3I thank my God every time I remember you. 4In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Paul mentions the day of Christ here in verse 6, and again in verse 10. And you find that throughout his letters he is always working and laboring and striving and longing with the day of Christ in his mind. It is a Christian virtue to eagerly wait for and live in expectation of the return of our Lord Jesus Christ – His coming arrival. And Paul often observes that in his churches:
-1 Corinthians 1:7, “Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.”
-1 Thessalonians 1:9b-10, “They tell us how you … wait for his Son from heaven”
-Titus 2:13, “while we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”
Paul says that God began a good work in them and He will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. You see, God has this day in mind and He is continuing on with his work – notice the quality of the work: it is good – he is continuing His good work for a day that is yet to arrive – the day of Christ Jesus. In the mean time, it is important for us to know God’s work in us did not end at salvation. It began long before salvation, and it will carry on until the day of Christ. God is faithful to finish what he started. He doesn’t quit, He doesn’t give up, He doesn’t abandon us. We are reminded of Jesus words, “and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16). And again after His resurrection, he said to the disciples, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mathew 28:20)
Now, where Paul speaks in verse 6 of God continuing His work in them, we are going to focus in verses 9-11 where Paul describes the content of God’s work in them. These are the things that God works to produce in every one of us. They are in essence, what spiritual maturity is made of. Let’s unpack these verses to find out what work God is doing in us in preparation for the day of Christ Jesus.
Love
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.
The first thing Paul prays for is their love. But he prays for them to have a certain kind of love. In verse 9 we can see 3 qualities of this love Paul desires them to have, and they are: agape love, abounding love, and academic love.
First, the love Paul mentions is agape love (see John 3:16, 1 John 4:8, Galatians 5:22, 1 Corinthians 13). This is the highest form of love. It is the love of God. It is the kind of love that seeks the highest good for another person – regardless of who or what that other person is. You see, agape love doesn’t consider the merit or worthiness of the person it is given to. It is not the kind of love that is earned. Paul prayed that the Philippians would grow by moving from worldly merit-based love, to godly agape love.
The mark of true spiritual maturity is when someone gives love to someone they don’t want to give it to. The reasons can be that the other person is aggravating, provoking, un-attractive, un-lovely, undeserving, mean-spirited, an abject failure, confusing, frustrating, doesn’t acknowledge you or your efforts, or even evil. None of these things matter.
Jesus said in Mathew, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Agape your enemies – seek their well-being, their benefit, their gain; take action to make life better for them. If this is how we are to treat our enemies, how much better each other?! God’s agape love gives love regardless of the worth or response of the other person. It is a conscious choice that does not depend on our good or bad feelings, our sentimentality, or affection. This is how God loved us, and, a spiritually mature man keeps getting better at loving people the way God has loved him.
So the first thing about this love is that it is agape love. The second thing is that it is abounding love. I pray that your love may abound more and more. The greek word here is periseuo. It means to be in excess, or, to be overflowing. Paul uses it in the present progressive tense, which means that it was to continue on into more and more measure. It is to keep on swelling up and over; to be ever increasing and overflowing with overflowing. The idea is to have an abundance of this agape love.
Our love can abound more and more and be always increasing because the well from which we draw of this love is endless. “God is love” in 1 John 4. Love is what God is. He is the source, the spring, the supply of this godly agape love because He is love. And since God is infinite and endless and has no limits or boundaries in Himself, so too then is His love. This is a great reminder for us when we are run dry and need to draw from His endless spring.
Paul mentions the day of Christ here in verse 6, and again in verse 10. And you find that throughout his letters he is always working and laboring and striving and longing with the day of Christ in his mind. It is a Christian virtue to eagerly wait for and live in expectation of the return of our Lord Jesus Christ – His coming arrival. And Paul often observes that in his churches:
-1 Corinthians 1:7, “Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.”
-1 Thessalonians 1:9b-10, “They tell us how you … wait for his Son from heaven”
-Titus 2:13, “while we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”
Paul says that God began a good work in them and He will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. You see, God has this day in mind and He is continuing on with his work – notice the quality of the work: it is good – he is continuing His good work for a day that is yet to arrive – the day of Christ Jesus. In the mean time, it is important for us to know God’s work in us did not end at salvation. It began long before salvation, and it will carry on until the day of Christ. God is faithful to finish what he started. He doesn’t quit, He doesn’t give up, He doesn’t abandon us. We are reminded of Jesus words, “and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16). And again after His resurrection, he said to the disciples, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mathew 28:20)
Now, where Paul speaks in verse 6 of God continuing His work in them, we are going to focus in verses 9-11 where Paul describes the content of God’s work in them. These are the things that God works to produce in every one of us. They are in essence, what spiritual maturity is made of. Let’s unpack these verses to find out what work God is doing in us in preparation for the day of Christ Jesus.
Love
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.
The first thing Paul prays for is their love. But he prays for them to have a certain kind of love. In verse 9 we can see 3 qualities of this love Paul desires them to have, and they are: agape love, abounding love, and academic love.
First, the love Paul mentions is agape love (see John 3:16, 1 John 4:8, Galatians 5:22, 1 Corinthians 13). This is the highest form of love. It is the love of God. It is the kind of love that seeks the highest good for another person – regardless of who or what that other person is. You see, agape love doesn’t consider the merit or worthiness of the person it is given to. It is not the kind of love that is earned. Paul prayed that the Philippians would grow by moving from worldly merit-based love, to godly agape love.
The mark of true spiritual maturity is when someone gives love to someone they don’t want to give it to. The reasons can be that the other person is aggravating, provoking, un-attractive, un-lovely, undeserving, mean-spirited, an abject failure, confusing, frustrating, doesn’t acknowledge you or your efforts, or even evil. None of these things matter.
Jesus said in Mathew, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Agape your enemies – seek their well-being, their benefit, their gain; take action to make life better for them. If this is how we are to treat our enemies, how much better each other?! God’s agape love gives love regardless of the worth or response of the other person. It is a conscious choice that does not depend on our good or bad feelings, our sentimentality, or affection. This is how God loved us, and, a spiritually mature man keeps getting better at loving people the way God has loved him.
So the first thing about this love is that it is agape love. The second thing is that it is abounding love. I pray that your love may abound more and more. The greek word here is periseuo. It means to be in excess, or, to be overflowing. Paul uses it in the present progressive tense, which means that it was to continue on into more and more measure. It is to keep on swelling up and over; to be ever increasing and overflowing with overflowing. The idea is to have an abundance of this agape love.
Our love can abound more and more and be always increasing because the well from which we draw of this love is endless. “God is love” in 1 John 4. Love is what God is. He is the source, the spring, the supply of this godly agape love because He is love. And since God is infinite and endless and has no limits or boundaries in Himself, so too then is His love. This is a great reminder for us when we are run dry and need to draw from His endless spring.
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