Phil. 1:9-11 - Love Abounds

9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,
10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;
11 having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Paul’s Prayer for Them

Verses 9-11 are a prayer for the church in Philippi -
Paul’s Prayer is that:

• Their love would grow because they hear and know the truth,
• They would learn by intellect and by experience how to discern between good and evil,
• They would apply that knowledge to their daily lives,
• They would not fall away from the faith,
• They would manifest the fruit of the Spirit,
• They would know all this is from Christ Himself.

Vs. 9 - And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,

“that your love may abound” - In verse 6, Paul is confident that Jesus will complete His good work in them. Jesus said he came that we might have life, abundantly. (John 10:10) Included in that abundant life is love. (See John 14:21, 23). Paul’s goal is “love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” for his friends and fellow Christians. (1 Tim. 1:5)
Love, not just for itself by itself, is to fill us with His power - we have His love and His power. “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline”. (2 Tim. 1:7) When we surrender to Jesus we can fellowship with Him, the Father and the Holy Spirit.
This is fantastic! But, like the TV commercials, “But Wait! There’s more!”

“real knowledge and all discernment,” - Jesus told us the Holy Spirit would teach us. See: "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17) And "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.“ (John 14:26).
The knowledge is not for knowledge itself, although that is important. The Lord intends for us to grow in faith and holiness. We learn and obey and are blessed by the Father. "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." (John 14:21) The ability to recognize sinful behavior before you do it, and so avoid it, is part of discernment. Discernment is not just a NT concept. See Psa.119:11, Job 34:31-33; Pro. 6:20-23.

Vs. 10 - so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;

“approve the things that are excellent” - Moral clarity is one of the goals of growth in discipleship. In Hebrews we read, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” (Heb. 5:12-14).

Living in the power of the Holy Spirit not only helps you avoid sin, it frees you from shame and guilt. “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’" (John 8:31-32) Free from living legally, “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not”. This is not saying we will live sinless; we are all far too human to do that. There’s an old joke, “Learning is the ability to recognize a mistake the second time you make it.” That is not the way Jesus wants us to live.
Guiding by the Holy Spirit gives us the opportunity to resist the devil. We are to learn and apply, getting discernment, in order to avoid sin. Paul urges us, in the Colossians letter, to “keep seeking the things above, where Christ is,” and “set your mind on things above, not on the things on earth.” (Col. 3:1, 2) These are the excellent things.

“sincere and blameless” - See: Jude 1:24-25. In Christ, and nowhere else, we will be found without sin. When we are in the light of Christ’s glory, because of His glory, we will be blameless and without blemish.
One of the concepts of sincere is to be “found pure when unfolded and examined by the sun's light”. Jesus is the light of the world, and people do not want to be exposed to His light. "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)

To be blameless is to be “without offense, not troubled by a consciousness of sin”. David similarly said, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!“ (Psa. 32:1-2).

Vs. 11 - having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

“having been filled with the fruit of righteousness” - See: Gal. 5:22-23. Have you wondered why God gave the rules in Leviticus and Deuteronomy? I have heard people say it was for ‘health’ reasons in the form of dietary laws, human relationships, etc. Although there is some truth to those claims, God wanted the Israelites to be DIFFERENT from the tribes and peoples around them. Having One God, and one only to worship was a HUGE change from the pagan nations around them.

The fruit of righteousness shall be in our hearts and in our lives. It shall be obvious to all those who live around us. Christians are to be different. We are to be lights in a dark and sinful world - lighthouses to provide both a warning and to show a path to safety and life.

“which comes through Jesus Christ” - The life we live as Christians shall be different than those who do not believe in Jesus Christ (This statement assumes you are living in the power of the Holy Spirit, and not under your own power). It is Christ who lives in us, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Every thing we have and do is because of and through Christ Jesus, the Lord Almighty.

Here’s a quote from an early church leader (See note 1): “When we consider that Christ is the true light, having nothing in common with deceit, we learn that our own life also must shine with the rays of that true light. Now these rays of the Sun of Justice are the virtues which pour out to enlighten us so that we may put away the works of darkness and walk honorably as in broad daylight. When we reject the deeds of darkness and do everything in the light of day, we become light and, as light should, we give light to others by our actions.
“If we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life.” [Emphasis is mine.]

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Note 1: author unknown to me.
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