“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may 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.”
Philippians 1:9-11 (NIV)
God’s people are called to live lives of love.
Micah knows that his people are not prepared for God to visit them, for their unloving lives will bring about God’s punishment on them, and the words of the prophets (watchmen) will come true. This knowledge causes Micah misery as he realizes the truth of the situation, and all he can do is decide for himself to hope in God and wait for God to move in answer to the prayer of his heart.
Paul wants his people in Philippi to be prepared for the Lord’s return, so he prays that they will love with an abundance of knowledge and insight, so that they can discern what is best and be blameless and pure on the day the Lord comes back.
I think this is a timely prayer for us to consider at Parkdale today.
There is much talk these days about love in our Christian community, with some accusing us of lacking love because of positions we might take on certain types of behaviour carried on by people identifying themselves as Christian. Notice that according to this prayer in Philippians, love is not to be a blind love, but a knowledgeable love, a love that has insight and discernment, and a love that leads to purity and blamelessness. Paul’s goal is for us to be filled with the fruit of righteousness, the very metaphor that Micah can’t find in his people. The metaphor of fruit is used throughout Scripture- simply put- you reap what you sow.
The fruit of righteousness is behaviour that is exhibited by people who are in right standing with God, these behaviours flow from our right relationship with God - right relationship 1st, behaviours 2nd. We know how a Christian sows righteousness by that verse in 1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Yes, we are righteous through faith in Christ Jesus - His righteousness becomes our righteousness, at the point of conversion - Praise God!! Yet we allow unrighteousness to crash the party by refusing to confess our sins. To confess sin is to admit that a behaviour is sin. Those who say to us that Christian love means we recognize people as righteous who refuse to admit their behaviour is sin – are rejecting the prayer of Paul for a life of love for the Philippians. It is impossible to be filled with the fruit of righteousness without righteousness in our lives. If there is no fruit of righteousness in our lives, then we are in the same state that people of Micah’s day were in- we are not ready for the Lord to appear in power.
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