Good afternoon, Jubilee Church. Welcome to our Tagalog-English worship service. We just finished the school-year at JCA. One of our final tasks in our youth ministry was to select new student leaders for our high school ministries next school-year. We select new leaders every year with some criteria in mind. The most important criterion is this: we want to choose leaders who are spiritually mature. This is a requirement for all leaders in all church ministries. All pastors, elders, deacons, ACCESS Group leaders, worship leaders, ministry coordinators, and so on, must be spiritually mature. But this raises important questions. How does one become spiritually mature? What are the mechanics of true spiritual growth?
We are continuing our series on Philippians this afternoon. In today’s passage, Paul instructs his disciples how they can attain spiritual growth. From this text, we will learn three rules we can apply in our own lives to become spiritually mature in Christ. We will learn how we can grow spiritually to become all that Christ calls us to be.
Rule #1: Pursue knowledge.
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight…” (Philippians 1:9)
In verses 3 to 8, Paul was assuring the Philippian Christians that he has been praying for them earnestly. Here in verses 9 to 11, he is sharing with them the content of his prayers. What is Paul’s prayer for the Philippians? “That your love may abound more and more.” Paul wants his disciples to grow in their ability and willingness to love God and to love other people. This is what it means to be spiritually mature. Jesus Christ gave us His two greatest commands: to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.” He goes on to say that “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matt 22:36-40). To be spiritually mature in Christ is to excel in obeying Christ’s command of love.
Notice the amount of love that Paul expected his disciples to exercise: “that your love may abound more and more.” Paul doesn’t want his disciples to just love God and others; he wants their love for God and for others to abound. He doesn’t just want their love to abound; he wants their love to abound more and more. One of the most important skills you must learn in life is identifying when you have already done enough. If you’re working on a project, you should know when to stop. You might end up working too hard and hurting yourself. This is excellent advice for writing school papers, accumulating wealth, doing church ministry, etc. But it does not apply to the command of love. Our love must “abound more and more.” We must never be satisfied with the amount of love that we have for God and for other people. But how exactly do we abound in love? This is where the three rules come in.
For the first rule, look at the end of verse 9. Paul described how his disciples ought to grow in their love: “that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” Paul wanted their love to be grounded in knowledge. To worship God rightly, we must know Him. Our expression of worship and adoration for the Triune God is worthless if we can’t say anything that is true about Him. This is the first rule for abounding in love and becoming spiritually mature Christians: we must pursue knowledge. Study the Bible. Study theology. Get to know God and His Word. Then you can abound in love and become spiritually mature.
My wife’s brother lives in Cebu. I remember the time I spoke with him while I was still dating his sister. He knew that I was studying in seminary at that time. So, he shared about his life-changing experiences at the church he is now attending. He confessed that when he first moved to Cebu, he was planning to backslide—that is, abandon his relationship with Christ. But one day, as he was heading home from work, the Lord drew him in to attend an ongoing Bible study in the church that he always passed by on his way home. During that Bible study, he was surprised to hear the deep insights that the members of the small group Bible Study would share about the Bible. He saw that they were all very smart and knowledgeable about Scripture and theology. This made him curious. He approached one of the participants and asked, “How do you know so much about the Bible and theology? Are you a Bible school student? Which seminary did you go to?” The guy laughed, but tried to be respectful. “No. We are all just faithful members in this church.”
Brothers and sisters in Christ, you don’t have to be a pastor to know the Bible. You don’t have to be a seminary student to learn theology. God gave you your minds. If you are a follower of Christ, you must use your intellect to know Him. If you want to become a spiritually mature Christian, then the first rule for growing in the Christian faith is to pursue knowledge. Study the Bible. Study theology. Get to know God and His word.
Rule #2: Live for Jesus.
“…so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ…” (Philippians 1:10)
In verse 9, we learned that the first rule for growing in spiritual maturity is to pursue knowledge. Why is knowledge important? Paul explains: “so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless.” If you are knowledgeable about who God is and what He has spoken to us through His word, you will gain the spiritual power of discernment. Discernment gives us the ability to make the best decisions in life that will keep us pure and blameless.
Who doesn’t want to be pure and blameless? We all want to excel in school, in the workplace, at home, and in church. We want our parents, teachers, and pastors to be proud of us. We want our friends and peers to look up to us and see that we are good people. But notice what kind of purity and blamelessness Paul is talking about in this verse: “so that you … may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.” He doesn’t say “until your graduation day” or “until your next promotion.” Paul says, “until the day of Christ.”
As Christians, we must not long for the rewards that we can receive from our teachers, classmates, supervisors, pastors, or parents. We must live for “the day of Christ.” On that day, we will stand face to face with our Lord and Savior. Throughout our lives, we always want to please other people: our parents, friends, teachers, bosses, children, grandchildren, etc. But at the end of our lives, we will stand face to face with Christ. On that day, we will realize that Christ is the only person we should have been pleasing all along.
This is the second rule for spiritual growth: live for Jesus. Don’t live for other people. Don’t live for yourself. Begin every endeavor with the end in mind: the day of Christ. Live to please Him, because one day, you will see Him, and you will want that day to be the greatest day ever, not the worst day ever.
Rule #3: Bear fruit in Christ.
“…filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1:11)
The first rule in gaining spiritual maturity is to pursue knowledge. We cannot grow in our love for God and others if we know nothing about the God we worship. The second rule is to live for Jesus. We cannot grow in our love for God and others if our chief concern in life is to please other people. We must live to please our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
If you are like me, then you know very well that it is impossible to live a blameless life. We sin against God every day. Every sinful thought and action makes us feel unworthy to even stand in the presence of God. How, then, is it possible for Paul to instruct his disciples to be “pure and blameless”? It is possible only because of what Jesus Christ accomplished for us. Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins. The Bible says that, if we have placed our faith in Christ, our sins were placed on Him on that cross, and he paid for all our sins completely. We are able to gather together to worship God today only because of the cross. When God sees us worshipping Him, He knows the sin we have committed this week. He knows all our rebellious thoughts and actions. But because of the complete atoning work of Christ, He has covered all our shame. Our Heavenly Father sees us worshipping Him, and despite our sin, He sees the blood of Christ covering us. This is how we have forgiveness and purity. We are pure and blameless, not because we are good, but only because Jesus Christ is good. He is the one who graciously saved us and forgave us of all our guilt and shame.
But when Jesus died on the cross, He didn’t just forgive our sins. His great act of love on the cross bears fruit in our lives — “the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.” The gospel of Christ is the power that sanctifies us and makes us grow spiritually. Jesus Christ calls us to love God with our every being, and to love others as we love ourselves. Christ showed us the greatest act of love for God by obeying the will of His Father unto death. He showed us the greatest act of love for neighbor by dying on the cross in the place of us sinners who have rebelled against Him.
Pondering on the cross of Christ bears the fruit of righteousness in our lives. That’s why in verse 10, Paul explains how we can become blameless on the day of Christ. We don’t do it through our own human efforts. Instead, we do it by being filled with the power of Christ: “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.”
This is the third rule for growing in spiritual maturity: we must bear fruit in Christ. We don’t pursue righteousness and status in God’s kingdom through our own human efforts. Instead, we abide in Christ and trust in Him. The more we meditate and fill ourselves with the gospel of Christ, the more his righteousness will flood in our hearts and overwhelm us. The ministry of service and leadership that we do in church must become not an outward obligation but an overflow of the abundant life that we have in Christ.
Conclusion
As we close, I just want to share a quick story of how I confirmed my calling to be a pastor. When I went to seminary, I had ambitions of becoming a preacher. But throughout the course of my studies, I’ve met many intelligent Christians who knew much about theology and the Bible, but were convinced that the Lord did not call them to become pastors. During my last trimester, I recalled the story that my brother-in-law shared—how he went to a Bible study thinking that those people were seminary students, but were in fact just regular attendees who knew their Bibles well because they loved God so much. I thought to myself, that’s pretty cool. Maybe I could be someone like that—someone who takes the Bible and his faith in Christ very seriously, even though he does not have a pastoral or leadership role in the church. I resolved in my heart: “I do not want to become a pastor just because I want to. I want to do it only if the Lord will show me that He will use me to bless the church through my preaching.” During my last trimester at IGSL, the pastor of the church I was attending invited me to preach one sermon. If you watch the video recording of that sermon, you would see that I did not preach very well. My eyes were glued to the manuscript. I spoke slowly because I was anxious about every word that I said. I did not preach eloquently at all. But after the sermon, the members of the church shared their affirmation. They told me how the Word of God ministered to them. That’s when I confirmed in my heart that this is what the Lord is calling me to do. The Lord is calling me to preach. I don’t preach just because I want to. I preach because this is where the Holy Spirit is graciously making me bear much fruit.
Sometimes, we are too concerned about knowing our calling in the Body of Christ. Did God call me to be a teacher, an elder, a pastor, or a missionary? We all have one calling—to abide in Christ. That must be our primary concern.
A mango tree doesn’t worry about bearing mango fruits. A banana tree doesn’t worry about bearing banana fruits. Instead, all they do is stay rooted in their soil. If you are abiding in Christ, and if you seek first His kingdom, then you do not have to worry much about your calling in the church. The Holy Spirit will be the one to guide you and show you the mighty gifts he has given you to serve His body. All you need to do is abide in Christ. The more you abide in Christ, the more you are placing yourself in the position where you can bear much fruit.
So, how do we grow in spiritual maturity and become all that God is calling us to be? We must pursue knowledge. We must live for Jesus Christ alone. And we must bear fruit in Christ. If you follow these three rules, you will do well. You will grow in spiritual maturity and be a force for change in the kingdom of Christ.