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Frank Tate

Rejoice in the Lord

Philippians 1
Frank Tate June, 19 2016 Video & Audio
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In Philippians chapter one, the
title of the lesson this morning is Rejoice in the Lord. Paul
wrote this letter to the church at Philippi while he was in prison
at Rome. Paul's prison there was his own
rented house, so it was better than being in the dungeon, wasn't
it? But it was still prison. He spent 24 hours a day chained
to a Roman soldier to keep him from escaping. And Paul was pretty
certain but very soon he would be martyred for preaching the
gospel. And in these last days, what he, and I assume he was
correct, was the last days of his life, he wrote several epistles
while he was there in prison. And one of them was to the church
at Philippi. And the apostle Paul must have felt like these
words, this instruction to the church would be very important
words. We generally think of a man's
last words as words that are very important. He put a lot
of emphasis. If these are going to be the
last words that he'd speak to these brethren, what would they
be? And his instruction to them is
rejoice in the Lord. Paul uses the word rejoice 12
times and he uses the word joy six more times in the short epistle. And you might wonder, he's telling
us to rejoice. while he's chained up in prison
and he's getting ready to be martyred? He tells us to rejoice
when we're facing pain and sorrow and loss? Yes, he is. And for the believer, that's
possible, to rejoice in the Lord in very, very difficult, sorrowful,
painful times. Our brother Job did, didn't he?
In a day, Job lost everything, everything that was dear to him.
And what did he say? The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
That's rejoicing in the Lord. Eli did. Samuel told him he didn't
want to tell him, but Eli said, now you tell me what God said.
He told him, God says he's going to kill your two boys. And Eli
said, it's the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good.
Look in 2 Samuel chapter 12. David did in a time of great
sorrow. He could rejoice in the Lord.
This is when the child that he had with Bathsheba was so sick
and Nathan told him the child's going to die. David spent that
time mourning and weeping and begging God to have mercy, spare
the child's life. In verse 19, but when David saw
that his servants whispered, they were whispering back and
forth to each other, all of them were afraid to tell David the
child to die. David perceived that the child
was dead. Therefore, David said unto his servants, is the child
dead? And they said, he's dead. Can you imagine? I just can't
even imagine. Then David arose from the earth
and washed and anointed himself and changed his apparel and came
into the house of the Lord and he worshipped. He came to his
own house and when he had required, they set bread before him and
he did eat. Then said his servants unto him, what thing is this
that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for
the child when it was alive, but when the child was dead,
thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, while the child
was yet alive, I fasted and wept. For I said, who can tell whether
God will be gracious to me that the child may live? But now he's
dead. Wherefore should I fast? Why
should I fast now? Can I bring him back again? I
shall go to him, but he shall not return unto me. That's rejoicing
in the Lord. Now rejoicing in the Lord does
not mean. What we see acted out in the
world today, it doesn't mean this crazy acting show of the
flesh is jumping around and screaming and yelling and waving your hands
in the air and your eyes rolling back in your head and a stupid
smile on your face. That's not real. Now it's a show
of the flesh for others around, but that's not real rejoicing.
Job and Eli and David didn't feel like smiling when their
hearts were broken, did they? Job and Eli and David, physically,
they couldn't run around and scream and yell and act a fool.
But they could worship from the heart. And that's what rejoicing
in the Lord really is. It's worshiping Him from the
heart. Most of the time in this epistle, when Paul uses the word
rejoice, the word that he uses means to be calmly happy. And
that's rejoicing in the Lord, to be calmly happy. There's a
calm joy in the heart of a believer, even in times of great difficulty
and great sorrow, because we know who's in control of this
thing. And we know how he's going to end this story. And the second
most common definition Paul uses, this word rejoice, it means to
boast. And a believer can do that no
matter what. We can and we do make our boast
in the Lord. We can boast that this thing,
whatever it is, is causing me pain and sorrow is of the Lord. No accident. That's boasting
in the Lord. It's boasting in the Lord to
say, I don't understand this, but only our God can work this
out for good. And I believe he's going to do
it. That's boasting in the Lord. We boast in the Lord when we
say I'm confident, though I may be heartbroken, He can comfort
my heart and he will because he promised he would. That's
boasting in the Lord. We boast in the Lord when we
confess it's him that saved me. He saved my soul. That makes
everything else alright. He's going to take care of everything
else too. I want us to look at a few things
here that Paul specifically rejoiced in. See if maybe our hearts can't
find reason to rejoice. First, Paul rejoiced in the fellowship
of other believers. Philippians 1 verse 3. He says,
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer
of mine for you all, making requests with joy for your fellowship
in the gospel from the first day until now. Now, can't we
find reason to rejoice there in the sweet fellowship of believers?
And our fellowship is not just sitting around talking or whatever. Certainly, that's part of it.
But the heart, the foundation, the reason for our fellowship. Is that we're brothers and sisters
with him in him, it's our fellowship from the gospel from the first
day until now, our fellowship is always in Christ, who he is
and everything he's done for us. Our true fellowshipping together
is us sitting around talking, boasting of him, boasting of
him, each other. That's our fellowship. And this
word fellowship means partnership. You know, we're partners in this
thing. And I can tell you, I rejoice for you. I thank God for you. I'm thankful to have partners
like you in preaching the gospel. It makes this journey a whole
lot sweeter, doesn't it? To have this fellowship of believers.
Second, Paul rejoiced that he could be so confident in God's
grace. Look at verse six. Being confident
of this very thing, that he which has begun a good work in you
will perform it, will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. Now we know that it's grace that
begins the work of salvation in our hearts, don't we? It's
only God's grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith. And that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God. And we know the only difference
between the saved and the lost, between those in heaven and those
in hell, the only difference is God's grace. I am what I am
by the grace of God. And we also know this, that if
we're going to persevere to the end, it's going to take God's
grace. God's going to have to preserve
us and protect us by his grace so that we one day are perfected
in glory. That's what he says here, that
he'll perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. Now that work
is a work of God's grace. Aren't you thankful for grace?
For God's grace? Aren't you thankful that because
it's God's grace, you can have confidence in it and never doubt
it? If God's begun this good work
of grace in your heart, you mark it down. When he sends a trial
your way, it doesn't mean he's casting you away. It doesn't
mean he's sick and tired of you. Doesn't mean he's changed his
mind. No, if God's begun a work of grace in your heart, he's
going to perfect it eternally in glory. And that enables us
to rejoice, doesn't it? That enables us to have this
calm happiness, even in the midst of trouble and sorrow and pain
of the flesh. Paul rejoiced in how confident
he could be in God's grace. Thirdly, he rejoiced to suffer
for Christ's sake. Look here at verse But I would that ye should understand,
brethren, that the things which happen unto me have fallen out
rather unto the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds
in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places.
And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my
bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
For some indeed preach Christ, even of envy and strife, and
some also of goodwill. The one preached Christ of contention,
not sincerely supposing that affliction to my bonds, but the
other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel.
What then? Notwithstanding every way, whether
in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached and I therein do
rejoice. Yea, and will rejoice. Now you
may would be shocked if to read the commentators and think there
is I don't think anybody really knows what these verses mean
as far as these fellows preaching on strife and contention. There's
a lot of speculation. It doesn't seem like anybody
knows for certain. These who are preaching Christ
of envy and strife, it does not appear that this was sincere
preaching. They only preach Christ hoping to make it harder for
Paul. And like I say, I don't really know what that means.
Did these men really preach the gospel? because they envied Paul's
gifts. They envied in the past how God
had used him. But now that Paul's out of the
way, they're really preaching the gospel, hoping to get those
those people who used to follow Paul to follow them, you know,
add to their following. It could mean it mean that these
men had some contention, some disagreement with Paul over some
matter that that wasn't central to God's glory or central to
how God saves sinners. But they had this contention
with him. And now that Paul's in prison, they're out there
boldly, clearly preaching the gospel, hoping that they can
make it worse for their brother in prison and that God bless
that preaching from that motive. I don't know. But what I do know
is this. Paul rejoiced in it. He rejoiced
in it for this reason. He cared more about the gospel
of Christ. He cared more that Christ was
preached. He cared more that God's sheep hear the preaching
of Christ than he cared about himself. If they did preach so
that it would add affliction to his bonds, but Christ was
preached, God was glorified, God's sheep were fed, Paul said,
I'm just fine with that. Because he cared more about the
preaching of Christ than he did about his own self. Now this
other group, I think I know something about them. those who preached
out of love, they became more bold and they preached the gospel
in love because these men saw how Paul was enduring this awful
trial. And they said, well, if Paul
can do that, I can too. I can't, I know I can't preach
as well as Paul did, but now I'm going to preach where God's
given me opportunity with everything I have. Paul can't be here, but
God's let me be here. So I'm going to preach with everything
I got. They became more bold. So either way, Christ was preached
and Paul rejoiced. Now, if it takes me suffering
so that the gospel of Christ is spread even more, Paul said,
I'm content to do it. I'm happy to do it. And you know,
often God is pleased to work that way, isn't he? The Jews
were persecuted so badly, they had to flee out to other countries.
They ran for their lives. And when they did, They spread
the gospel everywhere they went. God used that trial and affliction
to spread the gospel. And Paul said, I'm happy to do
it if it's for the furtherance of the gospel, if it's for the
furtherance of the glory of my Savior. The early church had
a saying, that early church, they had to flee because they're
afraid for their lives, said that the blood of martyrs is
the seed of the church. God often uses the suffering
even under death for the furtherance of his glory. So Paul said, when
my suffering causes the gospel of Christ to spread, I can rejoice
in it. Now hear what he's saying? He's
not saying I rejoice in my pain. I rejoice in my suffering. I'm
not, you know, making a martyr out of myself. Oh, y'all look
at me. No, he's not rejoicing in his pain. He's not rejoicing
in his sorrow. He's rejoicing in the effect
that God brings from it. The furtherance of the gospel. Paul rejoiced in this, that both
life and death are in the hand of our God. Look at verse 20.
According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing
I should be ashamed, but that with all boldness as always.
So now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by
life or by death. For me to live is Christ and
to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this
is the fruit of my labor. Yet what I shall choose I want
not, I don't know. For I'm in a strait betwixt two,
having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far
better. Nevertheless, to abide in the
flesh is more needful for you. Now, Paul wrote something very
similar to Timothy. He said, Timothy, I'm ready to
be offered the time of my departures at hand. It's close. Paul was
not afraid to die, was he? Matter of fact, Paul was ready
to die. And there was even a part of Paul that wanted to die so
he could leave this world and he leave this world of sin and
shame and sorrow and go be with the Lord. Now, the death of a
believer is always great gain. So it's no wonder Paul would
desire. There's got to be a part of him
that would desire, just like every believer, to have this
great gain. When a believer dies, you think
what happens? We lose a body of sin and gain
a body just like the body of our Savior. We quit seeing by
faith and start seeing by sight. We lose seeing through a glass
darkly and see Christ's face today. We leave sin for righteousness. We leave the weak attempt at
worship like we have right now, the perfect worship around the
throne of our Savior. Oh, that's great gain. And no
wonder Paul desired to have that great gain. But Paul says, now
also, there's a part of me, there's a big part of me that wants to
stay here with you. There's a part of me that wants
to preach to you, to see you have a blessing. There's a part
of me that wants to watch you grow in grace and knowledge of
Christ. There's a part of me that wants
to continue to have this fellowship together with you, because that
would be better for you. So Paul says, If the choice were
mine, I can't tell you which one I'd choose. And thankfully,
the choice is not mine. I rejoice that both life and
death are in the hand of our God, that our times are in his
hand. Just like the very moment of
our birth was determined by our father, the time of our death
will be determined by him too. So that being true, even as we
lie on our deathbed, there we lie, our families around us,
Part of us don't want to leave. Part of us doesn't want to leave
those loved ones. We want to spend more time with
our wife. We want to spend more time with
our children. We want to watch our grandchildren go. And part
of us don't want to leave. But yet we can rejoice in calm
happiness, can't we? If Lord's going to take me home,
I'm going to go be with the Lord. I like that. I like that. And even those of us who are
standing around the deathbed, we watch that loved one draw
his last breath. Part of us don't want that. We don't want that. No, we want him to stay. We got
plans, don't we? There's things we haven't done
together yet. There's things I wish we could still do. And
we don't want that. But yet, Even in that moment,
we can rejoice. There's a calm happiness. Now,
you're not jumping around with a silly smile on your face, are
you? There's a calm happiness. I'm heartbroken. There's no way
to sugarcoat that. Of course you're heartbroken.
But even in that time, I can rejoice in calm assurance that
both life and death are in the hand of our God. This must be
the best time for this. Whether it's my death or the
death of a loved one, it must be the best time for it because
it's in the hands of God. And he doesn't make a mistake.
So I rejoice because I know this is best because our God's done
it. Life and death is in his hand.
Fifth, Paul rejoiced in the unity of believers. Look at chapter
two, verse one. If there be any consolation in
Christ, if any comfort of love, If any fellowship of the Spirit,
if any vows and mercies, fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like-minded,
having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let
nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness
of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Let not
every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others. Now this, Paul says, I'd have
great joy to see you all in unity, in love for one another. And
this unity of believers is such an important topic. It's mentioned
in every epistle. So brethren, let's always strive
for this unity. Strive for it. What we have here
is not a social club. You know, in a social club, what
we're trying to do when we join that social club is we're trying
to achieve some social climbing. You know, maybe it's a social
club, And I can get in that social club and I can get elected treasurer
or vice president. And then I got some authority.
I got some power. I got some recognition. Join
the lodge if you want that. That's not what this is. This
is a family. This is the family of Christ,
a family of belief. These are not folks that you're
trying to gain their vote. These are your brothers and sisters.
Your job is not to try to get something from them. Your job
is to love them and support them and help them and be an encouragement
to them. This is a family. Now let's strive
to act like one. You who believe are children
of God. Strive to act like one. And let's not act like some sort
of dysfunctional social club or country club so that we can
rejoice in Christ together. That's our purpose, is to preach
Christ, to rejoice in Him together. And if there's something that's
stopping you from having unity with one of these folks, you
get rid of it. And you strive to get rid of it because believers
rejoice in the unity of the saints. Six. Paul rejoiced to see faith
continue and to see faith stand the test of time and be revealed
as true faith. In chapter two, verse 16. Holding
forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ,
that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. Yea,
and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your
faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. Now, oh, verse 18. For the same cause also do you
joy and rejoice with me. Now you may not be able to understand,
you won't be able to understand this fully. But God's pastors will all tell
you this. I don't even have the words to
describe to you how much you are constantly on my heart. Every
one of you. your eternal welfare, your fleshly
welfare. You're constantly on my heart. I can't even tell you how much
I want the best for you. I really can't describe to you
how much I want to be used of God to give you a blessing and
to point you to Christ. So it's heartbreaking. I mean,
it's utterly heartbreaking to see somebody stay around for
a while. They gain some knowledge. They seem like they have some
interest. And then they leave. They leave for nothing or they
leave, maybe they just leave, stay home and sleep in, you know,
or maybe they leave, they completely turn their back on the gospel
and go somewhere else. I cannot tell you how heartbreaking
that is. But the opposite end of the spectrum
is true too. How we joy to see genuine faith
in Christ shown that stands the test of time. How we joy to see
faith continue to grow and mature and flourish. And how we'll joy
one day to see that faith continue all the way to the end that we
see one another in glory. So to that end, I labor hard
in the study. I labor hard in prayer and study. And I rejoice to see that that
labor is not in vain. I receive, I rejoice to see God
bless his word that comforts and encourages the hearts of
his people for his glory and for your good. We rejoice in
him. And then seventh, Paul rejoiced in other pastors and preachers
too. Look here at verse 19. I trust in the Lord, Lord Jesus
to send Timotheus shortly into I also may be of good comfort
when I know your state. For I have no man like minded
who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own,
not the things which are Jesus Christ. But you know the proof
of him. You know the proof of Timothy,
that as a son with the father, he has served with me in the
gospel. Him, therefore, I hope to send presently so soon as
I shall see how it will go with me. But I trust in the Lord that
I also myself should come shortly. Yet I supposed it necessary to
send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labor
and fellow soldier. But your messenger, this is their
pastor. He said, I'm sending your pastor
back to you. And he that ministered to my wands. For he longed while
he was there with Paul. He said, Paul says, he longed
after you all. He is full of heaviness because
that you heard that he had been sick. For indeed, he was sick,
nigh to death. that God had mercy on him and
not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon
sorrow. I sent him therefore the more carefully that when
you see him again, you may rejoice and that I may be the less sorrowful.
Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness and hold
such a reputation because for the work of Christ, he was dying
to death, not regarding his life to supply your lack of service
toward me or your lack of opportunity to have service to me. I read
all those verses because I want you to see this. You see how
Paul promoted these two men? The Apostle Paul, the greatest
preacher who ever lived, probably other than our Lord Jesus, promoted
these two men. The Apostle Paul, who was so
greatly used of God, he's there in prison, getting ready to be
martyred for preaching Christ, did not make it all about him,
did he? He wasn't trying to get these Philippians to just all
follow him. No, he promoted these other men. He called them my
fellow laborers. He didn't say they're junior
to me, did he? He said they're my fellow laborers. And that's
exactly what God's pastors do. God's pastors promote other preachers
to you. I do that. I want you to know
and hear and love as many of these other God's servants as
possible. I want you to know and love them
and pray for them and know who they are. And you beware the
man who tries to limit how many of those men, you know, you'd
be very aware of him. He's trying to, to limit how
many of these other men that you know, because he's afraid
you're gonna have some affection for him and he wants it all for
himself. You'd be very aware of a man
like that. A dog does that. We'll see this
in the, in the message. These false prophets, Paul calls
them dogs. This is what dogs do. We've got
a little dog. We've got two of them, but one
of them, he's a green dog. You got two dog toys. He wants
them both for himself. Now, he may only play with one
at one time, but he don't want the other one to have it. You
know, he's going to chew on one and sit on the other one. You
know, he wants it all for himself. That's what a dog does. God's
creatures aren't dogs. We rejoice in these other pastors
and preachers that you hear the gospel from them. I want you
to know and love them. That's what Paul did. He rejoiced
in them. And then lastly, this is the foundation of it all.
Paul rejoiced in the Lord and his instruction to us is rejoice
in the Lord. Chapter three, verse one. Finally,
my brethren rejoice in the Lord. In chapter four, verse four,
he says, rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice. Now, this is the basis, the foundation
of all of our rejoicing. It's the Lord. It's the Lord
we believe, the Lord we love, the Lord we preach. Paul says,
finally, brethren. Now, that's not the end of his
epistle. It goes on for two or more chapters, doesn't it? The
finally he means there. Rather, this is the sum of everything
I'm telling you. Rejoice in the Lord. in this
daily struggle to survive. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice
in who he is. Rejoice in his majesty. Rejoice
that he's so high above us, we can't comprehend him. Rejoice
in that. His majestic glory and person. Rejoice in that. Rejoice in his
sovereignty. Rejoice that God is sovereign
over all things. Now, God's sovereignty is not
just a doctrine that we believe that differentiates us from everybody
else. Sovereign is who the Lord is. Rejoice in his sovereignty. Be
thankful that he's sovereign over all things. When I endure
pain and sorrow and I don't like it, I can still rejoice in God's
sovereignty. I can rejoice in the one who
brought it my way for good. Now, maybe it's not for my good
necessarily. Maybe it's for the good of somebody
else, but he brought it for good in his sovereignty. Can't I rejoice
in that? This is his will for me. This
is the sovereign's will for me to suffer this pain, sorrow and
loss. Then I can rejoice in calm happiness. This is the sovereign's will
for me. Rejoice in his electing love. You know the disciples,
they had a lot of blessings. They went out one day and cast
out a bunch of devils. They came back, all they were
rejoicing, they were so happy. And the Lord said, boys, calm
down. Don't rejoice in that. You rejoice
that your names are written in heaven. You rejoice in God's
elect and love. Stop and think for a minute. God chose me. Why? I can rejoice in that, can't
you? God wrote my name in heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ went to
the cross, His hands and feet nailed to a cross after His back
was lacerated, His beard plucked out, that crown of thorns thrust
down on His head, and He went there with my name written on
His heart. I can rejoice in that. We can rejoice in covenant mercies.
That's what David's rejoicing was on his deathbed, wasn't it? Go my house, be not so with God,
yet God hath made with me an everlasting covenant. It's ordered
in all things and sure. And this is all my salvation,
all my desire, although he make it not to grow. David rejoiced
in God's covenant mercy. Rejoice in the Lord, rejoice
in the unspeakable gift of his son. Rejoice in His righteousness
that makes you righteous in Him. Rejoice in His blood that cleanses
you from all your sins. Rejoice in His death. His death
was your death if He's your representative. Rejoice in His resurrection.
His resurrection is the proof you're justified by His death.
And His death, He puts your sin away. The proof of it is God
raised Him from the dead. Rejoice in His ascension back
on high. You know, sometimes we think,
boy, I wish the Lord was still on the earth and He could come
and just sit right here and talk to me and tell me what I'm supposed
to do. Well, that might be nice, but you rejoice in His ascension.
When He ascended back to glory, you know what He's doing? He's
ever-living, making intercession for you. We can rejoice in that,
can't we? And rejoice in this. The Lord's coming back. He's
coming back to gather His people to Himself. Those that are dead
are going to be raised. Those that are alive are going
to be changed. And he's going to take his people away from
this place to be with him forever. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice
always, Paul says, in the Lord. If we know who he is, we always
have reason to rejoice in him. All right. I hope the Lord bless
you.
Frank Tate
About Frank Tate

Frank grew up under the ministry of Henry Mahan in Ashland, Kentucky where he later served as an elder. Frank is now the pastor of Hurricane Road Grace Church in Cattletsburg / Ashland, Kentucky.

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