Lord, this morning, we have been touched by Your great love. And we do want to, in Your love, hold Jim and his family before Your throne of grace and mercy, that You really would come in and Your love would flood that family and draw ones that do not know You unto Yourself.
We are thankful how You have taken our brother and brought him into knowing You in such a great way. And we continue to commit his mother into Your hands. Lord, You know far clearer than we see. We are thankful that we can rest by the assurance that she knows You and that we are placing her in Your hands.
Lord, as we continue in Your presence today, we have been captured by Your love. And we want to allow the very love of Christ to continue speaking to us now as we come. We open our hearts to You, that You would meet us, You would encourage us, and, Lord, You would be able, in a great way, to continue equipping us for these evil last days that we find ourselves in.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This morning, if we could turn to Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, Philippians 1. I was going to share on Paul’s prayer, and following our theme of love this morning, Paul’s prayer can be described as a prayer for discerning love.
In Philippians 1:9-10, he says:
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,
so that you may approve the things that are excellent,
in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.
Let us read that again:
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,
so that you may approve the things that are excellent,
in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.
As we find ourselves living in these end days, one of the things that is so dear to the Lord—and what we have been worshiping about, and what is so characteristic of Him—is His great love. We know the things that are great to the Lord—though “great” is a very inadequate word—the things that display who the Lord is. The enemy takes notice of those things too.
So the enemy, in every way, is going to try to distort and bring in a counterfeit of what love is. We see in this world today that many are out there saying, “Just love everybody. Just love them, love them, let them do what they want to do.”
And is that really love? If letting ones do what they really want to do on their own—is that love? Accepting everything—is that love?
Praise God, that is not His love. There is a discerning love. As you look more into what the love of Christ is, I mean, there is a great richness there. But there is also that love mixed with holiness and righteousness.
It speaks in Hebrews—one of our less-favorite verses—but it says, “Whom the Father loves, He disciplines.” You know, that is true love. That is one of the ways a father shows his son that he loves him: by disciplining him. Not many sons understand that until they become fathers.
But we see how, in this world, there is such a distortion of what love is. So we want to consider this matter of discerning love, because there is so much confusion. And we are speaking not so much of the world today; we are speaking of it within Christianity.
Paul prays very specifically for these ones in Philippi. He can pray specifically because he has an ongoing relationship with them. Paul has been very close to them over the years, and he prays that their love can abound more and more.
But how does he want it to abound? With real knowledge and all discernment. And he is praying that so that they can approve the things that are excellent, or they can distinguish between, when two things come before them, which is of the Lord and which is not. So that they can be sincere and blameless on that day of Christ.
Paul always has that end, that goal, in view. That is what he is looking for here.
So we look at the church of Philippi, and even its very origin. It is one of these churches that is characterized just by a very spirit of love. The Lord directed Paul, Silas, and Timothy there in Acts 16.
We see how they met those women by the water, and Lydia gave her heart to the Lord. Her first initial response was a response of love. She opened up her home and said, “Come, be with me.” She cared for them. There was an immediate response of love.
And this is what happens when Christ touches us in our lives. Nobody had told Lydia, “Oh, as a Christian, now that you are a Christian, you are supposed to open yourself and your home up and show hospitality.” It was life within her. It was love within her. She responded this way—very, we could say, spiritually natural.
It was a natural response that brought these ones in. So, from the very birth of this church there in Philippi, we see love manifested.
Remember the story of how Paul and Silas were thrown into jail? Through that earthquake, the jailer and his whole household came to be saved. And again, what was their response? They took Paul and Silas, cleaned their wounds, took care of them, brought them into their home, and showed love.
Love was manifested. It was not a teaching; it was a way of life that was being displayed in such an organic way among this church.
Even after Paul left there and went on, these ones continued to pray for him. As you look in this letter to the church in Philippi, he is thankful how they stood with him from the very beginning, stayed in fellowship with him, and continued to support him in prayer and also financially.
Paul writes this letter about ten or so years after this visit. He is in prison, and the ones from Philippi have reached out to him with another gift. A brother, Epaphroditus, has come. He brought a report about the condition of the church there in Philippi, and he shared this gift with Paul—a continuing spirit of really showing love.
So Paul writes this very personal, specific letter to them, and he prays very specifically. It is wonderful. If you ever want to do it, take some time and study Paul’s prayers.
Paul’s prayers for each of the churches are very specific. He does not do a Hail Mary. There are specific things within Ephesus; there are specific things within Philippi or Colossae; and he prays for them very specifically.
That is so encouraging, and it is an instruction in how we can be praying. As we allow the Spirit of God to lead us, we can pray very specifically for situations, having the mind of Christ come forth.
Paul is very thankful for those in Philippi, for the way they have shown love to him. But his prayer says, “I desire that your love would abound more and more.” There was not a contentment there. There was not a settling down. Paul said, “There is so much more of this love that can grow within you, that you can experience, and I am desiring this for you.”
But it is very unique how he prayed. He prays that their love would abound in full knowledge and all discernment. Some translators say, “real knowledge and discernment.”
Usually, if we are thinking about love and knowledge and discernment, we look at them as two different aspects of the Christian life. We pray for love: “Oh, Lord, let me know more of Your love.” And, “Oh, Lord, let me have more knowledge and discernment in this day.”
But Paul is praying that these two distinct aspects would, in a very living way, become one within the lives of those in Philippi: that their love would be full of knowledge and full of discernment, of really knowing that.
Now, why is he praying that? Because he knows there is a danger here in front of them. Because if we—and we can see it so blatantly in the days we are living in—have love without knowledge and discernment, it will take one extreme or the other.
Love without any knowledge or discernment: on one hand, you get fanaticism. And we see it manifest through radical Islam. There is a love that they have, but surely they do not have real, true knowledge and discernment of what is God, what is the Lord. You see that there is a fanaticism there.
On the other hand, love without knowledge or discernment can be just pure sentimentality, that it is from our own self, our soulishness, based on our emotions. Much of that is manifest in the spirit of humanism today. It is just, “Oh, embrace everything.” And this really is not genuine, true, divine love.
As you look in the Scriptures, we see how Paul, as we look at his life, loved God, but he was persecuting the church. He had a love, but he did not have that knowledge and discernment of what God’s heart was. He thought he was serving God, but he was destroying God’s work.
In a similar way, from a sentimentality point of view, you have a couple of His disciples, James and John. They were on the way to Jerusalem with the Lord in the Gospel of Luke. They happened to be passing through Samaria, and the Samaritans there were not receiving them.
Because they had this natural sentimentality toward the Lord, they said, “Let’s call down thunder and lightning on them. Destroy them.” Is that love?
They had that sentimentality, and that is the way I am using the word sentimentality today: just a natural emotion originating from ourselves. It can have varied definitions, but that is the context in which I will be using that word today. It is just our own natural affections, not His genuine, true affections.
Also, if you look at this combination, if we have knowledge without love, what do you have? You have a lot of pride. You are puffed up with your knowledge. You are so proud of all your knowledge, and it just reeks of pride.
And also, we can have discernment. There is a natural discernment out there; some are more sensitive than others. If you have discernment without love, what does that end up being? It is a judgmental spirit.
You discern—maybe what you discern is right—but there is no love there, and you just condemn and judge. It is tragic how much, within Christianity today, we have pride reaching forth, sentimentality coming out, and self-righteous judging coming out.
But would the Lord bring us into this place of really having this discerning love that Paul is speaking of? Because in these days that we are living in, this is going to become more and more vital for us to really be able to distinguish between what is of the Lord and what is not.
These matters of knowledge, discernment, and love are vitally interrelated and interdependent upon one another, so that the Lord can fully accomplish all that He is desiring.
There is so much confusion today. You know, people say, “Oh, the Lord loves everybody.” Well, that is true. The Lord does love everybody. But He does not love their sin. He does not love false teaching. He does not love divisive ways. He does not love counterfeits.
Yes, He loved the world. He loved the world; He gave His only begotten Son. But over and over, we see the Lord reaching out to those in Scripture, touching them, and then saying, “Go and sin no more.” There is that love of the person.
This is going to be in our face more and more as believers in the hour we are living in. One of the things that we are facing so much today, and we need discerning love in how to handle it, is how we are going to live in society today when society accepts homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
How are we going to be a testimony of the love of Christ to ones? Tragically, within Christianity today, there end up being these two polar ways that it is handled. Some come in with a sledgehammer and say, “It is sin,” and they destroy the person. God loves that person.
On the other hand, as ones reach out and accept, they not only accept the person, but they accept the sin. They say, “Oh, that is okay. That is okay. God loves you.”
There is a way in the Lord to find out how to live with these challenges that we face. We are going to face things that we have never had to face before. It is so common in society for people to live together, and even all the premarital things that go on among Christians, where they say, “God forgives me, and grace abounds.”
We have lost this whole matter of the holiness, the righteousness, and the purity of God’s love. But how do we handle it? This is where having real discernment matters: when we are faced with these situations, that we know how to walk through them in a way that really glorifies the Lord.
As we were in California last week, we were talking with ones about this whole matter of homosexuality. It was so interesting. One brother works in the entertainment industry out there, and he was sharing. He said, “You know, Mac, one of the things that helps me is that what we are trying to do—we have to remember—we are leading people to God, not to heterosexuality.”
It is little things like that. Let us have discernment in how to handle some of these things. Even where, when you start talking about it, it becomes uncomfortable for some, we have got to really have discernment on how to handle this in a way that is a testimony, a light in the midst of the darkness.
That light should attract ones and not repulse ones. Oh, would the Lord give us this great discernment.
Paul is praying here for these dear ones in Philippi that their love would abound more and more. Once it is abounding, it would overflow to enrich, enhance, and strengthen others.
As we were singing that song, that is why I liked it, because it was talking about the rivers that are flowing—the river of God’s love. It is not like a flood going crazy; it is not destructive. But it is controlled.
It has, we could say, the parameters of knowledge and discernment that are leading us into the fullness of all that God has. When you think about how destructive water can be, it is amazing. If you ever go down to the James during a flood, you see the power of that water, and you see it running wild.
But at the same time, you can see that water in another situation. Maybe it is being channeled into a dam, and that same water gets through those channels, getting narrower and narrower. It gains power and is being used for what it was designed for. It creates such great electricity.
So it is how the Lord’s love would be channeled through us in a right way, that we would be those who are growing in that.
How do we abound in this love? How does this love grow in us and abound? It simply comes by staying in fellowship with Him, maintaining this fresh relationship with Him, and getting to know Him in a fuller and greater way.
The more we know Him, the more that love will abound in us. We know that God is love. God’s love never grows. God’s love is absolute. It is full.
Can God love us any more? God cannot love us any more. God cannot give us any more of His love. He has given us all His love.
But as we grow in Him, we experience—and this is what it is speaking of here, of growing and abounding—as we grow in it, we experience more of the reality of that love. We have that love in us.
There is no more He can give us. He has given us Christ, and we have the life of Christ. We have the love of Christ within us. As we yield to Him and allow that life to grow, we come to know and experience the greatness of that love. It grows in us in a fuller and greater way, and that light becomes brighter. There is that testimony there.
That is what we are talking about. That is why Paul, as he is sharing his testimony and a prayer for himself in Philippians 3:8, says, “Oh, that I may know Him.”
Look over there. We will just read these verses. They are somewhat familiar, but as you look in Philippians 3, starting in verse 8, we see Paul’s desire. A few weeks ago when we shared, we called it an insatiable desire. There is this desire that Paul has to know Him, and this is how that love abounds more and more within us.
He says:
More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ,
and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul continues on and on there. You sense this yearning within Paul. The love of Christ has captured him in such a fullness, and he is wanting to press on to know it more and more.
Would this be our prayer? “Lord, I just want to press on and allow the working of Your very life and Your nature within me to cause that love to grow.”
This abounding, this growing, does not come by us trying harder. “I think I can, I think I can,” or making a resolution. We can try harder and harder, and it does not cause it to grow.
It actually grows just the opposite: as we yield and deny ourselves, then it grows. “Not I, but Christ.” That is what Paul testifies here in Philippians: “For me to live is Christ.” That is how that love grows and abounds.
He is desiring that it would be abounding in this full knowledge. This full knowledge is the Greek word epignosis, and it is speaking of more than just a mental apprehension. It is an experience. It is a knowledge of something that you know based upon an experience.
It is a truth. One day it was a truth to you, but then, because of an experience, you know the reality of it. You can think of the peace of God, the comfort of God, and the security of God. We all know these things, but once we go through something, there is a reality.
To me, that has been one of the precious things of the couple of testimony times that we have had on Sunday morning. We have had these words through many brothers and sisters, where there was a teaching: they knew God in one way, but after they went through something so tragic, or so blessed, or the variety of experiences one has, now they know Him in a new way.
There is a full knowledge of Him, and they are testifying of that. There is that reality there. That is what makes the richness of the sharing. That is why it has been so blessed to me.
Ones can take the variety of Scriptures God used. If you went back and looked at all the various Scriptures through the two testimony times, there is a vastness there. It is not like one little set pattern, but God touched ones here and touched ones there. He touched Nathaniel out of Micah. I said, “Wow, that is pretty good, Micah.”
There is a richness in reality, and that is what He is desiring. It is not a mental knowledge, but a real knowledge, because mental knowledge is something we acquire. This real knowledge is something that acquires us.
Mental knowledge is something that we can get hold of, but this real knowledge gets hold of us. Mental knowledge is something we can talk about, but real knowledge is something that impacts our walk. Mental knowledge puffs up; this real knowledge builds up.
This is what we are really after. We can look even at Solomon’s life. What was he praying for? He was praying for a heart knowledge, not head knowledge. He prayed for a hearing heart, to really be able to know what God was after.
This was Paul’s prayer for those in Ephesus: that the eyes of their heart would be open, that they could see. This full knowledge, in a simple way, you could say, is seeing and knowing God’s eternal purpose. It is seeing Christ, seeing what is upon the Lord’s heart, seeing what is upon Christ’s heart. That knowledge that He has, He wants us to see that.
When we are seeing that, it changes our whole perspective on everything.
It reminds me of the Scripture: when David was becoming king of Israel, there was a certain group, one of the tribes, called the sons of Issachar. In 1 Chronicles 12, it is one of the great testimonies of the tribes:
The sons of Issachar understood the times,
with knowledge of what Israel should do.
They understood the times and had knowledge of what Israel should do. This is this matter of discerning love that the Lord is crying out to those in Philippi and to us today.
He wants us to be those who have an understanding of this time: to discern the times, to see what times we are living in, and to have that knowledge of what—not Israel in those days, but now the church, God’s people—should do.
What should we do? How do we walk in these days? We have not walked this way before, but He has a way for us to walk. This is the life that He is wanting us to experience and to become ever more reliant upon Him.
But He does not only pray for that full knowledge. He is also praying that they, in the desperate days we are living in, would have all discernment.
This discernment, we can simply say, is being spiritually wise—having spiritually wise insight, being able to see and distinguish. It is actually a word in the Greek. Steve Sheridan is not here, so I will have to bring us Greek words every now and then. We will miss Steve for that, so we will cover for him.
It is the only time this word is used in the whole New Testament, right here in this little letter. It is being able to tell the difference between the reality of what something is and what it is not.
It is not by judging something, not by judging what things look like outwardly in the natural, but by seeing the inner reality there. Not by judging how ones act or what they say, but by seeing real heart motives.
As we look upon our Lord, as He was with His disciples and walked upon this earth, ones would ask Him certain things or do certain things, and He was able to see right through it to the reality of what was really going on.
The Lord is wanting us to really know and discern the challenge of the day—to discern between what is of Him and what is not, to discern between His life and this counterfeit that is out there, so much trying to pull us this way and that way.
As we are in that relationship of really getting to know Him and exercising ourselves daily, we will be able to tell what is of the Lord and what is not of the Lord.
Praise God. It is tragic today: there are so many things out there in the name of Christianity, and we need to be able to distinguish what is of the Lord and what is not. There is this underlying thing of, “Oh, you need to love everybody and open and embrace everything. God is love.”
It is taking a partial truth and really misapplying it in a broad way. This is why we need to have our senses trained. This whole matter of spiritual exercise in these end days becomes more and more vital and essential, because we are going to have to be able to tell what is of the Lord and what is not of the Lord.
Why did Paul pray this for these dear ones there in Philippi? He prayed it, as you see in verse 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. Approving simply means testing them. You test it to see the value, the genuineness of it, and the superiority of the one that comes forth.
A few weeks ago, when I shared, I shared about being in Seattle and the Boeing test flights that are done there. Those test flights test the planes. They try to take them beyond the limits of design.
We see how the Lord is wanting us to test Him so He can prove Himself to us, that we will know Him in that greater and fuller way.
It is interesting, this little context here. It is not just being able to distinguish, but it is actually then allowing it, choosing it, and applying it to our life. We are saying, “This is of the Lord, and I am choosing to go this way, and I am going to let it work in my life in reality.”
We do not sit back in many ways as judges, like in a gymnastics competition, able to distinguish, “Oh, this one gets a ten. This is only an eight-five.” We are not just sitting back distinguishing: this one is very good, this one is so-and-so.
But as we see the way of the Lord, we are able to say, “That is the Lord, and I am choosing to go that way.” Allow it to hit our lives and to walk in a way that is a testimony unto Him. It is becoming reality to us.
We know that so much of it will be against the tide, the current of this age. It will try to force us this way, but God is saying, “I want you to go this way.” There is a narrow way, and this is the way I want you to walk in.
I love to think about that narrow way, because when does that way look narrow? When you are not on it.
If you look over, you say, “Ooh, that is a narrow way. That is going to cost me something to get there.” Okay. When you are on that narrow way, what does it look like?
There is a vastness. There is a broadness there. You are saying, “Because it is Christ.” You come and you are in His way and His way of walking.
When we see that, we say, “Whoa. Look at the love of Christ. Look at the vastness of His mercy. Look at the riches of His splendor that He has called us into.” When we are in it, going that way, all of a sudden there is not a narrowness, because we are seeing Christ.
We get back off of that path and look over and say, “Oh, that is so narrow. It is going to cost me this. I do not want to do that.” Oh, no. We get on that narrow way—oh, there is a richness there. That is entering into the riches of Christ. That is abounding more and more in Him. Praise God for that.
He talks about how we can distinguish between the things that differ, or things that are excellent. It is simply discerning between His life—what is of His life and what is not of His life. There is a simplicity there.
We see this applied in the letter to the Philippians. Paul actually contrasts two sets of workers. If you read Philippians 1, there were some sharing the gospel there. Paul was in prison in Rome at this time, and that is a whole other aspect of this letter to the Philippians: Paul being in Rome, and this rejoicing-and-love-abounding letter.
It does not sound like it would be from someone who is in prison, but praise God, Paul might have been physically in prison, but he was free and he was enjoying the Lord. So he pens this beautiful letter.
He says, “You know, in Rome, there are some out there sharing the gospel, and many are getting saved, and they are doing it with a pure heart. But there are some out there sharing the gospel out of envy, selfish ambition, even trying to cause me harm. But Christ is proclaimed.”
He can distinguish between the ones sharing the gospel from a pure motive and those sharing it from envy and strife. Praise God, he is still saying Christ is proclaimed.
But then, when you come over to Philippians 3, he says there is a whole other set that he distinguishes. If you look in chapter 3, verse 2, there are some Judaizers there. He discerned these men, even though they might be using some of the same words and religious terminology.
He says:
Beware of the dogs,
beware of the evil workers,
beware of the false circumcision.
There is a falseness there. They are trying to rob, to take away from the work of Christ. How we see that in this day that we are living in. There are so many that are trying to take away from the work of Christ.
As we have this table, it is a wonderful testimony of all the Lord has done. There is a great battle in the days we are living in. Ones are even trying to take away from that or add to it. It has been a struggle throughout Christianity.
There are ones that try to take away from everything Christ did at Calvary. They say, “Yeah, Christ died for you, but you still need to go back and do this and that in your life. You need to think about this.” But no—our sin, everything, was settled at Calvary.
Now, when we are saved, if we have done certain physical things to people, the Lord might convict us to go back and repent to certain people and get things straight. But as far as within ourselves, we are new creatures. The past is concluded. We do not need to go back beyond that. It is settled. Praise God for that.
Neither should one say, “Well, now that you are a Christian, you need to do this or you need that. You need this; you need to get…” People even make conversion based on baptism. “You need to get baptized.” “Oh, you need to have another experience of the Spirit to be a Christian.”
No. There are so many things that get distorted. Would that we could discern what is really of Him and what is not, because it brings in utter confusion and chaos. We see that it is a tragedy within the church today.
I do not have to share anything about this matter of discerning love within the family. I mean, parents get perplexed pretty quickly. But there is a way. This becomes very practical within the family: how do you really show the love of God with knowledge and discernment to your child as you are raising them?
It is the same as we are at work with our co-workers, as we are dealing with situations within the assembly. This is one of the things that came about in Philippi.
In general, in the letter to the church of Philippi, you do not see any glaring errors. But Paul later on in chapter 4 says, “Now, on this matter of discerning love, I want Clement and some of the others to help these two sisters that are having trouble.”
These two sisters loved the Lord. These two sisters had been very faithful in serving the Lord, but something had come between them. Whether it was rivalry or one wanting preeminence, we really do not know the details. But something had come between two faithful ones in serving the Lord.
He is praying for them: “Now, Clement and you other ones, you need God’s discerning love on how to help these two get back on that right path and to fully follow the Lord.” They had been greatly used, but there was a distraction; there was a hindrance now.
How often do we see how much we need this matter of discerning love as we are dealing and relating with brothers and sisters? So often we handle it in ourselves, and everybody gets offended, and it just blows up into a huge chaos.
Oh, would the Lord give us this great way of knowing His way through these situations.
That is the beautiful thing there in the book of Acts: how the Lord took problems and situations, whether it was the feeding of the Hellenistic widows or the various other problems the church encountered.
Because of discernment, because of that knowledge and discerning love, there was a way through that ended up strengthening the brothers and sisters, bringing up the testimony, and causing the gospel to go forth even more. This is what we are desiring in these last days.
He is warning them to do this so that, as it continues in verse 10, they would be sincere and blameless, filled with that fruit of righteousness. It is an issue of the inner character and nature of Christ formed in us.
The fruit of righteousness is simply the manifestation of His life. I love in this verse how it says, “To be sincere and blameless.” It is speaking in the present tense. That is how we are to be now.
It is not that we are to be pure and blameless in the future, after the Lord comes and we are in His kingdom and everything is changed; we will be pure and blameless then. No. Praise God, we will be. But today, He is desiring that we, as a people of God, by His grace, would be those who are pure and blameless before Him.
That purity simply means things that are not mixed. There is no mixture there, no foreign substances. If you have any more questions about purity and sincerity, you can ask any of the young people who went away for their retreat a few weeks ago. They had a full dose on purity and sincerity.
One of the words here, sincerity, actually means being tested by the sun. We get a bright light on; that which is of the Lord will hold up, and that which is not will not.
We put Tony under that bright light. She held up.
But we are thankful. It also talks about being pure and blameless. Blameless simply means that we would not be a stumbling block to our brothers and sisters. We could walk in a way that does not cause ones to stumble.
We could say, in many ways, sincerity is dealing with our inner character, dealing with the integrity of our heart. Blameless reflects more of our outward conduct, our actions. The Lord is desiring to do that work within us so that our walk and our testimony are blameless, and that we would be filled with that wonderful life He has within us.
It is all looking forward until that day of Christ.
As I have been meditating on this, I was thinking there is an example in Scripture that really helps us as a contrast here. It shows us the vital necessity of discerning love, as seen in the stories of two families.
I like to contrast Joseph and his brothers with David and two of his sons, Amnon and Absalom.
Most of us are pretty familiar with Joseph and his situation there. His brothers sold him into slavery, and he ends up being the second ruler over all of Egypt. Finally, because of the famine, the brothers come to him for food.
We know that Joseph had this desire for his brothers to be fully restored. Joseph, to me, is a beautiful picture of discerning love.
He knew that for his brothers to really come to being fully restored and to come back to what God’s purpose was for them as a family, they needed to come back to a place of accepting responsibility for their actions and repenting.
In many ways, it would have been very easy for Joseph to say, “Hey, I am Joseph, your brother. We are all together.” But there would have been this unsettled issue that would have gnawed at them and just eaten away.
But God, in His great wisdom and that knowledge and discernment, says, “No, we need to take a little time.” It might seem strange to man. The natural mind is not going to understand this. But in My way, there is a way we should bring about this reconciliation.
It was a painful process, but it was full of knowledge and discernment, and it led to life. Praise God, as Joseph and his brothers were fully restored, we see that divine love. We see that genuine love, and it fully restores the family. They are able to continue on in God’s purpose.
There is a settling of the past. There is a dealing with issues. There is an accepting of responsibility. There is a confession. The Lord provided a way.
The natural mind does not understand that. But in God’s divine way, they went through this process so that that family would be reunited. Actually, the world was saved and God’s purpose continued on.
Joseph is, to me, a beautiful example of one who was led by this discerning love, because his heart was on God’s interest.
Joseph was not just interested in renewing a relationship with his brothers. He wanted that. But above that, he wanted them to come back to a place of being used by God in His kingdom and in His purpose.
Through that process, we see great wisdom coming forth. Praise God, it is a wonderful testimony of how the Lord can do a marvelous work of recovery.
Then, if you come over to 2 Samuel—a contrast here—2 Samuel 13-19. It is not the greatest chapters in David’s life. We know that David was a man after God’s own heart.
But in chapter 13, one of David’s sons, Amnon, abused his half-sister Tamar. David got very angry, but he did not do anything.
Tamar had a brother named Absalom. Absalom and Tamar were born by one of David’s wives. Amnon was born by another one of David’s wives.
So Absalom took things into his own hands, and he murders Amnon. David knows about it, but he does not do anything again.
Even when Absalom flees, David is just mourning. He says, “Absalom is gone,” and he feels so bad about it.
Maybe David thought he was saving the family. He said, “Oh, I just want to let these things settle.” But this is a weakness. This is where David is becoming sentimental.
If anyone knows how much God can forgive one caught in adultery or fornication, David would know. If anyone knows how God can forgive a murderer, David would know.
But David did not act with discerning love at this moment. There was a weakness in his life, and he allowed sentimentality. Even when Absalom was brought back, David never held him accountable. He never brought him in. He never held him accountable for his actions.
This led to Absalom’s rebellion, and then, tragically, Absalom’s murder by Joab in a battle. David had even said, “Do not kill Absalom.” Joab killed him.
David still did not wake up at this point. After the people of Israel had been in this battle and Absalom had been killed, David was in mourning. He was crying, “Oh, Absalom, Absalom, my son,” just that sentimentality.
Joab basically shakes David and says, “Wake up. If we had died and Absalom had lived, you would be rejoicing.”
Absalom was in rebellion, and David comes back to his senses. At this moment, David had allowed sentimentality to prevail in his life over discerning love. Because of that, the kingdom was threatened.
God watches out for His kingdom, but the kingdom was threatened here for a while. We see how the Lord does prevail in the end.
Now personally, I want to make sure this is my personal thought. I believe that if David had dealt with Amnon when he had abused Tamar, and used discerning love and brought him back to a place of repentance, none of this would have occurred.
Even if he had not dealt with Amnon, later on, when Absalom killed Amnon, I believe that if David had confronted Absalom at that point and, in discerning love, restored him, I do not think the rest of Absalom’s rebellion would have occurred.
I think if David had, by the grace of God, laid hold of this discerning love, both Amnon and Absalom would have served the purpose of God in the kingdom of God. They would not be king, but they would have been the king’s sons, and they would have been in the kingdom.
They would have been brought back to the place of accepting responsibility and knowing the forgiveness of God. Now, that is just personal. It is not in Scripture. But I see the mercy of God. I see what He did in David’s life, and I believe He would desire to do that in his sons’ lives too.
He desires to do it in our lives in a fuller and greater way.
We see how the battle that Joseph was in was over God’s purpose. This battle that David was in was over God’s purpose. The battle that we are in is over God’s purpose.
One of the keys for us to really go on and press through in these end times is to really come into this matter of discerning love.
Throughout the Gospels, when our Lord was sharing about these times, He said, “You know how to tell the signs of the weather, but you cannot discern My signs.”
Are we the people today who are discerning the signs? Are we being trained by Him in such a way that we know, when He says, “Watch, stay on the alert. Look up, your salvation draws nigh,” that we are really seeing Him and being what He has called us to be?
Or are we distracted by so many other things? There is the battle. I am almost trying to find intense enough words to describe the battle that we are in and the great call that God has upon each and every one of us to come into this matter of discerning love.
There is so much of the spirit of humanism that permeates us, and the sentimentality with that has weakened the church. It has weakened the church so that it is now open to so many things, to so many teachings, and so many things that we just accept.
There is an acceptance that is not a holy acceptance of some things that go on. But do we really know the difference?
If a brother shares, it is not a matter of love. As I was telling these brothers in California about homosexuality and everything in this day, one of the things they say is, “God loves them.” Well, of course God loves them. He loves every one of us.
The issue is not a matter of God’s love. It is an issue of actions. They will say, “Well, they were born that way.” Well, we were all born that way. We were all born reprobate sinners. It was not like there was this group born worse than others. We all were.
But God came in and divinely intervened in our life. There is this continuing battle that needs to take place within us every day to discern the things that are of Him.
When He talks about being a holy and righteous God, it is wonderful, and I am very thankful for the worship today of the vastness of God’s love that was expressed. But we can even get caught up in that and turn God’s love into sentimentality and cause it to be a feel-good love.
It did not feel very good for Christ when He was on the cross, but that is the greatest display of love.
Are we willing to go that way? To allow the life of Christ to grow in us, to grow among us, that we can be the testimony that God is calling us to be in this hour, and that we can be those who will be pure and blameless until that day of Christ, until that judgment seat, until that day.
The Lord is calling us, and He is giving us these opportunities. Today is the day we have, and He is calling us to respond to Him.
May we be those who find encouragement from this prayer of Paul’s, and we would pray it ourselves: “Lord, make this a very personal prayer within our life. Lord, I want Your love to abound in me, but I want it to abound in knowledge and discernment.”
“Oh, that I can really be able to distinguish what is of You in this day and this time. At times I find myself in so much confusion. I do not know which way to go. But Lord, You know the way, and I want to find that.”
God, in His great mercy and His love, will show us. When we cry out to Him, He will show us that way, and He will lead us through for a further strengthening and a hastening of His return.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are so grateful for the call that You have upon each one of us. Lord, we are so grateful for Your great love.
As we said, Lord, You cannot love us any more. You have loved us to the fullness. But we all see how we have not entered into experiencing the fullness of Your love.
Lord, we want to have an honest heart before You, that where we are substituting sentimentality for discerning, genuine, divine love, Lord, show us. Shine Your light.
Lord, we want to be those who are found pure and blameless in Your eyes. We are thankful, Lord, that You have made a way for that. By faith, we can enter into it.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.