A Wise Love

welcome to the faith bridge sermon podcast we hope you're encouraged by the message for more in-depth content and answers to questions submitted during the sermon check out our podcast called PostScript you can find it on iTunes or on our web site at faith birch org forward slash podcast well had a good to see ya yeah so we at breakaway ministries where I work full-time have launched an app for your iPhone iPad Android device even Windows Phone you know which exist there I guess no one in here has one I was waiting for someone to be like no okay great well for that one guy we're there for you but on the app it has all the sermons that we give it breakaway but it also has what the video was talking about is a series of short videos that that aren't focused in on me or my face it's it's looking at the text and teaching you how how to study the Bible it's we did it for for all the people of all ages that I've encountered throughout my years of ministry that say hey I've tried to start reading the Bible on my own and I feel totally lost I don't I don't know how to do it it's it's to help you do it it's to to be something you can go to on a daily or weekly basis and get the tools you need to study well while studying a book together so we're excited about that the app also has the whole audio Bible on it you can listen to the whole Bible if you want to and it's all free so it's just out there for you so you can go to iTunes or whatever and download it and hopefully it'll be an encouragement to you so that's what that is and with that said let me read to you from Philippians chapter 1 that's where we are this morning Philippians 1 verse 9 through 11 we'll read the Bible together now and see what the Lord has for us Philippians 1 beginning in verse 9 says this and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment 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 let me pray for us well lord I want to thank you for this moment here too to think about these things what we just read whether we grabbed it or not is a pretty profound statement it's a pretty powerful prayer to pray for our own lives for other people's lives it's a life changing kind of thing to ask you for and God I feel the the distance sometimes from from biblical language to our real life and I just pray God by your grace we could we could cross that distance we could bring it together that if reading these words didn't land on us in a way that was moving or powerful I praise as we linger in them together you would open our eyes to see what it would look like to live this way as a mom or a dad or a student or a friend that we can engage this idea of how you've called us to live in the midst of our very real lives and I just think if we could see that union of your powerful word and our personal life there's something beautiful there I want for all of us and we're just asking you to do it God please meet with us now and and teach us and I want to invite you if you're willing to take a minute and ask him yourself say lord please teach me something right now and then if you would please pray for me that the Lord would use me and I would be helpful to you well father we love you and we trust you use this time can we pray that in Jesus name Amen well everybody prays at least the vast majority of people on the planet and survey after survey they see that the vast majority of people in the globe today say that at some point at some level they acknowledge a creator someone higher and give thanks in America the vast majority of Americans say they pray the vast majority of Americans say and survey after survey that they pray daily daily they're having some kind of exchange with God and my question this morning is when you pray what do you say do you ask him to bless your food you know do you say Lord thank you let this be nourishing to our body even though you never use the word nourish in any other conversation throughout the day and you're not even quite clear what you're asking him to do to the food in that moment is that kind of how it goes or do you do what I think most of us do honestly I think most of us we pray for our circumstances we say God I've got I'm in a situation or I'm seeing a situation that I want to be different God this person sick and I don't want to be sick anymore we fix that god I have this stress at work will you will you take it away god there's a problem here that I want to not be a problem anymore Lord there's there's a person that I want them to notice me give me their attention there's there's a person that I want to stop noticing me and stop giving me a sense like we talked about circumstances that we want him to fix or we want him to change and and I don't think any of that's bad by the way but what's interesting is we're looking at this prayer that Paul prayed for his people this short little section of three verses and and I want to look at it because it's such a powerful thing to say to ask God to do in our own lives in the lives of the people we care about because it's the kind of prayer that could make you and make me flourish in any circumstance what he's asking for for his people and when I'm praying for us and what I'm hoping we'll get around to pray for ourselves and for those we care about is the kind of prayer that would make us flourish whether it's a good season or a bad one regardless of age gender stage in life that this is the kind of prayer that could be transformative to us as people because it touches down on every part of us touches down on our heart and are we feeling undermined are we thinking in our lives how we live it's such a powerful prayer that I was tempted to call this sermon the greatest prayer but then I was like well the truth is there's the one called the Lord's Prayer and it's kind of hard to say a prayer that the Lord prayed gets second place it just feels like he should be in the top spot but I didn't want to name this like the second greatest player in the world that felt kind of like a weird title but the truth is I think this is the greatest prayer Paul could think to pray for his people and it's the greatest prayer I could think to pray for you and I want us to get our head around it what to ask God for and it's got about five little movements to it and you see the first piece in verse 9 it says and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more and I just think that's so incredible Paul launches into this letter the first thing he prays for is their love and that amazing he doesn't pray for the circumstances at all he prays for their affections he prays for their hearts what they care about and that crazy like have you ever done that for somebody have you ever just stopped and go lord I just pray for for their capacity to feel and how they interact with you and others in their love like he prays for their love I think that's such a profound way to start a prayer because it it declares something to us today and what it says is God cares about what you care about God cares about how you feel and I don't know about you but when that dawned on me in life that was so profound because I grew up in a tradition often times in in ministry and life and religion I felt like the message coming to me was God doesn't really care about how you feel and maybe some of you grew up where your understanding of God as you were coming up was God just cares about what you do just do the right thing and I don't really care how you feel about it I mean for me coming up there was an illustration that was really popular in a zeal of a train and they would have this picture of a train and they would have the engine of the train and they would say the engine of the train is facts and by that they meant the facts of the Bible the truths about who God is and what he's done and then the next car in the picture was a car attached to the engine and it was called faith and what they were saying is what matters is that there's the right facts about God and you connect to those facts with your faith and then there was a third train called feelings and it was the caboose and what they said was the feelings doesn't really matter that I can a train run without the caboose yes and so the caboose is unnecessary it doesn't really matter and the point they were trying to make which was a good point was when your emotions go up and down that doesn't change the truths of who God is and what he's done and that's a good point that no matter what's happening emotionally on a given day you have a great day and you know God it's awesome she breaks up with you and you're like it's all darkness like no matter what happens emotionally God is still God he is still true and he's still worthy of your trust and that's a good point that's true but what I misunderstood in that illustration was that you got to believe the right thing so you can do the right thing and how you feel about it God doesn't really care that's how I thought it worked and there was a song when I was coming up to like in high school and stuff it was a popular Christian song called love as a verb well if anyone remembers that one and what they're saying is love is a verb love is a verb which it is but the point they were trying to make is love isn't about how you feel love's about what you do that was a boring song I don't care if you feel good thoughts about me what what matters is what you do and that's what love is so love is taking out the trash love is coming to pick me up when I'm stranded right love is give me a call on the phone there saying love is that but as you think about it I think no it's not taking out the trash is taking out the trash picking me up when I'm stranded is picking me up when I'm stranded calling me it's calling me that's not love those can be ways to express love or they can now but those actions aren't love but love can be a motivator to those actions and make those actions beautiful as they're an expression of what's in my heart but the point is those aren't love love can motivate those things and motive matters motive matters to God and it matters to us like ladies imagine if your husband or boyfriend or significant other says to you hey I want to take you to a restaurant and they take you to your favorite restaurant I mean the one that you're like I can't believe we're going there this is so amazing to have that dessert you love let's say he takes you there okay and as you're sitting there you're like oh my gosh this is gonna be great and the whole time you look across the table at him and he could not look less interested he's kind of looking around checking his phone and so you would naturally ask him the obvious question so what's the occasion why are we here and what if he said oh because I just thought I was supposed to I mean you like this place so I figured oh let's just give her what she wants trying to make her happy and then I'm gonna move on and do something I feel like doing how do you respond do you go huh No he ruined it even when the desert comes and it's your favorite dessert and sitting there in front of you and you're like I can't even eat this because it's tainted with your hate right I mean he ruined the thing with the motive the motive matters and it matters to God God is not looking for you to do the things you're supposed to that's not what he cares about God cares about how you feel God cares about your love and love is a motive and so he talks here and what he cares about is your love rejoice in the Lord always I say it again rejoice that's a command in the book Philippines Jesus was asked what's the greatest commandment he said the love God without your heart my soul not your mind and then it explodes into love for people God cares by your heart and the 1700s in America there was a massive spiritual awakening that happened in our country changed our country we're still feeling the effects of it in some way and this great awakening to spiritual life brought all these people into great interest in the Bible praying as families and amazing movement in America but like all great spiritual movements when God is at work in a place crazy always moves in next door and so there were some people that were like oh so like being in love of God is like legit or being a Christian is the thing now so I'm gonna show everybody how much I'm into this and so people would just do really ecstatic stuff like they would say I'm gonna climb this tree for Kotter I'm gonna bark like a dog for God and it was like okay and it started to confuse things of is that what Christians do is that what Christianity is is it like I do all this crazy stuff like what how do you even know if you're really a Christian how do you really know that you're connected with God and the way God wants us to be how do you know in a pastor named Jonathan Edwards began to press into that how do you know that you really you really know him is that when you start barking is that how you know like how do you know and as his study of the Bible but he came up with which is I think really true and the point I'm trying to make is he said True Religion this of holy affections that I love the Lord was my heart soul in mind because they accept it it's not about just believing the right facts because the devil does that and then I remember he said the devil has been to a better seminary than you which stood out to me because I was in seminary at the time and he was like he's been to a better school he said you're studying creation he was there so it's just believing the right things about God the right thing no cuz he believes it does the devil believe Jesus was the son of God of course he believes that he knows that does he believe Jesus died on the cross yes does he believe Jesus rose from the dead yes he believes all that so it's not about believing those things he believes that the devil so what makes you different than the devil if you're a Christian it's not that you believe that what can the Nevel devil not do he believes those things but he doesn't see them as lovely he doesn't see them as precious and that's the difference the Christian sees the truth of what Jesus Christ is and what he did that he's the son of God who became a servant of man to heal us and forgive us to take away guilt and condemnation and sin and bring us into relationship with God and we see that as precious how do you know you're a Christian because you love Christ how do you know you're saved cuz you've cherished the Savior that's how you know it's about the affections and they matter they matter and so the first thing he prays for is their love that you would love God and love people but he says that your love would abound more and more but then what's interesting is he doesn't say abound more and more in intensity he doesn't say bound more and more in activity either he says I pray that your love would abound more and more with knowledge with data with facts which I think is an interesting thing to say because often in America when we talk about love and we want to talk about the intensity of love we talk about it as contra to intelligence right then when someone's really in love you just go it's just crazy crazy love right it's just mad love and we got a contrast love with thinking like the greatest expressions of love or the ones that are totally like nuts you know like he just climbed a water tower and painted her name on it I don't know it's crazy right like it's it means not thinking and yet here Paul prays for us and he prays that your love would abound more and more would overflow with knowledge what does that mean well it makes sense if you think about it love always seeks more information about the beloved it does that's what love does you see it with affections even when it's not full-blown love just infatuation I see it on a college campus where I work all the time you'll see a guy walking to class he's walking to class some cute girl will walk by and maybe she smiles at him says hi and he goes hi and he thinks about her all the rest of the day and the next day at that exact time he's gonna walk down that exact path and he'll continue to do that every day that year in the hopes of just getting a glimpse of her again right or if he's more proactive he'll walk by she walks by and goes hi and he goes ooh drops everything he's doing it's like so I'm lost can you help me find where are you going yes that can you help me find that so tell me about yourself and what you're looking for in a mate right I mean uh he's gonna get right there or you'll see a girl she'll be interested in a guy and they don't go oh my gosh my affections are stirred by him weird and then go back to studying it's not what they do they open a file and they begin to do CIA level research online stalking him on Facebook all right he's eating peanuts now are they create a dossier kind of understand him online start showing up place where he is they'll be in buildings that doesn't even have anything do with their major he'll run into her like what are you doing in the engineering building an education major and she's like what I heard y'all had a snack bar that was don't worry about it so tell me about your dreams right and I just want to be near you because I care about you and love always seeks knowledge of the beloved and what Paul is saying here is when you come to Christ Romans 5 says that God has shed abroad his love in our heart through the Holy Spirit that he's given us there when you come to believe in Jesus Christ you're marked with a seal the promised Holy Spirit God God puts his spirit in you and it sheds abroad a love for God in your heart it's like he starts a little flame of love for God but it's small and what Paul prays is that you would take the fuel of knowledge about God what he's like how Jesus treated women how he treated kids how he spoke to the men he gathered around him that you would drop that knowledge of Christ into your affections why so that they can grow that your love seeks knowledge why for the stirring and in flaming of the affection that's how the world works that's how he wired us and were meant to do it with him that I fuel my affections for God with knowledge of God that's Paul's prayer it's his prayer it's interesting I read a book not long ago about fire yes you heard that right I read a book about fire and it was talking about forest fires in big ones that go really crazy and it said to have like a really big raging fire you need three things they called the fire triangle they said you need heat from the initial flame you need fuels trees grass anything that will burn and you need wind to bring oxygen into the fire and to help it spread when I said whenever you get those three things when you got heat introduced fuels have the wind blow over it they said you have a fire that's gonna grow hotter grow bigger grow more intense and gonna spread and if you keep adding those elements it creates a feedback loop and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and it's unstoppable and it's a great picture of the Christian life what's the Christian life that I take the heat of the love for Jesus that he put in my heart when I came to believe in him and I introduced to that heat the fuels of knowledge of God through his word that I began to load into my mind thoughts of God but can you just gain Bible knowledge and not be more in love with him yeah that's why Paul prays that your love would be filled with knowledge he's asking God to take that little flame of your heart and as you put the Word of God in it that the wind of God would blow and make your little flickering flame of a flexions affections for him into a bonfire and that's part of my rhythm every day as I sit down in my affections for God or too cold I know it and yet I ask him God as I sit over your word will you teach me things about you and would you stir my heart incline my heart to your testimonies I ask the wind of God to blow over my reading of the word so that this little flame of affection will become a roaring fire that others can be warmed by that's the Christian life right that's why we made the app it's a shameless promotion I know but it's free we did it to help people get in front of the Word of God so that they can know God more so they can love him more because what you think about is what you'll care about and what you care about is what you'll chase the transforming of the life starts here so some of you have maybe been hanging out at church all your life and you go well Ben I don't feel a real burning affection for God I don't well the goal is not this like incredibly emotionally ecstatic experience every second of the day that's not real life but it can be a deep burning love for some of you if you go I don't feel an affection for him there may be different reasons for that but can I say to some of you it may be that you just don't think about him that much and you might have hung out in these kinds of circles a long time but you haven't really loaded your mind with thoughts of him so that flame of affection for him has gotten and you need to just create some space to sit with him summer for me I have a little sister that I've grown up with for most of my life and when we were kids I you know I don't know we didn't really hang out that much like she was just kind of like thing in the house I don't know you know it was like one of those necessities like oh we got one of those and so we didn't necessarily do do a lot right and so I had a little sister she's in the house okay but I'm living my life and it wasn't until maybe high school I remember sitting in the kitchen one day and she came in there and I'm there cuz the food's there and she happened to be in there and that's fine but she starts to talk and and then we we had a conversation like what I would say things and she said things back that were like interesting and worthy of comment on and I remember it was mind-blowing I remember it being really profound for me I was like oh you're like a person I remember that just being interesting to me I was like how about that right and then I moved on or whatever and live life but then as it came along I would talk to her a little bit more interesting person I went to college and she came to the same College as me I mean we began to hang out there and I remember as we hung out I was like you're not just like a person you're like an interesting person and the more we got to hang out I'm like actually you're like a really cool person and then we started running together every day and I was like you're like the coolest person I know and not just like because you're my sister I'm like no like if I have options of who to hang out with like I want to hang out with you like you're like the coolest person I know and I thought how weird is that like we lived together this whole time and I just wasn't really clued into that right and some of us that's your spiritual journey you've been kicking around Jesus's house for years but you don't hang out with him that much talk about how much I think about him or let him in to you there's no honest exchange so if you wonder why the affections are low or while the singing part is not that moving free it's because you just haven't spent much time getting to know him now I want to challenge you to get around the the Word of God on your own with a small group of people get around people that love him and talk about him load your mind with thoughts of God because that's what stirs the affections for God that's how he's rigged it and yet it moves on some of you may go we'll bin what about I mean aren't you supposed to do things though yes there we have a heart of affections for God that is fuelled by thoughts of God and then he prays that it would abound in all discernment that's the ability or capacity to understand a situation and respond to it that's what discernment is it's that I take in information and I turn it into good decisions that's discernment I know what to do in a given moment that's discernment and so he prays that your love would grow in knowledge about God and discernment the ability to make good choices so that you may approve what is excellent that would approve means to test something and to see it to be good and what's interesting he says that you would approve what is excellent like the thing is excellent in itself what Paul is praying is that you would have the discernment to do have the ability to recognize that is actually an excellent way to live your life and make decisions so he prays that you would love God that love would grow knowledge and then it would grow in the ability to understand the world and discern was the absolute best thing to do and then do it so you would be pure and blameless for the day of Christ he says that I pray that you would have a love that is informed and that is wise that it knows how to live a beautiful life that it would grow in discernment that I could see what's the best thing to do if I know God and love God what's the best thing to do under God and then I want to do that there's an excellent way to live and because I love him because I know I might want to do that thing and as I do that thing I'm pure and blameless unadulterated in my decision-making until the day I see him that's what he's praying for a discerning a wise life because of my love because of my knowledge right there's an easy way to illustrate that and it's this it's funny when we talk about love often in our society we tend to idolize as the pinnacle young love when we just talked about how sweet young love is like infatuation which is funny to me because young love is not it's not really that deep like if you're dating somebody or even early in marriage like ah the wedding day you're like yeah but even early in marriage like you don't know them that well I mean know him enough to know you wanted to marry him but you just don't know the person that well it's when you stack up years that you gain knowledge about him that you can gain discernment as to what they like right so now for me when when Don and I were first married like one of the first gifts I ever got her was like a board game which she never opened ever like never took like the whatever cellophane wrapping off of until we gave it away it was just like here's a box that never opened because she doesn't play board games got it okay I was looking at a closet the other day and I saw watch hanging up a watch that I bought her that she doesn't wear ever because she never wore watches I thought everybody did I was like everybody needs a watch false your wife doesn't she doesn't wear watches didn't know that when I bought it wish I would have would have save some money right and yet were ten years into marriage and I've gotten to know my wife and my love for her has more knowledge about her and it's made me more discerning and how I treat her so ten years in I know my wife and my love with her is deeper deeper knowledge deeper and discerning what she likes so that now at ten years I remember I was with a young man and we were we were at like a like a clothing store the mall and it was around Christmas and so we were talking about what we're gonna get our girls from my wife of 10 years and his girlfriend and I was buying a shirt for myself or whatever and he was like why don't you pick up something for her here and also God I want to do that he was like maybe I'll buy my girlfriend something here and I was like uh I said you do it whatever you want but buying a woman clothes is kind of like a low percentage shot man like you can do it you can hit it but there's a lot of ways to miss that especially if you're just now dating do whatever you want I'm not doing it uh so whatever you want to do and he was like well why don't you uh why don't you just like pick her up a gift card while we're here and I said a gift card it's ten years of marriage son like you want me to buy her the gift that says I don't know you like that's you want me to do that at ten years and I said no man I already know what I'm getting her and he said what is it I'm like well my wife loves music she was leading worship up here this is one of her favorite things to do I said when you give her free time she's gonna play her guitar she's gonna write songs right she loves to write lyrics when she gets around with her friends they challenge each other to write a certain amount of songs within a given time period that's that's where she finds joy and then she wants to come and share all those songs with me and talk with me about him when she mentors young girls they sit around and write songs together like that's what she loves to do it thrills my wife's heart to be a part of that mix and so what I'm gonna do is give her a day away from the kids and I'm in a book time in a studio with a producer where she can go and record one of her songs that she wrote with the girl that she's mentally and they're gonna lay down the tracks of that song and mixing buttons knobs and whatever you do to make it come out in a way that sounds good and we're gonna put it on iTunes so she can have a song that she and her girl wrote together that's what I'm doing this Christmas and remember I told him that and he goes oh yeah I think that's way better than a gift card I was like you don't write son that's like the best gift I've ever given man what is that that is a love with ten years of knowledge that's grown in discernment discerning what my wife likes and when I've discerned what she likes I want to do it do it because I'm supposed to be her husband no because my love has grown in discernment and so I discern what she loves and I do it and I'm like this is gonna be bananas and I do it why cuz I know when she gets it it's gonna thrill her heart and my heart's gonna be thrilled that she's thrilled and she's gonna be thrilled that I'm thrilled and everybody wins and it's a great year in the Stewart house right that's why and that's what Paul's praying for for you and for me that you would have a love for God that would gain a knowledge of God and as you know God more you become more discerning about what he loves and then you do it not cuz you're supposed to or else you'll get in trouble you'll do it because you love him and you do it cuz you love him until the day he comes and he's thrilled you're doing it and you're thrilled that he's thrilled and everybody wins that's the goal so as I get to know my Savior more as I love him more as I get to know him I start to read the word and you can't deny that he loves the orphan all through the Bible says I'm close to them you want to find me I traffic among the poor I care about him and I traffic among those who've lost their dads and their moms I care about those people so guess what if I care about him and he cares about them what am I gonna do with my extra time or income or affections I'm going there because I know it thrills him and thrilling him thrills me and everybody wins right that's the idea he loves what his people gather in unity so what am I gonna do I'm gonna promote this I'm gonna be a part of us we're gonna help us why because who as we do this we know it thrills him and thrilling him thrills me and everybody wins that's the idea that's what Paul's praying for a love that grows in knowledge and discernment so I can be pure and blameless until the day of Christ Jesus that's the idea do you see it it impacts the heart impacts the mind and that's what fuels the life from the inside out informed affections wise affections active affections that's what he's praying for it do you see it last question is how do I get it how do I get that you go I don't know that I I love him like that I don't know if I'm in a relationship with him like that he ends the prayer by praying that at the end result will be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ how do I live a life that's right before God I don't do it for him I do it through him that ultimately all of this is a gift it's a gift because it's all his so my little daughter who's about to turn 3 gave me a sticker the other day she came up which is like here daddy gave me a sticker and she said it I want to give you a sticker which struck me as ironic because I bought the sticker it's my sticker you know because I bought everything in this house you know I'm like okay but that's my sticker if we're gonna be technical you know but she gave it to me in a suite but when she gave it to me I wasn't up one sticker you know when like Oh Ben's assets just ticked up by a sticker you know like if you're working on my portfolio we got a sticker put that down like I already had the sticker right but I loved that she gave it to me made my day right because I freely gave to her and out of the fullness of her heart she wanted to freely give it back that I was beautiful and that's Christianity that God has given us life and breath and bodies and everything else he's given us all we're a mess because of sin you and I it's a disease we can't cure ourselves of but the grace of God comes and convinces us that were broken and can't fix us that were sick with sin and it leads to death but that he's already created a cure that's why Jesus came to live that perfect life you couldn't to die and bury in the dirt your guilt your condemnation your shame to bury it so that rising as we believe in him he says you are transformed on the inside giving a love for me on the outside you're adopted into the kingdom of God that I made a part of him that all of it is a gift to me that I freely receive and then what do I do with my life I give it all back I say I'm yours you've given me life and breath and forgiveness and healing and grace in a future so I give you me I give you all me that's the prayer that's the Christian life he stirs my heart with thoughts of him and so I live for him that's the Christian life do you see it now some of you go well then how do I get those affections for him it's through Jesus Christ a meditation on him it's by His grace alone Augustine is arguably the second greatest Christian thinker in in history the Apostle Paul would be number one and Augusta and many historians regard as number two one of the greatest influencers of Christianity ever Augustine was hopelessly addicted to sex mistresses whole deal that was his life also to his ego he became an orator because that's where the money was centuries ago and he did it to become popular famous and wealthy and that's he was going for man living the life to fill up Augusta and he went to go hear a preacher because someone told him the guy was a good speaker so he's like I'm gonna go learn some tricks from him so I can use it to amp up agustin right so he goes and listens to the guy and the guys talking about the beauties of Jesus and Agustin realizes I don't have that that the ability to speak is window-dressing he's talking about something deep in the heart I don't have and he started to hear about people that loved God and we're living to love other people because of their love for God and it was this deep beautiful life he didn't have but he was scared to let go of what he did have his death grip on a misuse of sex and on a broken life that was selfish and shallow and so we ran into a garden started to cry and picked up his Bible and read Romans and began to weep and then he wrote this in his journal as he was converted he said how sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of the fruitless Joy's I had once feared to lose you drove them from me you who are the true sovereign joy you drove them from me and you took their place you who are sweeter than all pleasure o Lord my God my light my wealth in my salvation and this is the blessed life to rejoice toward thee about thee for thy sake Christianity as I come addicted and broken and I reach up empty hands and pray to a god who would rid me of these fruitless joys I'm afraid to lose and take their place you who are sweeter than all pleasure renovate my heart so that it loves you ignite a flame of passion in you because of the grace of Jesus Christ and then may I fuel these affections with thoughts of God to live a life that pleases God until the day I get to see God face to face that's the Christian life let me pray for us well lord I pray for the person in here that they don't know you I just pray that they would Jesus Christ was asked what's the work of God what is what does God want and he said believe in the one that he sent he said what God wants is you to believe in me believe that I am the son of God who came to heal you and forgive you not to condemn you not to crush you but to set you free and lord I just pray for any in this place that that haven't come to know you like that that righteousness comes through Jesus Christ alone and I just pray Lord that they would reach up empty hands and say Jesus I want you to forgive me of sin to cleanse me to adopt me into the family of God to renovate my heart I want to be yours and that's the starting place for this journey of knowing him and I just pray if there's anyone to questions about that they would ask him the pastor's here or even now cry out and say oh god I want to be yours lord I pray for those that maybe have lived in the church world and maybe they are a Christian for a long time but the the flame of their affections for you has grown very low and what I just pray over them now that even right now is we're praying you would give them a vision of what it might look like to prioritize stealing away to load their mind with thoughts of God to fuel their affections for you God to get around your word to get in a small group of people that would read it together lord help those whose flame of affections for you has gone low to load their mind with the thoughts of God because it's what we think about that will care about and then God I pray for those that know you and love you are in a racing for and I pray for them what I would pray for all of us that their love would abound more and more in knowledge and all discernment so that they would approve what is excellent and so be pure and dame blameless for the dead of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God that's our turn let it be welcome to PostScript from Faith Bridge Church here we hope to answer your questions and help you dig deeper into the message by sitting down with the teacher of it hi and welcome to postcards my name is Justin I'm the worship and communications pastor at Faith bridge I'm with Ben Stewart who just finished preaching part two of a three-part series here at Faith bridge on Philippians welcome then thanks for being here first thing first got to answer the postscript question that came in via text what is the red X what is the meaning behind that right ah a subtle one I'm sure I well I bought it because it's the letter X no just I liked the shirt I thought it was kind of cool we've got we've got friends that lead an anti-slavery movement called nment ended movement that features the red X which I love and so a lot of people assume it's one of those shirts which I'm fine if they assume that that'd be awesome but I bought it at the store so you're not intentionally making a statement today no I'm not intentionally making a save the day but if you want a statement end it move it calm it's a great States as good as any exact that's great okay secondly seriously the sermon is is really great hit a lot of good points you were telling me before we start recording that this is X or something that you you feel like you can fill up a whole sermon series with yeah and did because I mean and I alluded to it a little bit like it was profound for me too and I don't feel like my teachers when I was young were misleading me I think I think there were some emphases that came back into American evangelist evangelicalism in the late 90s that were really good and sort of putting back forward the late 1990s yeah 1990 the importance of the affections and but I don't think that Miss literally I misunderstood a lot of it but that that sort of rediscovery of that of it's all over the Bible that you rejoice with joy inexpressible is what first Peter says about the Lord yike that's not a thing you do like okay for the next 10 minutes I'm gonna rejoice with joy inexpressible like no he's talking about God's changing your heart for him so those ideas were huge for me life shaping for me and we did at break away do a whole series on it called the chief end of man that was sort of built out of some of the information I alluded to in the talk so if you want to go deeper into these ideas of the the the role of the mind and loving God what does it look like to love him with your mind the role of the affections we did a whole series on it chief end of man which is about so this is kind of a meta PostScript what we're saying actually the best PostScript you could do is go so let's let's talk about that yeah you know sermon we talked we loaded a little bit to the brakeaway app tell us a little bit about that and how do we get that what do we do yeah we were just trying to make what we do more accessible to everybody you know and so we created an app that's you can download on any device that as soon as you get it on your phone iPad whatever you just click and you have access to all the sermons we've done it break away you've got access to the audio Bible if you want it some different information about break away and then you also have access to a new resource we created a little short 10 minute videos or so that aren't videos of my face they're actually it's me writing on the text of the Bible showing you here's how I study the Bible is teaching you how to study and that's that's why the thing I'm most excited about right now is helping people think along with God through his word and so that's a resource that's applicable to everybody and we hope everyone will check out go so right now the Philippians is on there now that's correct and then well more will you be doing more in the future yeah we're kind of test casing it with Philippians so I think it's going well you know we just launched it we're gonna see what people think and and if there's a need and desire then yeah we'll keep going right yeah all right so the name of that sermon series again that we should chief end of man what is the chief end of man great yeah do that hey does it thanks for being here for PostScript thanks see you next week and thank you we'll see you next week as well thanks for joining us for PostScript help us keep the podcast interactive by submitting your questions during the morning services learn more at Faith breeze org /po script you

Channel: Faithbridge

Views: 18,684

Rating: 4.95086 out of 5

Keywords: faithbridge, ben stuart, philippians, love, wisdom

Id: L5MX_eV_RaY

Length: 46min 50sec (2810 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 12 2014