Bibles to Philippians chapter
4. Philippians chapter 4. Now last week we spoke about
the first several verses of chapter 4. And he was dealing with a
division that had come up between two women in the church, Euodia
and Syntyche. And he was urging that Epaphroditus,
who was from Philippi, to work with these women to figure out,
to reconcile them. And we covered verse four, but
I'm gonna start there again this morning and review some of this
stuff, and we'll try to get through verse seven. But let's ask the
Lord's blessings first. Heavenly Father, thank you for
the time that we have now to look at this portion of scripture,
and may our hearts be encouraged and strengthened by what we read
here, and may our lives demonstrate the conduct that is given to
us in these scriptures. In Christ's name we pray it,
amen. Now, having called these two women to reconcile, and that
shows us the fact that these two women, he calls them fellow
athletes with him. And I think our translation says,
contended at my side. But actually, it's made up of
the Greek word for together, and then the word from which
we get our word, athletics, or athlete. And, you know, the life
of Gospel ministry is a life of, and this is for every believer. As we're in this world, we contend
with the world. It is, as it were, an athletic
event because it requires a spiritual exertion and all this. These
two women were faithful women. They truly believed the gospel.
They were earnest and sincere in what they were doing, but
for some reason, they'd fallen out with one another. Now, we
know that when Two believers fall out with one another. There's
a problem somewhere with one or likely both of them. But that's
true all the time. We don't ever achieve a level
of perfection. We should not be surprised when
these divisions come up. The thing is to realize that
there are no differences among us worthy of division. Now, he says in verse four, rejoice
in the Lord always, I will say again, rejoice. Here's a method
for doing away with the divisive spirit that can arise over differences,
and that is rejoice in the Lord. Believers always have reason
to rejoice in the Lord, even if they don't have any reason
to rejoice about anything else. I think it's Habakkuk, the prophet
said, You know, if there's no grain in the bin and no cattle
in the stall, and he mentions all the kind of things that you
would depend on, and without them your life would be in really
bad shape. He said, even if all of this
is taken from me, yet I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. We always have that to rejoice
in, and that trumps everything else, compared to the grace that
has been given to us and all the blessings that God has poured
out on us, what is there in the world that if we lost it, it
would take away or rob from us every reason for rejoicing? Now
this is not to say that we are not made sad by the things in
the world and it's not legitimate to be sad about the difficult
things of this world. There are some who believe, well,
you know, God's in control of everything, and whatever happens,
you should be reconciled to it, and you should not look at it
as a sad event. It's the will of the Lord, and
so be stoic. Well, that's not true. Scriptures
say, weep with those that weep. And our Lord wept at the tomb
of Lazarus, even though He knew He was gonna raise Him from the
dead. So when Paul says, rejoice in the Lord always, he's not
saying there's never a time when there won't be sadness because
of what's going on around us. But the believer can rejoice
even when he's sad. Do you remember the story of
when they read the law to the people that had returned from
the captivity in Babylon and they came back And when the law
was read to them, they were so stricken in their hearts because
they realized how sinful they and their ancestors had been.
And they began to weep. And the message went out to them, no,
don't weep. Don't be burdened with this sense
of guilt. For the joy of the Lord is your
strength." Now, what is the joy of the Lord? The joy of the Lord
is that joy that arises from the knowledge that though our
sins are very great, they're all forgiven. That's the joy of the Lord. And
it can sustain us even when we're falling apart over everything
else. He says, rejoice in the Lord
always. And if we do that, we won't have much time for bickering
and complaining. And then he goes, I will say
it again, rejoice. And he put it that way because
he knew that if he didn't emphasize it, we'd just let it go in one
ear and out the other. It's as though he said it this
way, rejoice in the Lord always. Now I mean it, rejoice. And we
can. And he says, let your gentleness
be evident to all. The word there can be translated
moderation. You know, you hear the word moderate
these days. You hear it in the political
world, and it's always funny. A moderate is someone from the
other party who agrees with you. That's what they call a moderate. And I know one of the famous
radio hosts on political matters, he didn't like the concept of
a moderate. He said, you know, whoever heard of a book of, you
know, the most amazing moderates, but they aren't understanding
what is meant by moderation. It doesn't mean you have moderate
opinions. We believe that salvation is
by the grace of God exhibited in sovereign election and effective
redemption and sovereign calling and all that. We are not moderate
in our declaration of that. Well then how can we be moderate
while we're not moderate? We're moderate, excuse me, we're
not moderate about what the truth is, but we're moderate in dealing
with people. who disagree, or don't see everything
exactly as we do. Understanding there are frailties
in the flesh, there are misunderstandings, there's merely the fact that
not everybody defines words the same way. Now, we're not moderate
towards those who are of a rebellious spirit, that is that those that
want to cause contention and refuse to be reconciled, But
we deal with one another gently, not insisting, I read this description,
not insisting on the letter of the law if the spirit of the
law is being followed. Now that's a secular definition,
it's not referring to the law of Moses there. But if people
are in general in line with the truth and appropriate conduct,
don't go looking around for little tiny things to file grievances
over. He says, let your gentleness
be evident to all. He doesn't mean by that to make
a purposeful show of it, like people will do with humility.
What he means by it is be so moderate that it'll be obvious
to everyone that you are of a moderate spirit. Truly be moderate, don't
just act it, be it. Realize not everything is important. And he goes, the Lord is near.
Now that is not given as a warning. You better be moderate, the Lord
is near. That's given, once again, as a reason we should be happy
to be moderate. The Lord's at hand. If anything
needs taken care of, he can take care of it. there's any judging to do He
can handle it. And shortly no matter how bad
things may appear to be it will not be long that we are with
Him and none of this will bother us anymore. You can put up with
a lot if you're not going to be around it very long. And so
that's what He's saying. You can be moderate. You can
put up with and endure the offenses of your brethren, knowing this,
the Lord is near, all of this will be over soon, and we'll
all be made perfect. He says, do not be anxious about
anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with
thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Now this anxiety he is
speaking of, it's kind of hard to describe,
because in other places, for example, Peter says, Cast all
your care upon him, for he cares for you. And it's exactly the
same word. Well, if we're not supposed to be anxious, why would
Christ be anxious? Well, as with all words, the
context gives us the shades of meaning. And he's talking about
a care of things that so burdens that it hinders us from the enjoyment
of our salvation. that we become consumed with
worry. Now, for me to stand up here
and preach that, I always feel like a hypocrite when I say things
like that, because it's though I was put together for the specific
purpose of worry, because I never forget anything that went wrong,
and I believe everything else is going to go wrong. It's just
in my nature. However, I do as much as I can
not to guide my conduct by those worries. They're in my head. They have their effect. But by
the grace of God, we take these anxieties, we lay them on Christ,
let Him handle it, and just move on. And so don't be anxious about
it. Is there a problem? Well, then
concerning that problem, Prayer and petition with thanksgiving. Now one reason I believe that
our prayers maybe do not get answered in the way that we wanted
them to, or it feels as though God's not listening at all, is
that we're all prayer and petition and no thanksgiving. We get so overwhelmed by our
problems. And I'm not saying that, you
know, quit praying until you get it right. No, let's just
go ahead and get it right. No matter how pressed out we
are, no matter how distressed, and as we're unburdening our
heart to the Lord, remember to give thanks. And this isn't anything
miraculous, but it has this effect. The more that we give thanks,
the less we are burdened by the things that trouble us. I think I mentioned this a long
time ago. Well, I know I have, but when
I was having a real serious bout of depression and the anxiety
that's common to me, and I mean, I would wake up and the moment
I woke up, It was like instant alarms going off. And what I
learned to do at that time was as quickly as possible, thank
God for my life and for the day in front of me. Thank God for
my life as it was. I wasn't thanking him that someday
it might be better. Lord, I thank you for my life. And I began,
you know, tried to get my mind in an attitude of thankfulness.
And it greatly helped. It unburdened me of many of the
burdens I was having. So with thanksgiving, present
your requests to God. Now verse seven, and the peace
of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, peace. That's the third thing mentioned
in the list of the fruit of the Spirit. In Galatians 5, Paul
says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. Now, what peace is he speaking
of? Well, he's speaking of the peace
of heart that arises from a knowledge of the gospel. Now, in this world, we'll have
trouble. In this world, there is trouble
because it's a troublesome world. Job said, man is born to trouble,
just like the sparks fly upward. You know, if you've got a fire
going and it's going down a little bit, so you poke it a little
bit to kind of stir it up, sparks fly up. Well, as assuredly as
sparks fly up upward from a fire, so is man born to trouble. It doesn't take much investigation. In fact, none at all. You can't
hardly avoid the strife and contention that goes on in this world. I
quit reading the news. I don't believe any of them anymore
anyway. And all they were doing was getting
me upset about things I couldn't change. I thought, you know,
why bother filling my mind full of information that I can't do
anything about? And were it not that sometimes
when you're online, they just, you know, scream headlines at
you because they want you to click and go to their site about
this story, I probably wouldn't have a clue what's going on outside
of my own life and the life of this church. And I've noticed
since I did that, I generally get along a whole lot better,
you know, not nearly as many worries. And here's the interesting
thing, I don't know about it, I quit worrying about it, and
my life's going on the same. Nothing's affected by it, so
I'm glad of it. But there is not peace in this world. But
our Lord said, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives
peace. How does the world give peace?
You know, they keep going over to the media and say, we're going
to have peace talks. No, you're not. Nobody over there is interested
in peace. They may be interested in a ceasefire.
They're tired of people being killed. And that's the best you
can get, you know, when men are, you know, humans are at one another,
get them to stop killing one another. But they're not at peace. And so, Our Lord said, I'm not going
to give you the kind of peace that the world gives because it's
temporary. It lasts hardly any time at all. I grew up as a baby boomer. I
grew up in a cold war. And we're always being told about
the nuclear threat and the possibility of world annihilation because
of the Soviet Union, you know, and it's, was powerful and had
all these atomic weapons. And we did too. In fact, they
had a policy they called mutually assured destruction. And it was
both sides were so heavily armed, neither side dared pulling the
trigger because they knew. that it meant destruction for
themselves if they ever attacked the other. That's how big the
arsenal was. And everybody was worried about
it. In the late 80s, it was shown that the Soviet Union was crumbling
under its own weight, and eventually it fell apart. And I remember
when President Bush I was in office, you know, and they took
down the Berlin Wall and everything, and he made a speech, and he
said to the American people, you bought the peace. Now, what he meant by that is
we had spent so much money making such a powerful military so that
no one dared confront us, and also the Soviet Union felt, you
know, they had to keep up. They spent themselves into bankruptcy
trying to keep their military up. So he said, we bought the
peace, essentially by bankrupting the Soviet Union, trying to keep
up. And then the next president, well, he even spoke of it. He
talked about the peace dividend. And what he meant by that you
know we can scale back now on our military and start spending
that money somewhere else. And so money got diverted from
the military and the other things and lo and behold. Now this was
before the one in 2001 but I think it was in 1993 they bombed the
World Trade Center. It was not successful like the
one eight years later but it killed some and we found out
there's other enemies out there. The world never has peace, and
it won't ever. But the Lord gives his people
peace. It's a peace that passes all
understanding. Now, he does not mean that we
don't understand it. We do. What he meant is it's
beyond natural understanding. The believer can stand in the
midst of a world falling apart, his own world falling in on him,
and by the grace of God, remain at peace. You know, we just had, well,
we're still going through it to some degree, but this whole
thing with COVID. And I'm not gonna pretend it was nothing.
It was something, it was serious. And, Of course, they fan the
flames of fear because you can control people with fear, but
there are people just out of their mind crazy over it. And we who are considered to
be the freest nation on the earth, a significant portion of our
population was ready to accept the chains of government because
of the fear instilled by this pandemic. Well, it's always good
to exercise good sense when there is any kind of danger. But we can be at peace in the
midst of the danger. We can do what is reasonable
to protect ourselves and then move on knowing that the Lord
is in control. Just as that virus was coming
on the scene, I did about a 15-minute, might call it a podcast. Actually, I just recorded it
and then put it up on our YouTube channel and sent it out to people.
But I was talking about God, believers, and the coronavirus.
And I believe in my first point, I said, understand this, this
is God's virus. He sent it. Don't know why, don't
know what he plans, you know, don't know what purpose he will
achieve by it. That's not our business. But
we do know that it came from him. And since it came from him,
we don't have to be afraid of it. Because our father never
sends anything that will ultimately harm us. The peace of God that transcends
all understanding This peace arises from the knowledge that
our God is in absolute control, that he has our best interests
at heart, and always has, and always will, and that he works
all things together for good. Now, that's Romans 8, 28. Paul
says, and we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God, who are the called according to his purpose. I looked
that up last night, and I always like
going back to the original languages, because there's a few things
sometimes you can gain from it. And I was surprised to find this,
because I'd never done a detailed study. I was surprised to find
this. Nearly every translation says,
all things work together for good. But even though the words
God do not appear there. Because of certain grammatical
distinctives of Greek, it could be read this way. In fact, it
would be, to those who love God, all things are worked together
by God for their good. To those who are called. In other
words, it's not like just everything works out fine. It's God works
everything out. He manages it. It's not as though God is reacting
to what's happening. He's causing what's happening.
There's a big difference there. People say, well, nothing can
come up that God can't control. Well, of course not. Nothing
comes up unless he sends it. And it does exactly what he intended
by it. And whatever he intends by it
is good for his people. And that brings peace to the
heart. And that includes everything all the way up till our death.
And he says, this peace, which transcends all natural understanding,
comes only through an understanding of gospel principles, it will
guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Now we've been
speaking here about, Paul has been writing about divisions
in the church and what differences that cause division and all this.
He says, you rejoice, you learn some moderation, Keep in mind
the Lord is near and all this is gonna be over pretty soon.
Either we're going to him or he's coming to us pretty quick. And when you pray and make your
request, include a thankful spirit, do all this, and the peace of
God will take up residence in your heart. And it will guard
you. from, well, actually from everything,
but I think within the context, he says it will guard you from
being bowled over by troubles that arise within the church,
by the differences of opinion people have, and the fact that
even though they're believers, they can fall out with one another.
You can look at all that and say, that's sad, but even in
this, God is at work for the good of his church. And that
will guard us. I remember early on here, I had
a lot of anxiety about things, you know, because it's just natural
for me. I take responsibility for it
all. I thought I was responsible for the success of this work.
And every little issue that came up would disturb me so much.
It took a long time to learn, just leave it alone. Whatever
comes up, God brought it. Now, if people were doing what
wasn't right, they're still responsible for it, but still, God brought
it, and he brought it for the good of the church. Face it with
grace and moderation and thanksgiving, and peace will rule your hearts.
All right, you are dismissed.