Alfred Tennyson once wrote: "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice rise like a fountain for me day and night." That is a great statement. It is full of truth for thought. First, his words remind us of the powerful accomplishments of prayer. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. As another has said, "Nothing lies outside the reach of prayer except that which lies outside the will of God."

Secondly, his words remind us of a personal aim in prayer. Our prayers should rise like a fountain for others. The passage before us is the prayer of Paul for others. If we were honest we would have to admit that most of the time we spend in prayer is for something rather than someone.

Thirdly, his words remind us of the perpetual asking in prayer. Day and night, Tennyson requested others to pray for him. The tense of the word "pray" as used by Paul emphasizes continual action. This was not just a prayer Paul once prayed, but a prayer that he continually prayed.

I want us to look at Paul's prayer for the Philippians. In so doing lets consider the petitions of his prayer. What did he pray for? Let's look at his Philippian prayer list. In so doing we can make us a prayer list of things to pray for in our life and things to pray for in others.

First, in his prayer we see:

1. A LOVE THAT IS OVERFLOWING

Some years before the death of Carlyle's wife, she wrote in her diary, "My husband has always been just to me, coldly just, but I am dying in his home for a want of love." S.D. Gordon in his book "Quiet Talks With Workers" said, "The heart of the world is hungry and the world is hungry for a heart...The shortest road into any man is through his heart."

It was Paul's desire that there would not be a lack of love or want of love on the part of these Philippian believers. It had been his continual prayer that they have a heart filled with a love that overflowed.

He prayed they would have:

A. A Growing Love

He wanted their love to "abound." The word means to overflow. One translator described it as rising higher and higher. Our English word "abound" has a Latin ancestry and when spelled out literary it means "wave upon wave." I like Paul Rees definition: "It is that your love will never be doled out in parsimonious pinches, but will rather tumble forth like some magnificent cascade." George Duncan says that the picture is that of a bucket standing under a streamlet with the water pouring out on every side, overflowing to others." Another has described it as a well shaken bottle of pop that spews out in every direction.

Paul's prayer was that there love would "abound," overflow, and notice: "yet more and more." He was praying for a growing love. What a great petition for our prayer list: "Lord, let my love for God and others grow and grow and grow."

Mary Guy Pearse writes: "The Lord turns up the leaves of our profession, looking first for the golden fruit of love. The tree is barren, the garden is empty, that grows no love."

Instead of an life that is empty of love, we should pray for a life with an enlargement of love. We should ask for an overflowing love and that the cascade of love get bigger and bigger.

He also prayed they would have:

B. He Prayed For A Guided Love

This love is not only to be growing (abound more and more) but it is to be guided by "knowledge" and "judgment." Someone has described this as the banks that contain a rising river. Love with knowledge has to do with our apprehension. The word that is used speaks of full knowledge. It speaks of someone who gathers all the facts and looks over them carefully. It speaks of someone who has a full and complete knowledge.

We have often heard the statement, "Love is blind." Real love is not blind. I think of a quote by Donna Reed: "When you handle yourself, use your head. When you handle others, use your heart." That sounds good, and I understand what she was saying. But real love uses the heart and the head whether it be in handling ourselves or handling others. As Paul Rees has said, "Light without love can be a forbiddingly cold as an iceberg in moonlight. Love without light, on the other hand, can be flamingly destructive as a forest fire in the dry season."

Real love is always responsive, but responsive based on all the facts. Real love operates according to a full understanding. It is a love that sees the positives. As human beings we have a tendency to see only the bad. We are often blind to the good. We have a tendency to forget the many good things about a person and forget the many good things a person does and respond to the one bad thing about that person and respond to the one bad thing that person did. Love not only sees the bad, but it also sees the good.

It is a love that sees the negatives as well. Whereas love sees the good, love never overlooks the bad because of the good. A parent that says that they will never correct the bad things in a child because they love them, knows nothing about real love. Real love is discerning of the bad as well as the good.

Paul is praying that they will love with insight and understanding. He is asking that they love based on all the facts. He is asking that their love be vented correctly and not blindly. He is saying that the heart should not rule the head. The head should rule the heart.

The matter of "judgment" has to do with application. The word means to see clearly, to confirm, to test, and make sure. It is a accumulation of all the facts, a complete knowledge, which then gives one the ability to vent their love properly. It would be like the person who has done wrong. That one wrong can be big to another. Yet, with a complete knowledge of the matter, one may began to realize what was behind it, why it happen, and love is vented properly. Knowledge gives one judgment that prevents one from acting the wrong way, saying the wrong thing, and allows them to do the right thing and say the right thing.

It would be like a person that seems cold and distant. "She want talk to anyone." "He just comes in and goes right out. I wonder what his or her problem is." When the truth is known, a problem is the reason. Maybe there is a heavy burden on the heart. A terrible situation at home. An life that is under constant pressure. When one has knowledge, then they have judgment. Instead of being critical there is sympathy.

In all of us let there be a growing love and let there be a guided love.

Secondly, we see that prays for:

2. A LAW THAT IS OVERRULING

Next Paul prays that they might "approve things that are excellent" (Vs.10). He describes a law that should govern our life.

In this law we see:

A. A Proper Evaluation Of Life

The word "approve" means to test, to set the approval on one thing rather than the other. It speaks of a capacity for evaluation, the ability to assess priorities, a sense of what is vital. A good petition that should be on our prayer list is that God would help us to know what is important in life and what is essential verses that which we is not important and essential.

It is the forming of priorities in our life. On his 80th birthday someone asked Herbert Welch the secret of his serene spirit. He replied, "As I grow older, life become simpler because I see the essentials more clearly in the evening light." It is seeing the essentials more clearly.

In the 19th century there was a department store owner in Philadelphia by the name of John Wanamaker. Within a few years his business became one of the most successful businesses in the country. He was also named Postmaster General of the United States. He also served as the Sunday School superintendent of the Bethany Presbyterian Church, which at that time was the largest Sunday School in the world. He was once asked how he could hold all the positions at once. He replied, "Early in life I read, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' The Sunday School in my business. All the rest are things."

We are to test all things and put the important things first in our life. The eternal is first, and the earthly second.

In this law we also see:

B. A Proper Estimation Of Life

We see the word "excellent." The word indicates that we are not only to test the good and bad and make the good a priority, but also that this testing is to produce a discernment of that which is good and that which is better.

Most lives are not ruined by choosing the bad over the good. Most lives end up common because the good was chosen over the best. It is the difference between mediocrity and excellence. Isaac D'Israeli, said in 1834,"It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us."

James Russell Lowe put it this way:

Life is a leaf of paper white
Whereon each one of may write
His word or two, and then come night.
Greatly begin I Though thou have time
But for a line, be that sublime-
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

Paul is talking about settling for the good and not for the best. We are not only to evaluate our life, but to truly estimate life. Don't make good things a priority. Make the best things the priority of life. Corre ten Boom said, "I've learned that we must hold everything loosely, because when I grip it tightly, it hurts when the Father pries my fingers loose and takes it from me." God works much in our life is let go of things unimportant things, and even the good things, so we can enjoy the best things.

Bob Richard's, the Olympic pole vaulter of years ago, loved to tell the story of the goof-off who played around with football. If there was mischief to be done, this kid was doing it. Everything was casual, no big deal. And he added very little to the team. He practiced but wasn't committed. He showed up to play, but never with enthusiasm. He liked to hear the cheers but not to charge the line. He liked to wear the suit, but not to practice.

One day the players were doing 50 laps and this showpiece was doing his usual five. The coach came over and said, "Hey, kid, here is a telegram for you." The kid said, "Read it for me Coach." He was so lazy he wouldn't take time to read the letter. The coach opened it and read, "Dear son, your father is dead. Come home immediately." The coach swallowed hard and said, "Kid, take the rest of the week oft." In truth, he didn't care if he ever came back.

Well, Friday night at game time, the teams came running onto the field, and lo and behold, the last one out was the goof-off. No sooner were they on the side line when the kid started saying, "Coach, can I play tonight? Can I play?" The coach thought, "Kid, your not playing tonight. This is homecoming. This is the big game. We need every real guy we have and you are not one of them." Yet every time the coach turned around there was this kid, "Coach can I play. Please let me play. Coach I have to play."

The first quarter ended with the score lopsided against the coach and his team. At half time they were further back. The second half started and things got progressively worse. Up came this kid, "Coach, Coach, let me play." The coach looked at the scoreboard and said, "All right. Get in there kid. You can't hurt anything now." No sooner did the kid hit the field than he exploded. He ran, blocked, and tackled like a star. The score evened up.

In the closing seconds of the game, this kid intercepted a pass and ran all the way for the winning touchdown. The stands broke loose. The kid was everybody's hero. Such cheering you never heard. After the game the coach came over and said, "Kid, I never saw anything like that. What in the world happened to you out there?" He said, "Coach, you know my dad died last week." "Yes, I read you the telegram." "Well coach, my dad was blind. And today was the first day he could ever see me play."

Our Father is watching us. We should give our best and only seek the best in life and settle for nothing else.

Thirdly, we see that he prays for:

3. A LIFE THAT IS OVERCOMING

In his prayer list he included petitions for a life that is overcoming. He speaks of an overcoming life as involving that which is:

A. Missing In Life

His prayer is that we be "sincere and without offence" (1:10). The word "sincere" speaks of the transparency of life. It speaks of that which is unadulterated, unmixed with incompatible ingredients. It was sometimes used in reference to the purifying of precious metals. The metal would be left without any impurities and without alloy.

The word is derived from an expression "to be without wax." It was sometimes used to speak of clay pottery that was without flaws. Sometimes the potter would put wax in flaws or crack and sell it off as firsts. The honest sellers of pottery learned to put a sign over the their products which read "sincere" or "without wax." Paul is describing a life that is on the outside what it is on the inside. It is transparent. What you see is what you see all the way through.

Then Paul spoke of being without "offence." The word is often translated "blameless." It speaks of being without anything in the life that would cause others to stumble or fall.

James Stalker had a sermon entitled "The Four Men." His main points are:

The Man the World Sees.
The Man our Friends Sees.
The Man we Ourselves See.
The Man God Sees.

The word sincere speaks of the man we ourselves see and the man God sees. The words "without offence" speaks of the man the world and our friends sees.

He also speaks of the overcoming life as involving that which is:

B. Mastering In Life

Paul speaks of a life that is empty of all hypocrisy and then a life filled with the fruits of righteousness. We read in verse 11, "Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." He not only speaks of a life empty of wrong things but filled with right things. But notice carefully that this fruit is the product of a mastered life: "by Jesus Christ." It is Christ being Lord of the life and Him filling the life with the fruits of righteousness.

Is this on our prayer list? This is a prayer we ought to duplicate.