Open your Bibles, if you would,
to the book of Philippians, chapter 4. We'll continue our study in
this wonderful epistle written by Paul to the saints at Philippi,
a Greek city. And he's in house arrest in Rome,
and he writes them this epistle. Let's start in verse 1. We're
going to read all the way to verse 5. Therefore, my brethren, dearly
beloved, and longed for my joy and crown, so stand fast in the
Lord, my dearly beloved. I beseech your diocese, and I
beseech Sinti, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. And
I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow, help those women which
labor with me in the gospel, with Clement, and with other
my fellow laborers, whose names are written in the book of life.
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. Let your
moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Now,
last week we looked at verse 4, and when you tie in the fact
that our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and
we look at that, that's from eternity. That'll cause us to
rejoice, won't it? No matter what we're going through,
when we think of that, and isn't that wonderful? You know, we
look at rejoicing the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice, and
we say, well, we don't do that. But when we start thinking about
Christ, and when we start thinking about the fact that our names
are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, that'll cause you to
rejoice. That'll cause you to rejoice.
And we're rejoicing in the Lord, aren't we? We're rejoicing in
what the Lord accomplished in our room and place. It's wonderful.
Absolutely wonderful. He's so, so good to us. Our names
are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. It's absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. You know what? I printed out
last week's sermon. Isn't that amazing? Good thing I studied, eh? Good thing I studied. Okay. Let's start over again. Let's read, open your Bibles
to Philippians chapter 4. We're going to read verses 5
to 7. Verses 5 to 7. It says, let your
moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be
careful for nothing. But in everything, by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God. And the peace of God, which passes
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. This is amazing, because in verse
4, as we looked at last week, not this week, we saw, Rejoice
in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. And
so again, I'm going to repeat that. The reason we can rejoice
in the Lord at any time is because our names are written in the
Lamb's Book of Life. And that was done before eternity, before
there was ever anything. Isn't that amazing? Because we're
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, right? He's the
lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. And when we consider, when we
ponder that God has a book of life and he wrote our names before
we ever were. Brian Edwards, Wayne Boyd. Isn't that amazing when you stop
and think that? And our middle names too, probably.
I don't know, but he knew us. He knew who we would be. Before
we ever were. Before there was ever stars.
Before there was ever angels. Now let that one sink in. Our
names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Not because he looked down and
saw anything good in us, because we're all a bunch of sinners.
That's the modern religion. We'll tell you, God looked down
through time and, oh, he saw Chris would choose him. No, Chris,
you and I would never have chosen him, would we? He looked down
through time and saw, Wayne and Chris are dead in trespasses
and sins. I'm going to have mercy on them. Oh, my goodness. That's amazing, isn't it? That
causes us to rejoice in the Lord, always. And again, I say rejoice.
So whether we're in a good time, whether we're just having normal
times, or whether in our mind, what we consider a bad time,
we can rejoice in Christ. You were saying about Tom going
through those surgeries, and this is what the Lord does. He
gives us grace. Tom was telling Brian he had
a bunch of heart work done and he said he wasn't even anxious
about it. He'd just go in there and the Lord gave him a piece
and he says, well, it's in the Lord's hands, right? And that's what happens to us.
He gives us that grace at that time too, that we won't be anxious,
which ties right into the next verse actually. See where it
says, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God. That word careful there is don't be anxious in the Greek. Be anxious for nothing. Now we
humans by nature are anxious. We get worked up, right? We do. And anyone who says they
don't, we'll have someone cut them off on the road. They're
going to get anxious real fast, aren't they? Mad. I heard Henry Mahan used to say,
in a year like this, he used to say, two places where you
see the total depravity of man, when people are driving and when
they're playing golf. Because he was a golfer. He said,
man, it comes right out. I don't play golf, but I understand
that people get pretty worked up sometimes when they're playing
golf. Isn't that funny? So be anxious
for nothing. Okay, so we see the world situation. We hear, oh, this is going on
over here and this is going on over there. Now that would cause
us to be anxious, wouldn't it? But we don't have to be anxious.
God's sovereign. He's in control. He's in control of the armies
of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth, it says in Daniel
4, are reputed as nothing in his eyes. Nothing. Nothing. Does anything catch
our God by surprise? No. Is the things in the world
happening, happening according to God's purpose and plan, even
though we don't understand? Yes. Is it happening for our
good? Yes. Even when we don't think
it is. Isn't that amazing? So, the exhortation
here is, don't be anxious. And isn't it amazing? The Holy
Spirit knows we're but dust. This is an exhortation. And notice
it's gentle, too. It's not harsh. It's gentle.
Don't be anxious. God's in control. But see, he
has to tell us that because we get anxious. And remember, he's
not writing to unbelievers. He's writing to believers. Isn't
that wonderful? Gives us comfort, doesn't it?
So when I get anxious, which happens, I have to remember,
I need my eyes on Christ. He's in control. I can't get
worked up. My, I remember, I remember reading
A.W. Pink one time, this was amazing,
and I was grouching about the weather. It was raining out,
and I don't like rain, but rain has a purpose, right? And I don't
like rain. I was gramping, and I was gramping,
and then I'm reading Pink, and he says, well, we shouldn't really
murmur about the weather, because God sends the weather. I don't
murmur about the weather anymore. Seriously, it all comes from
his hand, right? Whether we get a snowy day or
a cold day or a warm day, it's all according to his sovereign
will and purpose. And we're blessed here because we get to see all
four seasons, don't we? There's some places they don't
have that, but we have that. We get to see all four seasons,
it's wonderful. So he tells us here, an exhortation
by the Holy Spirit of God to the Philippians through the pen
of Paul, be anxious for nothing, be careful for nothing, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Now there's
how we're to approach our God, with prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving. So when we do get anxious, here's
the cure. Go to the Lord in prayer. And
I'm not talking. I'm not talking. We don't have
to do it in show, do we? Just pray in your heart. Right? Pray in your heart. Lord, help
me. I'm anxious. I don't want to
be anxious. I know you're in control, but
I'm anxious right now. Right? So this is the way. With
Thanksgiving, too. Well, how are we thankful when
we're going through a horrible situation in our eyes? Rejoice that your names are written
in the Lamb's Book of Life. See, it's all connected. See
how it's all connected? This is just temporary. Everything
we go through, brother, is just temporary. This life is temporary. 100%
of humans are going to die. It's a point on the man wants
to die, and after this is the judgment. Right? It's the great pandemic of sin.
You know, we had that pandemic years ago. This pandemic has
a 100% kill rate. It's sin. And there's only one cure
for it, isn't there? The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin. Now we still die, don't we? But
brother, our sins are bought and paid for through Christ Jesus
our Lord. That's wonderful. And why are we forgiven of our
sins? Because our names were written
in the Lamb's Book of Life. Because we were chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world. Isn't that amazing? That'll
cause us to be thankful, won't it? All our sins are washed clean
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man who came
to this world to give his life a ransom for our souls. That's
amazing. God himself left the glory and
splendour of heaven to save us from our sins. So, that'll cause
us to rejoice. To rejoice. And so we see here,
in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known unto God. Beloved, nothing, nothing, absolutely
nothing is too small to take to the King. I don't care how
small we think it is in our life, nothing is too small to take
to the King. Nothing's too big either. Right? Is your soul burdened with sorrow?
Take it to our King. Take it to our King. Are we burdened
with past sins? Rejoice, they're washed in the
blood, if you're a true born-again, blood-washed believer. Right? Gone. God says there's sins and
iniquities. Will I remember no more? My. Even though I remember them?
Yeah. Gone. Isn't that wonderful? Under the
blood. And now someone says, well, you
don't know how bad my sins are. Well, you know what? As I grow
in grace, I'm learning more and more how bad my sins are, how
horrible my sins are. But praise God, they're all forgiven. The worst of sinners, the Lord
saved, doesn't he? And we're still sinners, aren't
we, Brother Brian? We see ourselves as more sinners every day. You
know why? There's a reason for that. Because
as we grow in grace, God reveals to us, I think it was John Owen
said, the sinfulness of our sin. How bad it really is. Why? But one day, we're going
to be sinless. It'll never plague us again.
That'll cause us to be thankful, won't it? To know what's coming. My oh my. So we're to make our
requests known unto God. Hebrews 4.16, I think it is.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace and
find grace to help in time of need. Are you needy? We're needy
all the time, aren't we, Brother Travis? I'm needy all the time,
man. Oh, my. Someone says, well, I
run out of things to pray for. I've never experienced that yet,
but I will be praying and fall asleep sometimes. You ever heard
that happen? Yeah. There's always someone or something
to pray about, isn't there? Yeah, we get going in our day
though. And this is the wonderful thing
about prayer. We can come to the throne of grace while we're
working. No one else knows. We can come
to the throne of grace when we're sitting at work doing something. We can come to the throne of
grace when we're helping someone and pray for them while we're
helping them. We can come to the throne of
grace. You go order food or something. You can pray for the person behind
the counter, even though we'll never see him again. Lord, if
it be your will, save him, please. We can be thankful for, I was
telling Chris, I go across the road all the time, and the Lord
opens up the road for me. I always say, thank you, Lord,
for giving me a clear path across the road. and give me eyes to
see, to not see things that aren't there, right? Yeah, Chris was
telling me a story about a fellow that saw something outside and
went out and saw a young girl. But she was imaginary, went out
and he went out and ended up falling into a culvert and drowned.
But to him, that girl was real, but she wasn't. But I thank the Lord just for
giving me a giving me a path across the street. When Josh,
when Vicki was gone and Josh and I, Josh was driving, I'd
say, drive around and we'll get a parking lot and there'd be
a parking spot up front. And I said, well, praise God. He gave us
a parking spot. And he just kind of looked at me. I'm like, if
I'm the Lord. Someone says, well, that, come
on Wayne, that's, no, it is. All right. He had that car pulled out at
the right time. That was all ordained by God. I'll tell you
what, there's not even a piece of dust that flies in the sunlight
that's not ordained by God. We talk about, there's not a
maverick molecule, is there, in the whole universe. Everything's
all controlled by God. Not even a molecule that's out
of His will and purpose. Isn't it wonderful how He takes
care of us? So we can come to Him boldly, to the throne of
God through Christ, right? And here give us grace to help
in time of need. And he does, hasn't he? We've
tried that, haven't we? And he does. So again, Paul, by inspiration
of the Holy Spirit of God here, have you noticed how it's all
Christ-centric? Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice
in Christ. right? Let your prayers be anxious
for nothing, right? But with thanksgiving, let our
supplications take our supplications to the Lord, to Christ. He's focusing our eyes on Christ. It's absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. Look at verse Oh, I didn't look at verse five,
but look at verse five, too. I skipped verse five. Look at
this. Let your moderation be known unto all men, the Lord
is at hand. Now, you might have it in your
margin gentleness. Moderation, people right away
would think moderation, they're thinking food and drink. No,
this is let your gentleness be known. God's people are gentle. Now we still get worked up like
everybody else, but we're not the same people we were. We have a new heart now. Henry
Mahan used to say, when the Lord saves a man or a woman, even
their pets know. Because their attitude towards
them changes to gentleness. Isn't that amazing? That's incredible. and their family knows. It's
amazing. So that's gentleness. So we're
to be gentle with people around us. Let it be known. That's Gnoska again. Let it be
known. Let people see it. We're not
how we were. We remember how we were, but
we're not like that anymore, are we? By the grace of God and
by the mercy of God, But we still carry around this body of flesh,
right? Oh, yeah. But generally, we're gentle. Humble, folks, made humble by
God. Don't ever try to be humble by your own works, because it'll
never happen. That'll just make us proud. It's the Holy Spirit
who makes us humble. It's the fruit of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, gentleness. Oh my, isn't it amazing? So this
is a fruit of the Spirit. So we're to let it be known. Not by going, hey, I'm a gentle
guy now. Not like that. Just by being yourself, right?
Just by being you. And people who've known you before
will notice the difference. And people who get to know you,
they see a difference in you and other people. But that's
all because of Christ. We can't take credit for that,
can we, Brother Charlie? And we don't want to. No. It's all the work of God, the
Holy Spirit. Our attitudes change with our family. Our attitudes
change with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Now we got
a whole family. We got a family. You guys are
my family. You're my brothers and sisters in Christ. Isn't
that wonderful? I'm your brother in Christ. That's amazing. You got a little brother, Brian.
Got a couple of us in here. Isn't that wonderful? You didn't
have a little brother growing up, did you? Right? No. Well, now you got a whole
bunch of them. It's wonderful. It's amazing. Isn't God good? Isn't he so good? And it says the Lord is at hand.
That means the Lord is everywhere. He's always with us. He's always
with us. Always. And He's coming again. We don't know when that is, but
He is definitely returning. And for us as believers, we're
going to either meet Him at our death, right? Or if we're alive
when He comes back, Then we're going to meet him face to face
in the air. And don't be fooled. No one knows the hour of the
day. No one even knows the season. You hear people say, well, I
know the season. No, you don't. The scripture says no one knows
the season or the hour of the day. As Chris and I were talking,
it could be 100 years from now. It could be next year. It could
be in a few weeks. We don't know. But we're looking
to Christ the same way, aren't we? We keep looking to Christ,
and the whole reason we're here is for the furtherance of the
gospel. Isn't that amazing? God brought us all together.
Charlie, I didn't know you 20 years ago, and now you're so
dear to me. The Lord's knit our hearts together,
and we're rejoicing in the gospel that we never rejoiced in before.
My! Isn't that amazing? Isn't God good to us? And we're
rejoicing, knowing that the Lord can come back any time. And so
for now, we just keep looking to him, don't we, living this
life. And out goes the gospel, and we rejoice. First and foremost,
I'm here to preach the gospel right here to you all. And then
we get the blessing of putting it out on the internet all over
the world. Isn't that wonderful? But first and foremost, I'm here
to proclaim the gospel to you all and to this town. First and foremost. I don't need
to go traveling around to different churches. This is where I'm called.
Right here. I take it serious. Take it serious. So let our gentleness, let people
see the change in us. And we don't have to do anything.
They will see it. They will see it. Yeah, I saw that. And I always
thought moderation meant, you know, okay, you can't eat this
or can't drink this. It's not that at all. Although
that stuff is good. Not to eat excessively and not
to drink excessively, right? That's good. But that's not what
this means. It's speaking of gentleness.
And then why should we be like that? Well, the Lord is on hand.
He sees everything we do. Nothing is hid from Him. There's
not one thought of ours that's hid from Him. Do you ever think
of that? Oh my, some of the thoughts that go through my head. Oh my,
it's awful. And when that happens, Lord,
please forgive me. I know my sins are washed, but
I still repent before Him. Forgive me, Lord. And we desire
to live an obedient life to Him, don't we? We desire that as believers. We ought never to downplay that.
Antinomians downplay that and say, well, you can just live
however you want. No, we can't. We can't live however we want. No, we don't desire to live however
we want. We desire to live for the Lord
now. To rejoice in Him. Isn't that amazing? Charlie,
we used to want to live our life just for ourselves. Didn't we
do, Brother Travis? It was all about us. Now it's all about
Him. Why do we serve Him? Because
we love Him. He loved us. He loved us before
we ever loved Him. Isn't that amazing? My oh my. Absolutely incredible. Now let's look at verse 7. This is amazing. Philippians 4 verse 7, Romans
in chapter 5 says that we now have peace with God through the
Lord Jesus Christ. At one time before we were saved,
we were at enmity with God. That's what the scripture declares.
And I remember that. I remember how I used to think
of God. And it wasn't good. Now, my,
I marvel at His sovereignty. I marvel that He had grace upon
me. I marvel that He saved me from
all my sins. 30 years living in sin, loving it
every day, not even knowing I was a sinner, eh, Brother Charlie? Drinking it like water. Now I'm a safe sinner, praise
God. I struggle with it now. My and it's to read this and
remember he's writing to board again blood-washed believers
and he says you have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God. Peace with the
sovereign king. See outside of Christ we can't
have peace with God. There's no peace with God outside
of Christ. There's no peace with Mary. There's
no peace with Muhammad. There's no peace with Buddha.
There's no peace with any of those other false gods out there.
The one who is God in the flesh said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And then
Paul here, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, is writing
and telling us that we now have peace with God. He's telling
these Philippians. You remember what the Philippians
were? They were a bunch of idol worshipers, weren't they? Where did we come from? Same
quarry of humanity. We were worshiping idols too. I went to a Catholic church.
I was bowing down to the statues of Mary. That's just an idol. And then there's the idol itself,
isn't there? Serving self. That can be an idol too. Hey
brother. Yeah. My, there's a, we can make, do
you know we humans can make an idol out of anything? And you know that Calvin one
time said that our hearts are like idol factories, pumping
out idols. Our natural hearts. Look at all
the idols that we saw when Paul goes into, where was it? He went
into, I think it was Ephesus. And there was 33,000 different
gods there that they worshiped. All gods of man's imagination. And Paul goes in there and he
preaches Christ. And we saw a multitude of people in that city were saved.
So much so, as we look in the main service, we're going to
look at the beginning of Paul's farewell address to the Ephesians.
So many people, the Lord has started so many churches in the
Church of Ephesus that he had to call together the elders of
the churches. There's multiple churches now in Ephesus at the
time of Paul's departure. My, they were a bunch of idol
worshipers. Where'd my family come? A bunch
of pagan idol worshipers. Right? Yeah, we trace our roots back.
We're all the same. But our problem was, and is, we fell in Adam,
didn't we? So we're born into this world
dead in trespasses and sins. We're sinners, whether one believes
it or not. But praise God, Christ came to
save sinners. Right? And we found out in this
chapter that those sinners he saves, their names were written
in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world.
And that leaves us in awe. Not because of anything good
in us, but all because of God's mercy and grace. That's wonderful. That's absolutely wonderful.
Look at this, in the peace of God, which passes all understanding. What does this tell us? When
it says the peace of God passes all understanding. Well, that
tells us that natural man cannot understand what it means to have
peace with God. You ever hear someone say, well,
I made my peace with God. And you ask them, well, how did
you do that? And they say, well, I prayed a prayer. Well, praying a prayer won't
save you. We have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Through Christ. Not through anything
we do, but through what he's done. There's a difference, isn't
there? That's why the scripture just
says, look to me and live. The Lord says, look to me and
live. All ye ends of the earth. See, I proclaim a finished work,
it's done. It's been accomplished, hasn't
it, Brother Travis? It's done. 2,000 years ago, the work is
finished. Finished. And now we just look
to Christ and His finished work by God-given faith when we're
born again. What comes first, Charlie? Regeneration
or faith? Amen. Regeneration, brother.
You must be born again. Sorry, I put you on the spot
there. Regeneration, though. You must be born again. We don't
have faith before we're born again. As a matter of fact, we
will never come to Christ before we're born again. But when we're
born again and given faith to believe, we run to Christ, beloved. He's everything to us. He's wonderful. Turn, if you would, over to Romans
chapter 5. I'll read this little portion here. Romans chapter
5. Talking about the peace of God that we now have. And that
natural man can't understand. I never understood this before
I was saved. And now I just have a little
bit of knowledge. Just a pinch. I'm learning. I'm learning still
more what this peace means. It's amazing. Look at this here, Romans 5 verse
1. Therefore being justified by
faith, that's God-given faith. Now, I was reading a great article
last night. I thought this was fantastic.
There's a big debate now. People say, well, are we justified
at the cross or are we justified in eternity or are we justified
by faith? Well, I think we were justified
in eternity and I also think we're justified in time when
Christ died for us on the cross. And then this becomes a reality
to us. We're already justified, though. We're already justified before
God gives us faith, right? Because the work's done, right? 2,000 years ago. Look at this.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have. Look at that.
It's not we might have. Notice that? It's not like, well,
maybe. If you do this, we have peace
with God. Look at this, through our Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the only way we can have
peace with God. The only way a sinner can be
forgiven of all their sins is through the Lord Jesus Christ
and by his perfect sin atoning work, which he accomplished at
Calvary's cross, shed in his precious blood to save his people
from their sins. Washed in the blood. And that's
why now, even more so, those words, those beautiful words
in Exodus, when I see the blood I'll pass over you, are so wonderful. Because God sees us covered in
the blood of Christ, clothed in His perfect spotless righteousness.
Isn't that wonderful? So who can be forgiven? All who
come to Christ. All who come to Christ. Isn't
that wonderful? Who will come to Christ? All
those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. How
do I know if I'm one of the elect? Well, if your name's written
in the Lamb's Book of Life, he's going to get you. And he will. I told my son that
the other day. I said, Joshua, if your name's
written in the Lamb's Book of Life, God's going to get you.
I keep praying for him. Keep lifting him up, him and
my daughter. But if their names are written in that book, he's
going to get them. And as God's preachers, we're
on the trail of God's sheep, aren't we? We preach the gospel
to everyone, and God does the saving. Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful. Young Jake, in
the UAE, he was talking to a chaplain over there. And he said, my preacher
back home, all he does is preach the simple gospel. I thought,
oh man, that's a wonderful compliment. Just look to Christ and live.
He said he doesn't get caught up in denominations and all this
other stuff. He just wants to preach Christ to everyone. Amen. That's what matters the most,
isn't it? Now, I have my doctrinal views. We all do. We know what
they are, aren't we? We know where we stand. And we are not
afraid to draw a line in the sand, are we? But I'll preach
to everyone. come to Christ, knowing that
God's gonna bring His people to Him, won't He? And you know
what? Are we not proof that God saves
the worst of the worst? Hey, Brother Charlie, you gotta
smile. We know that too, don't we? Because
we are that. But look at us. Saved by the
grace of God. That is so wonderful. What a
Saviour. What a Redeemer is Jesus Christ
our Lord. Look at this, it goes on. Therefore,
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into
this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the
glory of God. So look at that. That ties in
with our text too, because it says here, by faith, we have
access by faith. Remember, we can go to the Lord's
throne with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, anytime we
want. We can boldly come before the
throne of grace anytime we want. And we stand. We don't stand
in our own doings. We stand in what Christ has done.
We stand in the hope that we have in Christ. And we rejoice in the hope of
the glory of God. Look at this. And not only so, but we glory
in tribulations also, knowing that tribulations work with patience,
and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope make
it not a shame, because the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. Praise his
mighty name. Brother Brian, can you close
us in prayer?