to use you as an example. Is that okay? All right. I hope I don't embarrass you. No, I'm just kidding. You're a defensive end, so you probably watch, you know, film of defensive ends playing football, right?
[26:55] You ever watch, like, NFL players, professionals, like to see how they, you know, to try to get those moves right? Yeah. If you only watched other people play football, if that's all you ever did, would you be ready for game day?
[27:11] Why not? You have to do it, right? Yeah, you have to do it. You have to actually get your hand in the dirt, you got to practice the swat and swim, you know, all the whole thing, you got to practice it all, right? You're not, football players are good if they study film, they're great if they practice hard, and then you put those two things together, and you get somebody like him who can really play some ball, you know?
[27:34] But the same thing is true for Christians. We can study God's word, we should, we should study God's word and grow in knowledge, but we also have to get our hand in the dirt and make some plays.
[27:45] Don't be a sideline only Christian, get in the game. Be obedient to God's word, share your faith, be bold, love people, serve in the church, right?
[28:01] This is getting in the game. And the idea here that we'll be prepared for the day of Christ Jesus, again, this is sanctification, the process of God making us look more like himself.
[28:17] This overflowing love that Paul prays for this church is the avenue for sanctification. We'll grow in sanctification, you'll grow in sanctification as your love for Christ and others grows.
[28:34] So, love people, love Jesus, love him supremely, and put it to practice. The third goal is the last thing I'm going to talk about today real quick.
[28:47] The third goal that Paul gives is that we as Christians would be, our lives, would bring glory and praise to God. that we would bring glory and praise to God.
[29:00] This third goal is the underlying message of this whole letter. It's the whole underlying message of the whole book of every Bible, of every book of the Bible, is that Christ's followers, God's people, would bring him the most glory.
[29:13] Okay, that's, why did Jesus die on the cross? Why did he leave heaven? Why did he die on the cross? Why did he raise from the dead? Why does he save knuckleheads like you and me? It's because that work of salvation brings God the most glory.
[29:32] Why does Christ show us mercy when we still sin? Because God is shown to be glorified through his mercy, through his kindness, through his love. So the work of Christ in salvation, the work of God throughout all of history is to bring himself the most glory.
[29:52] glory. And it's like, I've heard people say that that sounds like, well, that's an arrogant God. It's arrogant of us when we want glory because we don't deserve it.
[30:05] God is beyond worthy of all glory, honor, and praise. So how are our lives able to bring glory and honor and praise to God?
[30:19] How is that possible? people? Well, if we love him supremely, if we love others well, and if those things are shown by this fruit of righteousness is what it says, filled with the fruit of righteousness, right?
[30:35] The good works, the fruit, which is produced in us by Jesus Christ, the good works that we do, if we do these things, then God is glorified.
[30:47] In Matthew, Jesus says that we're the salt of the earth, right? The light of the world. And as we do things for him, the world sees us and glorifies the Father who's in heaven.
[30:59] And that's our aim. That's our hope. It has to be our hope to bring the most glory to the name of Jesus. And, and, like, what I'm trying to do, what I'm trying to show you through this passage is, like, this just, it emphasizes how beautiful Christ is.
[31:19] Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, died on the cross, he's perfect, he's so worthy of honor and glory. In Philippians chapter 2, Paul talks about how beautiful Christ is and how because of his, his humility, God put his name above every other name, exalted him above every name, and that every knee will bow, every tongue will confess to the glory and praise of God the Father.
[31:41] And, and this hope that we would be the people that bring glory and praise to God is such a lofty calling that God has placed on us. It's an amazing reality that you and I have, are going to be the glory and praise of God for all of eternity.
[31:57] It's not, in Ephesians, in Ephesians chapter 1, Paul, he, actually, there's a prayer, it's on one of those way earlier slides. Ephesians chapter 1, Paul prays that, that the church would understand the riches of the inheritance in the saints, that, in Christ Jesus.
[32:13] That, like, in Christ, we would know the riches of this inheritance, which is that we are his glory on display for all of eternity.
[32:28] So, what we do here as Christians, as obedient Christians, living for Christ, honoring him, obeying his word, loving him supremely, loving others well, seeking unity in the church, what we do here is essential, let's call this practice, right, football, it's practice for eternity.
[32:48] And eternity will be God's glory on display, will be unified for eternity. So, this is what we do here, this is why we do this, is because we're preparing for the day of Christ.
[32:59] We're preparing to be his glory, his praise, singing his praise for all of eternity. And that excites me. I don't know if it excites you, but it excites me to think about that I am now in my, you know, sinful body, in my sinful flesh, I am preparing now to not only stand before Christ blameless and pure because of his blood, but also bring honor, glory, and praise to God and his presence for eternity.
[33:32] What a gift. What a gift. And he offers this to us freely. One last thought, though, is this is a prayer that Paul prayed for the church in Philippi.
[33:49] And as I was studying this week, I kind of got stumped by this question that I just asked myself. And so, because I was stumped and convicted, I feel like you should be too, okay?
[34:01] But, if God answered yes to every prayer that you've prayed, let's just say in the last week, would he receive more glory and praise?
[34:15] Would the believers around you and your family and the church grow in sanctification? would this church and the church at large be a better instrument for Christ's work on earth?
[34:33] That's a hard question. Because if I'm being honest, I'm not sure that every prayer I've prayed was with the intent of bringing honor and glory to Christ.
[34:45] I'm afraid that sometimes I fall into the trap of praying selfishly. And I don't want that for me, I don't want that for you. But the reason that John read the Lord's Prayer, the model prayer, Matthew chapter 6, is because when Jesus taught us how to pray in Matthew 6, therefore you should pray like this, our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.
[35:14] Jesus started his prayer with putting God's name above everything else by giving glory to God. And then with that first petition that he would put God's name above every other name, bring him glory first, that filters the rest of the prayer.
[35:33] So, God, you be glorified, your kingdom come, your will be done. Help us today, give us our daily bread, forgive us, all of these things that God does as we pray the way that Jesus modeled, it has to start with bringing honor and glory to the name of God.
[35:51] That's why he read that passage today. And again, I'm just not sure, for me, maybe you guys are really, really good at praying better than I am, maybe you're more aware of this, and I'm thankful if that's the case, but I've got to be more intentional to pray in a way that leads to God's glory.
[36:13] that if God said yes, he would be glorified. So, I don't have an invitation to you today, you know, I'm not, nothing special as we wrap up, and John Marks is going to sing, we're going to lead us in a song, right?
[36:31] So, we're going to sing together, but as we stand and as we sing, I'm going to challenge you to think about your prayer life, to think about the way you live in general, and do you live in the overflow of love?
[36:48] Do you live in that abounding love? And if you're struggling to think yes or no, if you don't, if you can't pick up, yes I do, no I don't, well, ask yourself this next question.
[37:00] If I asked the person closest to me, my spouse, my sibling, whoever, if I asked the person closest to me, would they say that I live out of the overflow of the love of Jesus?
[37:13] And if not, my challenge for you is to repent and to believe in him. Let's pray together, let's pray. Dear God, thank you for who you are, thank you for your word, thank you for your love that's on display in Christ Jesus.
[37:30] God, I pray that we would live in that overflow, that we would live our lives to bring you honor, to bring you glory and everything that we do. God, we love you and we pray.
[37:40] Amen.