Let us turn again to God's word
and we continue here in the last chapter in the book of Philippians
chapter 4 I want to read the passage from verse 7 through
8 and 9 in Philippians chapter 4 verse 7 through 8 and 9 And the peace of God, which passes
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things
are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just,
whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things
are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be
any praise, think on these things. Those things which ye have both
learned and received and heard and seen in me do and the God
of peace shall be with you well we've looked at the passage from
verse one right through into verse eight so we come tonight
really to consider the content of the ninth verse And it is here, of course, in
the context of that great promise of peace that he speaks of at
the beginning of verse 7, the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding. And then again, at the end of
verse 9, he refers to the God of peace. The God of peace, he
says, shall be with you. And really in this portion we
see what is involved in experiencing anything of this peace of God
that the Apostle is so concerned might be the experience of these
Philippians. It's interesting in verse 8 he
speaks of these things. I remarked last week when we were
looking at that verse that The old Puritan commentator John
Trapp says it's a little miniature Bible that we have in verse 8.
And if we abide by these things, we will have some foretaste of
heaven even here upon earth. And what is he saying? Well,
we're to think on these things. And so the subject matter that
we were looking at last time was that of this exhortation,
as it were, to meditation. The blessed man, his delight
is in the Lord of the Lords and in his Lord does he meditate
day and night we read in the opening psalm. And the determination
of David again later in the 119th psalm and several times he speaks
of his meditating in the word of God throughout that particular
psalm. I will meditate he says in thy
precepts and as I was saying we have reference then to these
things think on these things and then he goes on verse 9 those
things these things and then those things which have both
learned and received and heard and seen in me do and the God
of peace shall be with you it's not enough to to think on the
good things of God, to meditate in God's word but there must
be a doing, there must be a practice and that practice will spring
really from an experience of that grace of God that brings
true peace into the souls of those who in their very natures
are in a condition where they're enemies of God and alienated
from Him by their wicked works And we often think of those lines,
that little couplet of Joseph Hart's true religion is more
than notion, something must be known and felt. And what is Paul doing here in
verse 9? Well, he's directing them to
himself. Interestingly, when he speaks
of those things, he says those things which he have both learned
and received and heard and seen in me do. and the God of peace
shall be with you. He's speaking then of his own
religion, real religion we might call it and this is what he would have them
not only to be meditating in but that they might experience
in these things and therefore be those who will live by these
things and so as we come to look at this ninth verse tonight First
of all, to say something with regards to Paul and his preaching. He speaks in verse 9 of what
they've learned, what they've received, and what they've heard. And the reference, of course,
is altogether to his ministry, the content, the matter of his
preaching. And what was the content of that
ministry? Well, He really sets it before
us in the previous part of the Epistle. There is doctrine, there
is experience, and there is practice. In chapter 2, chapter 2 is really
a great doctrinal chapter. It sets before us the doctrine
of Christ, His person, and His work. And then chapter 3, is
one in which he speaks of experience, and he's speaking very much of
himself, and his own experience of the grace of God, what he
was in his fallen nature as a self-righteous man, a Pharisee of the Pharisees,
and what he became by the grace of God, and what his longings
and yearnings were. So, chapter 2 we have the doctrine,
chapter Three, we have the experience, and Paul is speaking of himself.
He's the one who is a pattern, of course, a pattern to them
which would hereafter believe, as he says to Timothy. And then,
of course, here in Chapter 4, we really come to the practical
part, and these words that we've been looking at over these recent
weeks, in which he's giving instruction and commandment and exhortation
to the believers in the church at Philippi. So there's doctrine,
there's experience and there's practice those things all this ministry
that he sought to exercise amongst them when he was with them when
he first preached the gospel there and the church began and
even now as he's writing to them and giving them instruction those
things first of all there is the the doctrine he was very
much one who felt he was called to preach the word of God. He says to the Corinthians, remember,
Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. That
was his chief concern, the preaching of the gospel. Again, to the
Corinthians he can say, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus
the Lord. Of course, we imagine that in
that third chapter, when he does speak of himself, he's preaching
himself. He's not preaching himself. But as I've said before, in all
his epistles, there are always these three basic elements. There's
the doctrine, but then there's the experience of the doctrine,
which will lead to the practice of that doctrine. He'd known personal dealings
and they needed to know the same sort of personal dealings. But
his real determination all the time is not to preach himself
but the Lord Jesus Christ. How he asserts that repeatedly
to the church at Corinth. I determine not to know anything
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We preach Christ
crucified, always had emphasis, Christ, the person, the great
mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, the God-man, the
Christ, the Son of God. But Christ crucified, the work,
His obedience, His obedience unto death, even the death of
the cross. And not only the death of the
cross, but also the resurrection from the dead. When he's at Athens,
what does he say? Well, we're told he preached
unto them Jesus and the resurrection. He preaches the resurrection.
And again, it's there, isn't it, to the Corinthians in that
remarkable 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. that he spells out the great
doctrine of Christ's resurrection from the dead, and this is the
gospel. Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached
unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand,
by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached
unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto
you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died,
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried,
and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."
Well, this is the gospel, then, the gospel of the grace of God. Christ is so central to that
gospel. And so, such was his preaching
that when he writes to the Galatians, the churches of Galatia, He can
make a remarkable statement. He can say there in chapter 3
verse 1, Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set
forth, crucified among you. Oh, He had so preached the Lord
Jesus Christ and His crucifixion that it was as if He had been
set before them, as if they had seen these things with their
very eyes. We know that In his ministry, he was very much the
mouthpiece of the Lord Jesus Christ. As he says again to the
church at Ephesus, you have not so learned Christ. If so, be
you have heard him and been taught by him. As the truth is in Jesus,
they heard Christ. They were taught by Christ. They
were the sheep of Christ. They knew his voice. They followed
him. He gave to them eternal life. And so here he is reminding
these Philippians of what they had heard at his lips. Those things which you have both
learned and received and heard and seen in me do and the God
of peace shall be with you. And so it's not only the preaching,
not only the way in which he'd exercised his ministry as an
apostle, a preacher of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
he does quite definitely emphasize what they had seen of his experience. He's not a man who had simply
come before them with certain doctrinal truth that he's going
to speak in a rather detached fashion. He's not just dealing
with theory. Here is a man who is preaching
the things that he had felt and known. You remember how Bunyan
described his own preaching. I preach what I did feel, he
said. I preach what I did smartingly
feel. How he felt that the Word of
God had been burnt into his very soul. And it was often said,
wasn't it, or he said of Bunyan and his writings, that his blood
is Bibli. It's not just that God's word
is there in his mind and comes out in his writings, but it's
the man. He's very blunt. He's the Bible. Well, if that was true of John
Bunyan, certainly it was true of the great apostle of the Gentiles.
But not just Paul, but all of the apostles. All of the apostles
were men who had experience of the grace of God. When John writes
in his first epistle, that general epistle, he says that which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked on, which we have handled
of the word of life, for the life was manifest. He's speaking
of the Lord Jesus. And how familiar he was with
the Lord Jesus, the intimacy of his relationship with the
Lord Jesus Christ, The beloved Janu was there leaning upon the
Lord's bosom when Christ instituted that Holy Supper at his last
Passover. I think I quoted the language
of Luther only last week. What Luther says also, not reading,
he says, and speculating, but living and dying and being condemned
and justified before God makes a real theologian. It's not just
a matter of academic study. And, well, we're told something,
aren't we, with regards to Paul and his ministry at Philippi.
Here he's writing to the church at Philippi and back in Acts
16 we have the record of his first preaching there and the
tremendous cost as a result of that ministry. He finds himself
cast into the inner prison together with Silas. And the record there
in that 16th chapter at verse 22, the multitude, he says, rose
up, this is Luke's account, the multitude rose up together against
them. Obviously Luke was not with them
at this time. He's speaking of Paul and Silas.
The multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates
rent off their clothes and commanded to beat them. And when they had
laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging
the jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a charge,
thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the
stocks. And then we have that remarkable
statement, and at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises
unto God, and the prisoners heard them." And then, of course, there
is a great earthquake, and a remarkable deliverance from the prison,
and the conversion of the jailer, and so on. Oh, this man, you
see, the ministry that he exercised. These Philippians had seen it.
What was the gospel to this man? It was more than his preaching.
He had a heartfelt experience of the blessed truths of the
gospel. And he does remind them of that.
He reminds them of it at the beginning of the epistle. There in chapter 1, verse 29,
unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on him, but also to suffer for his sake, having seen the same
conflict which he saw in me. and now here to be in me. Paul had such an experience of
the grace of God in the gospel and he can appeal to that as
he writes to these Philippians again earlier in that opening
chapter he utters that remarkable statement for to me to live is
Christ and to die is gained, he lived, he lived the gospel,
I am crucified with Christ, never the yet I live, yet not I but
Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me. Time and again we see Paul not
only into the Philippians, but wherever he's writing, he can
appeal to his life as a life that he's lived in communion
with the Lord Jesus Christ and his great desire. We have it
in that portion we were reading, chapter 3, verses 9 and 10, his
one desire to be found in him, that is in Christ. not having
mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His
death." And in all his experiences, he recognizes their significance
with regards to the ministry that he's exercising amongst
these various people. We see it in the opening chapter
of 2nd Corinthians. There in verse 5 of that chapter
he speaks of the sufferings of Christ. As the sufferings of
Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounded by Christ. And
whether we be afflicted, It is for your consolation and salvation,
which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which
we also suffer. Or where do we be comforted?
It is for your consolation and salvation. In his sufferings, he can relate to these people,
they can relate to him. But also with regards to consolation
and comfort in the Gospel, He knew what it was to experience
then this grace of God. We have the sentence of death
in ourselves, he says, that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God that riseth the dead, who delivered us from so great
a death, and doth deliver, and in whom we trust that he will
yet deliver us. Oh, how this man has the care
of all the churches, and as he has that, so he knows those fightings
without and those fears within as he's exercising his ministry
so there's not only doctrine the doctrine of the Lord Jesus
Christ but there's a living of Christ there's the experience
of the life of Christ in his own soul which was so evident
to these people but then there must also be that practice what does he say here? Those
things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen
in me do. All the doctrine that is felt
and experienced in the soul must go on and lead to godly living. The doctrine in a sense moves
from the head to the heart and then to the hand. There's the
doctrine, there's that sound mind, there's that embracing
the great truth of the doctrine, but then there's that experience,
the heart, but then from the heart it goes to the hand, there's
a doing. There's practical living, godly living. How important those
things which he have both learned and received and
heard and seen in me do and well it's the same truth isn't it
that we have when we turn to James and James emphasis upon
the importance of those fruits that practical godliness There
in the opening chapter of that epistle, that general epistle
of James, verse 22, he says, Be ye doers of the word, and
not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer
of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding
his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect
law of liberty, that is the gospel, and continueth therein, he being
not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be
blessed in his deed or in his doing. Men are to see our good
works, and they are to glorify our Father which is in heaven. So here we have The Apostle,
having spoken of the importance of them meditating in the great
truths that are unfolded to us in the Word of God in verse 8,
think on these things, but then those things, and those things
and these things are really one and the same. Paul lived this
life. And then at the end of the verse,
again we have that great promise of God. The God of peace shall
be with you. And it's a two-fold promise,
isn't it? It's a two-fold promise. First and foremost is the promise
of God's presence. God shall be with you. We observed it back at the end
of verse 5. The Lord is at hand when He's
exhorting them to moderation. The Lord is at hand when He's
exhorting them to be prayerful. The Lord is at hand. The Lord
is always at hand to help in every situation. Our fruit is
found in and from Him always. We cannot hear, we cannot receive,
we cannot learn anything from the Word of God without the Lord's
presence without the Lord being at hand as that one who helps
us and establishes us. Dear old John Berridge says it
well, I cannot pray and feel the near nor can I sing with
heavenly cheer unless the Lord be nigh. We are always poor dependents
on the grace of God for everything. Again, Paul to the Corinthians
reminds them not that we are sufficient of ourselves to do
anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. It's
interesting what he says there. We can't even think aright. We
are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything. He's been
exhorting these Philippians to think on these things. But how
can they do that? only as the Lord is with them
and it's true for us as it was true for them I remember what
he goes on to say later here at verse 13 I can do all things
through Christ which strengthens me we live to prove that that we
can do nothing Thou also hast wrought all our works in us,
says Isaiah. Thou also hast wrought all our
works in us. O LORD, other lords besides Thee
have had dominion over us, but by Thee only will we make mention
of Thy Name. It's by the Lord God only, and
there we need the promise then of His presence. And what is
His presence? His presence is peace. the God
of Peace shall be with you." Well, this is that same God who
is a consuming fire. He's that one who is the Holy
One, that God of eyes too pure to behold iniquity, that can
by no means clear the guilt. And yet, this same God is the
one who is the God of Peace. And it's all, of course, in the
Lord Jesus, this man. This man shall be the peace,
having made peace through the blood of his cross. He is the
propitiation for our sins. Here in his love, not that we
love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. word propitiation, reminding
us always of that Godward aspect of the work of Christ. He is
born in his own person, that holy wrath of God. God has visited
his strict justice upon the person of his only begotten Son. And
there's our peace. There's our peace. There in verse
7, the peace of God it is. And here in verse 9, it's the
God of peace. It's the great gospel legacy
that the Lord Jesus Christ has left to all that believe in Him. And this is the ministry of Paul,
of course. He's a preacher of this gospel. Peace I leave with
you, says Christ. My peace I give unto you, not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. How often we're troubled in our
minds, how often we're afraid that the circumstances are coming
to our lives. But here we have the God of peace
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh God, grant us grace then to
heed His word. It's not just to the Philippians,
it's to us. Those things which ye have both
learned and received and heard and seen in me do and the God
of peace shall be with you may the Lord be pleased to bless
his word let us sing our second praise in the
hymn 904 just referred to lines in this particular
hymn John Berridge 904 THE TUNE IS HALT 714 O LORD, WITH SHAME
I DO CONFESS MY UNIVERSAL EMPTINESS, MY POVERTY AND PRIDE. I CANNOT
KEEP THEE IN MY SIGHT, NOR CAN I THINK ONE THOUGHT ARIGHT UNLESS
THY SPIRIT GUIDES. 904 TUNE 714