Zambia Hunt

Glorifying God with Your Life – Part 2

Based on Philippians 1:9-11

This is Part 2 of a 4-part series on glorifying God with your life.

In Part 1, we explored Paul’s context of passionate prayer from prison and how his heart overflowed for the Philippians. Today, we dive into the first two aspects of what it means to glorify God with our lives.

What Does It Mean to Glorify God with Our Life?

1. Glorifying God Begins with a Love That Is Constantly Growing

Notice the first aspect of his prayer: Glorifying God with my life begins with a love that is constantly growing. Notice what Paul says in verse nine. “I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment.”

How does this love that we have in our hearts, that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, how does that love develop? How do we live as Christians with a love that is abounding, that is growing, that is constantly maturing, that is overflowing? How does that happen? Paul says in verse number 9 that we grow in our knowledge of God.

“I pray that your love may abound more and more in all knowledge and in all discernment.” You see, as we come to know God, as we come to know Him in a growing and more profound way through His Word, as our knowledge of God, our experiential knowledge of God, grows, so does our love for him. However, this knowledge that Paul is talking about is not just filling our heads with facts about God. But the idea of knowledge about God corresponds with obedience to God.

As we know Him, experience Him through His Word and our lives, and grow in our knowledge of Him, we can’t help but love Him more and more. And that’s Paul’s prayer for them. Love and obedience are not the same thing. Do you understand that? It is possible to obey without loving, but it’s impossible to love without obeying.

Obedience is the natural expression of love. Perhaps the reason that so often, as Christians, we become indifferent, apathetic, and careless towards God is that, in the core of our hearts, we are in love with the wrong things. There is a subtle temptation in our lives as the people of God to love the gifts that He gives more than we love the giver of those gifts. We love the creation instead of the creator. We love money, education, occupation, a sports team, or some entertainment but do not passionately pursue Christ and God as our end.

So the question is not, do you know about Jesus? That’s not the question. The question is, do you know Him? The question is not this morning: do you love Jesus? But do you love Jesus more than you love anything else in the world? That’s the question.

This growing love that Paul is praying for on behalf of the Philippian Church is the product of a growing knowledge of God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Not only does this love grow through knowledge, but it’s through discernment. Verse number 9 says that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all judgment or discernment.

The word discernment speaks of the ability to determine between what is right and what is wrong. It is not a legalistic list of rules, regulations, and checklists used to evaluate spirituality but a genuine discernment that flows from a heart that genuinely loves God and wants to please Him. It speaks of a Christian life that is in balance. The ability to distinguish between right and wrong. The ability to discern what is appropriate and what is helpful. We’re called to embrace this knowledge of God that produces holy living.

So Paul begins this prayer, and from that, we understand that I am to glorify God with my life. Glorifying God with my life starts with a love that is constantly growing.

2. Glorifying God Means Choosing What Is Best Over What Is Merely Acceptable

The second aspect of Paul’s prayer is in verse 10: “That you may approve the things that are excellent.” Glorifying God with my life means choosing what is best over what is merely acceptable. To approve what is excellent is not; he’s not now speaking of discerning between right and wrong, but rather, he is speaking of the ability to determine what is of real value in life so that we don’t waste our lives. To determine what is best so that you and I can invest our lives and live for what matters most.

You know, if you’re like… I mean good stuff that fills the hours of our day, opportunities that come in life that are not sinful. And Paul says as all of this stuff bombards you, as all of these opportunities come, as all of these things come at you, I’m praying that God will give you the ability to discern, to choose what is best so that you don’t waste your life.

The Parable of the Dung Beetle

Some time ago, I traveled down to the southern part of Zambia. We have one of the seven wonders of the world, the natural wonders of the world, Victoria Falls. We visited Victoria Falls, then took a day and went on safari. We crossed the Zambezi River on a boat and then took another boat up the Chobe River, and we saw herds of elephants, hippos, African Cape buffalo, antelope, and all kinds of animals. In the first part of the day, you’re on the river, on safari, and then stop for lunch. Then we got into an open four-wheel drive vehicle and drove out into the bush.

Of course, we’re looking for lions. Lions and leopards. And so you know you’re driving, and you’re looking, and you’re trying to see if you can find the lions, and we’re driving along, and the guy suddenly slams the brake on the truck. And he says, “Look at that!” I’m looking for lions. I’m not seeing anything. He said no, right there in the road, right in front of us. I looked up over the edge of the truck, and there, in the middle of the road, was a black insect. It was a dung beetle. It was smaller than my fist. And it had its front legs in the sand and its back legs on a piece of elephant dung. Elephant manure. And it was pushing that ball of dung across the road. And we watched as he pushed it across the road, up over the little bank, and off into the bush.

We started to drive on. I sat back in my seat and thought, “Oh, God, don’t let that be the parable of my life.” Do you understand what a dung beetle does? A dung beetle lives his entire life searching for the perfect piece of dung. Think about it: that dung beetle gets up in the morning, gets himself ready, goes out into the bush, and looks for the perfect piece of dung, and when he finds it, he spends time shaping it until it’s a perfectly round ball. Now it’s like two or three in the afternoon in the heat of the African sun; this dung beetle is exerting all of his energies, pushing this ball of dung back to wherever he comes from. And that’s what he does every day.

You know, beloved, one day, as children of God, we will stand before Jesus Christ. I do not want to stand before Jesus Christ and have Him put His arm around me and say, “Phil, I want you to see your life from Heaven’s perspective, from the moment you were saved until I called you home.” What a tragedy it would be for me to stand on that side of eternity and look back at my life from heaven’s perspective and suddenly realize that I did little more with my Christian life than push around balls of dung.

Paul’s Radical Perspective Change

And Paul was concerned about that very thing. Look at Philippians chapter 3 verse 4: “I might have confidence in the flesh if any other man thinks that he has, whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more.” He lists all of these credentials: he was circumcised on the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee, concerning zeal I persecuted the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law I was blameless.

Now, notice verse 7. But all of these things that were gained to me, all of these things that my culture held up to be the highest achievements. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrew. He’s saying, I was the top guy. You realize that in Hebrew culture, the ideal for every Jewish family, they dreamed of having their son become a Pharisee? That was like the highest achievement, a teacher of the law. And only a select few got to go to those rabbinical schools and be trained to be Pharisees, and he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.

Paul had achieved everything that his family, extended family, and culture held up as the highest attainments of his day. Paul evaluates it all and says that all these things to be gained for me are lost to Christ. Verse 8, “yea doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.” Notice this, “and do consider them but dung (rubbish) that I may gain.”

You see, friend, what matters in life is serving God and living a life that brings Him glory. What matters is living lives in the context of the environment and the circumstances that God has sovereignly placed us, living lives worthy of the gospel. When I come to know Christ, I see him hanging on the cross in agony. I view his glorious character in the Word and experience his grace in my life. And as all of those things are happening, my perspective changes.

Paul says that I suddenly had a different perspective of all those things that I ran after and dreamed of and those attainments. All of that was nothing. And Christ is everything—my perspective changes. I no longer see ugly, unlovable people. I see people for whom Christ loves and for whom Christ died. I no longer see thieves and prostitutes and drunkards and rapists. I see men and women whom God loves and sacrificed His own Son on the cross to save. You see, my perspective changes. I no longer view them in light of how they affect me or impact my life but through the eyes of the one who loved them and gave Him.

So here’s the question: What is the best way for you to glorify God?

When anything is allowed to consume our time, energy, and affection, we miss what is best, and that’s what Paul is praying for. Oh, I’m praying that you will glorify God with your life by choosing what is best over what is merely acceptable so that you don’t waste it.

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Coming up in Part 3: “Living with Integrity and Bearing Fruit” – We’ll explore how glorifying God means living with integrity and producing the fruits of righteousness in our daily lives.