Message By Eddie DSouza on March 1, 2026

Passage: Philippians 1:9–11

Topics: Devotional Life, Education, Knowing God's Will, Perseverance of the Saints, The Church, The Unwasted Life, Wisdom

Prayers in the Bible are not simply records of what others prayed in a given situation, but exist so that we can learn from those prayers what we ought to pray for. God has included these prayers in the Bible, highlighting what pleases him so that we can learn not only what we ought to pray for but also what is desirable. We can learn God’s will for us from these prayers.

Phil 1:9–11 records Paul’s prayer for the Philippians. The passage reads, “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.” V. 9 records Paul’s prayer: that the love of the Philippians may abound more and more. Knowledge and Discernment are the manner in which this love ought to abound. The immediate end of this prayer is that the Philippians may learn to approve what is excellent. If they learn to approve what is excellent, it will result in their becoming pure and blameless, until the day of Christ. Their purity and blamelessness are evident in their being filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ. The ultimate end of the prayer is that the Philippians will approve what is excellent to the praise and glory of God.

Since Paul prays that their love may abound more and more so that they may approve what is excellent, we can conclude that increasingly abounding love is the means to approving what is excellent. One results in the other. Love in approving excellence. Approving excellence results in becoming pure and blameless. All of this results in the praise and glory of God. Then the center point is approving excellence. Approving excellence is the title of this sermon and our topic for today.

My aim in this sermon is to show you that the pursuit of virtue is indispensable for the Christian.

Let us pray! Our glorious Father, by your Spirit, enable me to speak your word to these people that their minds and hearts would see you as glorious and as worthy of their lives. May they not merely see you as the one whose wrath they would have faced if not for the blood of the lamb, but also see you as the one who created us for your glory, and that you save us to make us be Christ-like in every way. Amen.

The pursuit of virtue is indispensable for the Christian. First, I will show you that Paul’s prayer is a description of the pursuit of virtue. Second, I must show you that this pursuit is indispensable for the Christian.

The Pursuit of Virtue

In order to show you that Paul’s prayer is a description of the pursuit of virtue, I will show you what each of the parts mean. First, the word “approve” translates “δοκιμάζειν.” “δοκιμάζειν is used in classical Greek to denote the assaying of coin or metal; it is also used in the sense of a crucial test; while the general meaning has come to be: to examine or test, or to approve that which has stood the test.”[1] Second, the word “what is excellent” translates “τὰ διαφέροντα.” “τὰ διαφέροντα refers to things that are real, that count, that surpass other things.”[2] Therefore, to approve what is excellent involves analyzing all real things, in heaven and on Earth, evaluating them, distinguishing them by their worth, and approving the ones that have stood above the rest. At first glance, this may sound like a purely intellectual exercise.

But Paul does not allow us to merely approve of what is excellent intellectually. He wants us to love it. How can I say that? Look at v. 9: “that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and discernment.” It doesn’t stop there. V. 10 says, “so that you may approve what is excellent.” Approving what is excellent is the result of increasingly abounding love. But what is the object of love? What is the Christian to increasingly abound in loving? Love God? Love his neighbor? Love the church? Love God’s word? The text doesn’t tell us! But it says that this love must increasingly abound. What’s more? It tells us that this love is not untethered. It increasingly abounds with knowledge and discernment. It is loving with all your mind.

Knowledge and discernment teach a person how to order their loves. For example, Augustine says, “Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it is a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.”[3] You can find a non-Christian who is beautiful in form. It is not wrong to recognize that the form of one who is beautiful is indeed beautiful. However, Augustine also says, “Beauty, which is indeed God’s handiwork, but only temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not fitly loved in preference to God, the eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable good. When the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but the man; and so with every created thing. For though it be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love; it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately.”[4] Thus, Augustine teaches us that we need to order our loves. God must be loved the highest, and other good gifts must get their proper place and be loved ordinately. To love inordinately is to love with an evil love.

The result of approving excellence is that the person will be pure and blameless. The word pure comes from a word that can be loosely translated as judged by the light of the sun. It is like holding a garment up against the sun and checking it for spots or blemishes. A person who is pure is one who passes the test—spotless and without blemish. Blameless in this passage is a person who does not cause others to stumble. He does not lie in wait to snare anybody, does not lead anyone astray, etc. A person who is pure and blameless, Paul says, is filled with the fruit of righteousness through Jesus Christ.  That phrase fruit of righteousness means a conduct pleasing to God—truly good qualities or… virtues. Approve excellence means “(1) that they will know how to make the best possible choices. (2) that they themselves might be the best people possible.”[5] Thus, these people are virtuous. But Paul prays for them to increasingly abound in love, which means their lifestyle is to be a pursuit of virtue, an aspirational life, and not simply a checkbox or a goal to be achieved and forgotten.

Indispensable for the Christian

Now that I have shown you that the Christian life is to be a pursuit of virtue, let me show you that such a life is indispensable for the Christian. If I do not show this to you, you might say that Paul is confident that the one who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ, and therefore, you do not have to pursue virtue to be pure and blameless on the day of Jesus Christ.

First, I want you to note that Paul has said both of these things. V. 6 and v. 10 are written by the same human author in the same paragraph of the same letter. What’s more? This is the word of God, and there are no errors in it because God does not lie or communicate poorly.

It is 100% true that God will finish, bring to completion, that which he started in you. It is also 100% true that God calls you to pursue virtue as an act of bringing to completion what is started in you. These two truths are not partial truths. It is not half you and half God. It is not any percentage you and the rest God. The maxim “God only helps those who help themselves” is not in the Bible and can be twisted into meaning whatever the context demands. You see v. 11 says that you will be filled with the fruit of righteousness through Jesus Christ. God gives you the aid to pursue virtue and the fruit of the pursuit is through the agency of Jesus Christ. God works many things through means. He gives us food through the sun and the rain. He saves people through the preaching of the gospel. He brings us to himself through our pursuit of virtue. So, the pursuit of virtue is indispensable for a Christian. If a person has no desire to pursue virtue, no growth in ordered love, and no concern for holiness, he has reason to question whether he truly belongs to Christ.

What that means at the very least, friends, is that mediocrity will not do. A Christian cannot be merely satisfied with the fact that he has escaped the fires of hell because of the cross. He approves what is excellent. His love grows as his knowledge and discernment grow. His knowledge and discernment do not grow independent of his love. That is heady, useless, and can be damning on the day of Christ. Nor can love grow without knowledge or discernment. There are many in our country who claim that they love god and have not heard the name of Jesus, the name given by which men can be saved. Love must be with knowledge and discernment. If love is to increasingly abound, then so must knowledge and discernment.

The Christian life is not a passive drifting toward heaven, nor is it a complacent confidence that because God has begun a work, we may neglect the means by which he completes it. God finishes what he starts—but he finishes it by conforming us to Christ through a real, lived pursuit of virtue. To settle for lukewarm affections, careless thinking, or unordered loves is to contradict the very prayer of the apostle.

Paul prays that love would abound more and more—with knowledge and discernment—so that believers might approve what is excellent. This means we must train our minds to think rightly, train our hearts to love rightly, and train our wills to choose rightly. We must learn to distinguish between what is merely good and what is best, between what is permissible and what is excellent, between what pleases the flesh and what pleases Christ. The Christian life is not satisfied with avoiding scandalous sin; it aims at radiant, God-glorifying holiness. So ask yourself: (1) What shapes my moral imagination more—Scripture or social media? (2) Do I spend more time scrolling or studying? (3) Can I explain why something is good or evil from the Word of God?. Approving excellence is not merely intellectual. It reveals what you admire. So ask yourself: (1) What excites me? (2) Why do I envy? (3) Whose life do I want? (4) What disappoints me most when I lose it? Your disappointments often reveal your true god. When good gifts become ultimate loves, they destroy the soul.

Mediocrity is the silent killer of Christian maturity. It keeps us away from scandalous sins and comforts us with indifference. Casual prayer life, occasional repentance, minimal effort, vague spiritual goals. We tell ourselves, “I am not like that sinner.”

God wants us to be Christians who pursue virtue. And yet this pursuit is not helpless striving. It is “through Jesus Christ.” The same Christ who justifies you also sanctifies you. The same grace that forgives you also forms you. The same Spirit who gives you new birth also gives you new desires. Therefore, when you pursue virtue, you are not earning God’s favor—you are expressing it. You are living out what he has already worked within you.

When you pursue virtue, you will desire to bear the fruit of righteousness. You will want your life to resound to the praise and glory of God. The pursuit of virtue is indispensable for the Christian because glory is the goal. On the day of Christ, only what has been shaped by rightly ordered love will endure. Therefore, abound in love. Grow in knowledge. Exercise discernment. Approve what is excellent. And do it all through Jesus Christ, to the praise and glory of God. Amen.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Martin, Ralph P., and Gerald F. Hawthorne. Philippians. Rev. ed. WBC 43. Nelson, 2004.

Müller, Jac J. The Epistles of Paul to the Philippians and to Philemon. NICNT. Eerdmans, 1955.

Schaff, Philip, ed. St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine. Vol. 2 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church First Series. Christian Literature Company, 1887.

 

 

[1] Jac J. Müller, The Epistles of Paul to the Philippians and to Philemon, NICNT (Eerdmans, 1955), 45 n.4.

[2] Müller, Philippians and Philemon, 45 n. 5.

[3] Augustine, De civ. Dei 15.22.1 (NPNF 1/2:303).

[4] Augustine, De civ. Dei 15.22.1 (NPNF 1/2:303).

[5] Ralph P. Martin and Gerald F. Hawthorne, Philippians, rev. ed., WBC 43 (Nelson, 2004), 32.