We are looking at how Paul prayed but also the heart that it took to pray these prayers in truth and love. This is all in the context that the modern professing Church is in a dire spiritual condition, which means that it is under spiritual judgment, which means that God has turned His face from the professing Church and has turned Her over to Her own methods and strength. The Church is to be the body of Christ and it cannot function apart from the wisdom and source of love and strength that the Head of the Church alone can give. When the Head of the Church has withdrawn, then it is given over to running around with a lot of religious activity that more resembles a chicken with its head cut off that makes a lot of noise with useless and pointless activity than it does a group that is driven by the love of God and guided by His wisdom. The Church must get back to true prayer and that prayer must be prayer of the heart that is taught by the Spirit rather than another activity and program.
Paul prayed in Philippians 1:9-11 that “our love may abound more and more, that we might be sincere and without offense, and be filled with the fruits of righteousness.” To be extremely repetitive we must ask make the point again that anyone can simply repeat these words. A person could memorize these words and repeat them for hours over and over. But what does that do if it is the language of religious works? What we must do is to get beyond saying these things for ourselves and others to where we begin to long for these things for others and ourselves. That will only begin to happen when the Lord breaks our hearts from our own strength and self-reliance and we begin to seek Him to conform our hearts to these desires.
To pray that our love would abound more and more is to realize that we have no source for love in ourselves and that our source is God alone. It is to realize that our love does not abound and that we need the grace of God to have love abound. We must see that true love is only in those that are born of God and know God (I John 4:7). We must see that the love of God only comes to us through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) and that love is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22ff). We must see that to pray for our love to abound more and more is to first pray for God to pour out His love in our hearts so that we will have true love in our souls. We must not be satisfied with just a little love, but we must pray for this love to abound to us so that it may abound within us and then pour out to others so that the love of God may be glorified through us. But we also know that we will never have the grace of love in our souls until our hearts are broken and humble. The Holy Spirit does not work the fruit of His love in the souls of the proud because all of the love of God comes to sinners by grace and God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. This should simply ring in our ears and hearts.
The professing Church must realize that to pray this prayer of Paul in truth is to pray for each person to be humbled and broken. We are nothing more than liars if we presume to pray for the love of God to abound in us if we are not going to seek the type of heart that God requires before He pours His love in. What are we if we will say these words for other people and not seek the kind of heart this prayer requires? Let me get very close to the pride and self-centeredness of our hearts here. We pray many times for things we are not willing to truly seek. It makes us feel very spiritual to pray for missions but we are not willing to go and we are not willing to do anything toward it. We may be willing to go but are we really willing to seek brokenness in order to go to them with love? We can speak much of evangelism and then some are willing to practice some form of it, but are we ready to seek true brokenness and true humility in order to be filled with the love of God in order to truly reach them? Are we really willing to seek utter brokenness from self in order to be a true sacrifice to God? It is much easier to think we are serving God by going around to people and telling them a message. That is nothing more than attempting to give God a blind and maimed sacrifice when He commands a perfect animal. We will do anything but seek to have our hearts truly broken from pride and self as God wills unless it will look good. We will make great sacrifices and do great labors with God’s name attached, but we will not seek true brokenness from our own self-sufficiency.
Our very text (Philippians 1:9-11) tells us why Paul was praying for himself and for them that their love would abound more and more. The reason that he gives is so that “we might be sincere and without offense, and be filled with the fruits of righteousness.” We must note this very, very carefully. Unless we are abounding in love, we are not truly sincere. Without this love of God abounding in us, all of our religious labor is not sincere. When people go out with programs of evangelism and they don’t have the true love of God in their souls they are not sincere. When we preach the Word of God and when we do our programs or religious rituals each Sunday we must have the love of God abounding in us or we are not sincere in doing them. Biblical sincerity will only happen when there is biblical love. Biblical love will only be in the soul when the source of love Himself lives in that soul and gives Himself to that soul.
Another reason the text gives us that we must have love abounding in us is so that we will be filled with the fruits of righteousness. Whatever is moved from love for self is the fruit of self. Whatever is moved by the strength of self is the fruit of self. Whatever is done by the wisdom of self is the fruit of self. Whatever is done in our own sufficiency is the fruit of self-sufficiency. Surely it is clear that we must have hearts that are utterly broken from love for self, the strength of self, the wisdom of self, and the sufficiency of self in order to take up our cross and follow Christ and in order for what we do to be the fruits of righteousness. If Christ is our righteousness then He is the One that works righteousness in us rather than self. If the fruit of love is by the Holy Spirit, then He alone can work the love in us that bears the fruit of righteousness. Surely it is so obvious that if we are going to pray this prayer of Paul in sincerity we must have hearts conformed to Christ in order to do so. Are we really willing to lay down everything we are and stand for in order to have the life of Christ? Are we really willing to lay down our religious reputations in order to seek God in truth? Are we ready and willing to confess before all that all we have done before is nothing but the fruit of self and our righteous acts are as filthy rags that make us unclean in His sight? Are we willing to confess our sins as David did and lay aside all hope in ourselves and lay low at the cross and ask God for grace apart from one single worthy thing in us or one worthy thing we have done? If we are not ready to do those things, we cannot pray this prayer in sincerity and we cannot do one thing in the name of God in sincerity. We must have hearts that seek the Lord or we are idolaters in seeking ourselves.
Paul prayed in Colossians 1:10 “that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Do we desire hearts to pray this? Do we really desire hearts that desire to please Him in all respects? Wouldn’t we rather please ourselves in all respects? Wouldn’t we rather please God only to the degree it pleases us and fits our own comfort levels? Do we really desire to love God in all we do apart from our sinful self-love? Will we seek the Lord to be delivered from our wicked self-love in order to love Him enough to please Him in all respects? Is this really any different than the Great Command to love God with all of our being each and every moment? If we are going to pray like Paul, we need to seek hearts like Paul. If we are going to pray for ourselves and others to please Him in all respects, then we must seek hearts that will seek to love Him in sincerity so that this can be truly done. If we pray that we want to please God in all respects and we only do that in order that others would be pleased with how sanctified we are, we are again praying to ourselves and seeking the honor of men. That means we don’t want this prayer to be answered and we are deceiving ourselves and lying to God and others.
Paul prayed in I Thessalonians 5:23 this: “may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely.” Can we pray this in truth for ourselves? Until we are ready to be sanctified as God would have us to be sanctified, we cannot pray this in sincerity. It seems to be that the professing Church wants to be sanctified enough to get God to give it what it really wants. That is not sanctification at all but is a system of works designed to manipulate God in love for self. That is nothing but the idolatry of self. When even our sanctification is vile and wicked before God, we should not wonder that we are under His judgment. Are we so sure that we want God at all? If we desire God in truth and love, then it will require much pain of heart and many hours of seeking Him for a broken and humbled heart. If we don’t desire that, let us not fool ourselves that we desire God or true revival. We may want a comfortable life where we can pray comfortable prayers and have some form of comfortable morality that we call sanctification. But again, that is nothing more than a lie and a desire to escape hell in an easy and comfortable way.
Are we satisfied with moral kids even if they do not love God and do not pursue Him with panting hearts? Are we satisfied with living ordinary lives as long as we pay the bills, don’t rock the boat, and attend church on a regular basis? Do we pant after God and want to please God and be sanctified from the depths of our hearts? Are we satisfied to pray and perhaps pray long and with intensity if we do not obtain the object of true prayer which is God Himself? We must learn that the goal of prayer is not to pray and it is not to spend time in prayer, but to find God Himself. If we are not willing to seek God at all costs to self and our own comforts, we are not ready for true revival. If we are satisfied with a time of prayer and yet a prayer that has no repentance and no humbling of self, we do not desire true revival. Let us not kid ourselves any longer. There will be no true revival until the people of God truly pray. There will not be true prayer until we are living sacrifices from the depths of our souls.
God Loves... Himself 
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