Rejoice; again I say, rejoice! | Philippians 4:1-7

Philippians 4 verse 1 to 7.

Philippians 4:1–7

Therefore my brothers and sisters,

you whom I love and long for,

my joy and crown,

stand firm in the Lord in this way,

dear friends.

I plead with you,

Audea, and I plead with

Sinterki to be of the same mind in the Lord.

Yes, and I ask you,

my true companion,

help these women since they have been

contended at my side in the cause of the gospel.

Along with Clement and the rest of my coworkers,

whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always,

I will say it again, rejoice.

Let your gentleness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything,

but in every situation by prayer and petition,

with thanksgiving and present your request to God,

and the peace of God which transcends all understanding,

will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Good morning, church.

To state the obvious, it's quite warm.

So we can be thinking of our brothers and sisters

worshiping in Broome right now,

who are probably thinking that this is winter for them.

But before we get into our text this morning,

why don't we come to our father in prayer and ask for his help?

Don't you pray with me?

Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that it is true.

We thank you that it is good.

We ask that your spirit would help us this morning,

that you would give us ears to hear,

that you would hold Christ high in our midst,

and that you would transform us,

that we would leave this place this morning,

rejoicing in what you have done for us.

We ask for this in Jesus' name, amen.

I might ask, have you ever known people in your life

where they have been under absolute horrible pressure,

but seem to be walking through the whole thing

in absolute peace and joy in their lives?

I have, in fact, one of the great privileges

of being a pastor is getting to know people

and the personal struggles that they have,

yet watching how God works tangibly in their lives,

it's incredible, really.

Things that would crush and destroy the average person

are walked through in a whole different way

by these wonderful brothers and sisters in the faith.

It's sobering, really.

Well, church, this morning we turned to a passage of scripture

where Paul is talking to this congregation in Philippi

and by implication us two,

and he's encouraging Christians that there is a peace

that goes way beyond our own understanding.

And because of Christ Jesus, our Lord,

it actually already is ours,

yet we have to learn how to walk in it,

and he teaches us about these things in a surprising context.

You might remember that these Christians

have been under horrible persecution.

We've seen that over the months

as we've been working our way slowly through this book.

It seems that they had external pressures

from the pagan society around them to give up on the faith

and also internal pressure with cracks and divisions

starting to form,

which was threatening to rip apart the members of the congregation.

And so our apostle talks to his precious friends

about how to deal with real and present danger

and how to experience godly peace among themselves

that is supernatural,

and as we read here this morning, transcends all their understanding.

And we see that in the way that Paul has structured this part of his book.

Starting with a personal plea to his dear brothers and sisters

in verses one through to three,

he then moves on to three commands or exhortations

for the church to observe and practice.

Verse four, we're told to rejoice.

Verse five, we're told that we are to actively work out the fruit of the spirit

and then in verse six, we are to pray.

But notice this, and it's very important that we do so.

Notice what Paul tells us, and we find it there in verse seven.

There is a promise, and that promise is that God's peace

will flood our hearts, our minds, and our lives.

So I might ask you this morning, my dear brothers and sisters,

is that something that is important to you?

Is having the peace of God which transcends all understanding,

something that you want in your life and in our churches?

Well, if you do, and I certainly do,

let's listen to what the holy scriptures have to say to us this morning

and work our way together through this wonderful

and encouraging part of scripture.

If you have your bibles with you, we'll be in our text quite a bit this morning.

So let's start by looking at verses one through to three.

We read, therefore, my brothers and sisters,

you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,

stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends.

I plead with you, your dear, and I plead with Sintiki,

Sintiki to be of the same mind in the Lord.

Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women

since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel,

along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers

whose names are in the book of life.

Now, there's a lot that could be said on all the historical information

that Paul has given us here,

but I really want to focus in on verses two and three

and how Paul speaks about these two sisters in the church

because he urges them in the strongest possible terms.

Notice that Paul says he pleads with them.

In other words, he begs them to be of the same mind.

Now, we don't exactly know what's come between these two ladies

and separated them in their friendship,

but he urges them that they overcome it

and come back together in peace.

Now, church, let's think about this for a moment.

Imagine if you had a family friend that you spoke to about a problem

that you were having with someone else in your family,

and then that family friend then wrote an open letter

to your entire family pleading with you

to be reconciled to the one you've just fallen out with.

I mean, I don't know about you, but I would be absolutely mortified.

But I don't think we should take Paul here

as trying to cause embarrassment or shame

on his sisters within the family of God.

Now, I don't think that's happening at all, and I say that

because he seems to love and respect this church more than anything.

We see it in verse 1, don't we?

My brothers and sisters, you whom I love

and long for my joy and crown.

Here are our apostles' language here.

He loves this congregation to bits.

He respects this congregation, and by the looks of it,

he completely trusts this congregation

with this very real problem that's going on

within their spiritual family there in Philippi in his absence.

And so he knows by naming his sisters not their problem, mind you.

By naming his sisters, it's not so that they would be shamed

and outed by their church family,

but so that they would be helped by all those around them

who love them ever so much.

Yet in saying that, it does also show us

that our apostle takes division in the church

very seriously.

Brothers and sisters, we have to be aware that this is the nature of

any church anywhere in the world.

The church is filled with people like you

and me who are in varying degrees of works in progress,

which means any New Testament church that is faithful to the word of God

and preaching of the gospel is going to be full

of little construction sites that are still being worked on.

And so we must be aware of that reality.

The church is filled with saved sinners.

And I just want to say a couple of things that are encouraging that we can take note of that.

At first, Paul fully expects that Christians will struggle with

varying forms of relational difficulties.

And so no church should look at itself and think that there is something

utterly wrong when there is hardship going on.

But as we see in our passage this morning, that doesn't mean

we just ignore it. Now as we see here, divisions and disunity

needs to be worked on, but brothers and sisters, there is good news in all of

this. And that's the second thing that I want you to take note of.

Notice the language in these verses. Christians deal with relational issues

in light of who we are in the Lord. In other words, we deal with broken

relationships and hardships of all sorts in light of the gospel.

Verse one, stand firm in the Lord. Verse two, be of the same mind

in the Lord. Verse three, rejoice in the Lord. Notice the language running

through our text. We struggle and strive with one another

in our brokenness, not as strangers or members of a Jesus fan club,

but as spiritual siblings who have all been saved, redeemed, sanctified,

and are totally forgiven and loved by our heavenly

Father in the Lord. What am I trying to say here?

Well that because of Christ and what He has done

for us, His people, we can see every strained relationship,

every hurt, every personal offense as an opportunity to shine what we have been

shown in the Lord to others. In other words, because of who we are,

our status in Christ, in the Lord, we can approach every relational hardship

as an opportunity to display the love that we have been shown to others

in Christlike forgiveness. That is something that is so unique about

the church, that no football, knitting, or rowing

club can ever manifest. Simply said, we as the family of God

are in the unique position because of our position

in Christ to display the love of Christ to each other, to our brothers and

sisters where there has been an offense. And so I simply want to say that

however deep that hurt may be, well because of who we are

in the Lord, there is a unique opportunity for the grace of the gospel

to be manifested in that situation. For forgiveness and reconciliation to be

shown. Church, hear me this morning, because we are

human and because we are all sinful, we will all experience

uncomfortable relationships. That's life, unfortunately.

But dear ones, that doesn't mean that we have to fret or

spiral out of control when those things come because we don't have to look at

relational difficulties in the same way that the world does.

No, because of the gospel, because of who we are in the Lord with the

experience of utter and total forgiveness working in our lives, we can

see every difficulty and hardship in light of the

gospel. And there's a unique opportunity to

share that forgiveness and reconciliation with others.

That is a beautiful truth that every Christian has an opportunity to do.

Yet in saying that, we must recognize that sometimes this won't be

possible to work out just between two people and we see that in our passage

this morning, don't we? That's why Paul has asked the church

to get involved and to help his sisters in this reconciliation.

That's why Paul has named these precious women.

It's because he loves them and it's he loves them too much to watch their

division destroy one another. And so he calls on others.

He calls on the maturity and the experience of others

in the Lord to help their sisters. Also that they might cultivate a culture

of reconciliation where forgiveness is offered and relationships are restored.

In other words, Paul is calling the church to be gospel centric.

He is calling the church to live in light of who we are in the Lord so that

there might be really real godly peace in the church.

So by way of application, to experience this peace

among themselves, this supernatural peace that transcends all their

understanding, he then exhorts the church. He commands the church. Verse 4

Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, rejoice. Now if you're anything

like me, I think that's a really odd place to put something like this.

I mean he's just told the church of an internal division.

Now I want you to rejoice. But if we think about what Paul is saying here,

this actually hasn't come out of the blue and it's something that we've noticed

before in this book. In fact, it's been a concern of Paul all

throughout this letter to the Philippians. He wants them to, he doesn't

want them to rejoice in their circumstances. Now remember the context

that the letter has been written into. They are under persecution from the

outside and from the inside there's division.

And so with that said, we can see that Paul doesn't want these beloved people

to fixate all their attention on their circumstances,

but to turn their minds towards the Lord. That's the exhortation here.

Rejoice. Rejoice how? Rejoice in the Lord.

A few months ago, Haley and I had the opportunity to visit

a church in another town and they were an absolutely

beautiful congregation. But in saying that, they were a very

small congregation with only about 15 people.

So after the service, I got speaking to the minister and I told,

and he told me that he was only there in the last couple of months because the

last pastor left over a church split. And then he went on to tell me that the

church actually used to be quite large, but that they had an

argument over something to do with some new laws coming in at the federal level

of state government and the people became so

fixated on their external what-ifs and hows that they eventually turned

on each other. And what was a thriving Christian community and one of the most

pagan towns in Western Australia was torn to shreds in public view.

A burnt-out pastor, a divided community and a sign to that town that

Christian community can be just as horror to place to be in

than a Mackers in Northbridge on a Friday night.

Brothers and sisters, do you hear what our apostle is telling us here?

He's saying that if we fixate on our circumstances, if we are fixated on the

externals of the world and the internals of the church to

find our joy, then when pressures and hardships come in those

areas and they will come, then we are going to be in serious trouble.

Church, if we don't remember the Lord and if we forget to look to Him

and to rejoice in all that He has done, all that He is and all that He is going

to do for His people, if we take our eyes off Him and

forget who we are to each other in the Lord,

then we too run the risk of being torn to shreds.

Church, it's little wonder that Paul commands one of the most persecuted

churches in the New Testament to not fixate on their

situations, but to always look to the Lord and rejoice.

Second, he wants them to put into practice the fruit of the spirit.

Every born-again believer in the Lord has the spirit of God

in them and with that there will be evidence

in their lives of this work. When we look at Paul's letter to the

Galatians, he talks about that evidence by way of fruit and

gentleness is right there in that list. That's what he says in verse 5.

Let your gentleness be evident to all. In other words, let the work of God

so permeate your lives that it's evident not to just those in the church

but to everyone around you. I love what Paul does here actually

because it reminds us of just who we are in light of everything.

He says the Lord is near. Now that's not to scare us,

but to remind us of just who is in our lives

and to whom we will give an account one day.

I remember many moons ago that Haley and I were

having a disagreement over my lack of gifting of being able to pick up

items of clothing off the floor and we were having a bit of a

squabble and speaking pretty directly to each other.

When all of a sudden there was a knock on the door from our friends who had

arrived early for dinner and just like that I realized how

stubborn I was being and that our friends didn't need to be subject to my

justification of leaving my socks in the kitchen

at once again. So I humbly apologize to my dearly beloved and I'm sure I'm not

alone in this right man that when we are together with our loved ones

maybe in the midst of an argument with family members

we forget who is actually present in our lives and who's watching.

We forget to whom we will give an account

of every word we speak. So we might ask the question

if Jesus walks through the door, well do you think the disagreements that you're

having are worth having in light of the Lord?

Are you exuding the fruit of the Spirit in the midst of conflict?

First church we are to rejoice not in our circumstances but in the Lord.

Second we're to put into practice the fruit of the Spirit knowing that our Lord

is near. Third we're to pray. Verse 6 don't be anxious about anything but in

every situation by prayer and petition with

thanksgiving present your requests to God. In other words our apostle reminds us

that we're to rely on God in every single area of our lives. How do we know

that we're really relying on Him? It's because we take things to Him.

We take our anxiety to the throne of grace. Now don't mishear me this morning church.

This isn't Paul saying that you're not going to have any issues if you just pray.

That's not what he's saying here. I mean this isn't the inspiration for the song

don't worry be happy. As we've already seen through this series we see it again

this morning. Christians will go through different and horrible

circumstances in this life and there will be things that crawl into our hearts

and minds that will cause us to stress out and fret. But this is the thing.

Our apostle tells us here, plainly in our text,

that we don't have to be anxious because in every situation

we have a God who is in charge who loves us more than we could possibly

imagine. A Father that we can go to because we are in the Lord

and because of what he's done for us we will be heard.

I don't know about you my brothers and sisters but real anxiety

tends to grip my heart when I want to be in control of a situation but I'm just

not. And you know what the sad thing is about

that? None of us are actually in control of the

things around us anyway. And so by being anxious about a situation

that you're not in control of actually doesn't do a single thing except stress

you out and discourage others around you.

Church, worrying and fretting, well it doesn't actually

give you more control over the situation that you're out of control of

in the first place. Now all it does is causes you to feel more

anxious and to not be able to sleep at night.

So our dear apostle says, he says, brothers and sisters,

instead of worrying about the things you can't change

go and speak to the one who is in control of everything in your situation.

And because he loves you and because he is promised to take care of you

he will listen to any and everything that you bring to him.

That is our promise brothers and sisters. If you are in the Lord, if you trust him

with all that you are then you actually have nothing

to worry about in this life. We have nothing to worry about because

our loving Heavenly Father knows us, he knows our needs and he will take care

of us. So this invitation is open to all his

beloved children to go before the throne of grace

to find mercy, to find undeserved favor, to help us in our time of need.

And so the invitation is open to all of his children, all of us, to ask our

loving Heavenly Father to practice what he has told us to do,

to be at peace with one another, to rejoice in all circumstances,

to be gentle towards all, to pray about everything.

Because as we seek to obey what God would

really have us to do, that we will really experience his peace that surpasses

anything we have ever known. And just with that understanding that Paul

ends this part of scripture by pointing us to that very thing verse seven.

And the peace of God which transcends all understanding

will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

See what our apostle is telling us? He's essentially telling us that when we

make it a practice of turning from what is right in front of us with all its

what ifs and maybes to the Lord in all circumstances, when we remember who we

are in the Lord and how God has shown us such

incredible grace and mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ,

when we run to and not from our Heavenly Father in our crippling anxieties,

then there will be a peace that transcends

and surpasses all our understanding. In other words, Paul says when we make a

practice of turning to the Lord through any and everything,

when we make it a practice to rejoice in the Lord no matter what the

circumstance says, when we make it a practice to

live in gentleness with all those around us, even those we may struggle with,

when we're tempted to worry but again make it a practice to pray so that we

might trust ourselves and remind ourselves of God's sovereignty

in our lives, then there will be peace beyond our

comprehension and it will be known through and through.

Church, the promise here is simple. When the circumstances are screaming

to you, despair and hopelessness, if we turn to the Lord time and time and

time and time and time again, we'll experience

His peace that is already ours in Him. So church, as we end our time in this

wonderful and encouraging part of Scripture, I want to again ask that

question that we started with, is having the peace of God which

transcends all understanding, something that you want in your life

and in our churches, then might I encourage you to put into practice

what we've heard this morning? The promise is there for every single

born-again believer, but might I also encourage you in something else?

Might I encourage you to go to your Heavenly Father

and ask Him for His help in putting into practice what we have heard this morning?

We live in a world that is fallen. We live in a world where relationships

are hard. We live in a world where things just don't seem to work out.

So we must pray so that we might put into practice what God

wants us to do, because if we don't practice these things that we've heard

this morning, well we won't really experience the

promise that is being held out to us. And I don't know about you my brothers and

sisters, but I need that peace that goes beyond

anything that I could ever produce in and of myself.

We need that peace in our own lives. We need it

in our churches, but experiencing that peace begins with our own obedience

as to what God has told us to do. But let's end on this promise.

We have a God that we know loves and cares for us.

He sent us the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in the Lord

together. We have a God who has given us His Holy

Spirit as a helper. So when hard times come and they will come without and

within the church, we have a testimony

that we are doing none of it by ourselves in our own strength,

but we do all things in the Lord. Would you pray with me?

Father, we began our time by asking for your ministry in our midst to hold

Christ high among us this morning. Father, you know each and every

single one of us. You have told us through the Lord Jesus that not

where you know the very hairs on our head. Father, you know everything that is

going on in our lives right now that is out for people to see and in private.

Father, we want to experience this peace. We want this peace that goes beyond

that transcends surpasses our own understanding.

We want to be a people who love you, know you, and talk and share

the good news of you. We ask for your work in our lives, in this church, and the

churches around us. And we ask for this in Jesus' name. Amen.