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Practical Principles from Philippians

Oct 6, 2012 by: Viji Roberts| Series: Philippians

Phl 4:4 "Rejoice in the Lord alway: [and] again I say, Rejoice."

Phl 4:5 "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord [is] at hand."

Phl 4:6 "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."

Phl 4:7 "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Personally, it’s a joy to study Philippians.

As a local church, it is an important Epistle (as all the rest are). The Philippian Church exhibited many virtues that a local church would find worth emulating.

We read about the establishment of this church in Acts 16. It occurs immediately after, and probably as a result of the famous contention between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15. There are many lessons to be learned from these two chapters, but the greatest in my estimation is the assurance that God is able to redeem even the seemingly lost cases, tough circumstances and inept characters for His ultimate glory. Even that dissension between Paul and Barnabas helped establish one of the most model churches in the first century. Now that is not to encourage dissension, for we read in Romans 6:1, “what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid…”. The lesson is this - even when we have been sincere, and find later that we were sincerely wrong, we can still take assurance in the goodness, graciousness and greatness of our God that He uses it as an ingredient in His ultimate plan. We have a God for whom truly nothing is IMPOSSIBLE. We are comforted in a God of second, third, fourth and countless chances.

Paul is the writer; he writes this epistle from the Roman prison. Yet there are no evident signs of trauma related to his prison condition. In fact, we see a ‘different’ Paul. The face of Paul reflecting from the pages of this epistle is that of joy. It is very unlike the ones we find in other epistles. We see him as the:

Theologian in Romans
Troubleshooter in 1 Corinthians
Angry apostle in Galatians
Fatherly in 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus
But in Philippians he is Rejoicing and thanking God upon every remembrance of them (Phil 1:3).

“Joy” is the recurring theme of the epistle. In fact Paul is so caught up that we find him chasing rabbit holes—an unstructured style of writing that it is almost unlike him. So much so that scholars think Philippians is actually a composite of various letters written by Paul to Philippians rather than just one.

So why this passage for our meditation this morning?

What caught my attention was the construction of these sentences.

I don’t presume to understand Greek; but I am told that Paul uses in Greek the PRESENT ACTIVE IMPERATIVES.

Present : Continuous action or a lifestyle.
Active Imperative : Command that followed as a habit.
It is a call to a long-term commitment and a lifestyle. What we see here are NOT CONSEQUENCES but COMMANDS. These are instructions to be followed; not mere iterations.

Joy, gentleness and thankfulness are not automatically accrued, but are the result of a spirit-filled Christian who is disciplined to practice them. (Repeat).

Let’s read the passage again; but this time as COMMANDS. READ Phil 4: 4-6.

The question then is –How do I practice these on a day-to-day basis?

These are lessons which I am still learning. I pray that God will speak to each one of us today.

I wish to present these three ASKS as:

KNOW THE WORTH – KEEP THE WITNESS—KNOCK THE WORRY.

I) KNOW THE WORTH

"Rejoice in the Lord, and again I say rejoice." (v.4)

Here is a short Sunday School class as we draw 3 comparisons between ‘joy’ and ‘happiness’?

Happiness is emotional; while Joy is the fruit of the Spirit.
Both happiness and Joy can be lost. Yes joy too can be lost. It is possible to be a joyless Christian. No wonder we see many a Christians, with long faces, trip on their chin.
Happiness is dependent on circumstances; but Joy is not.
This ‘joy’ Paul says is possible because — THE LORD IS OUR REASON.

Rejoice IN THE LORD.

What does that mean?

No one is happy when they’ve been laid off; their credit cards have been maxed out; their son drops out of school; marriage is strained; family relationships are broken; friends avoid them; health fails; and it feels like the bottom has dropped out?

So is the Bible saying in spite of all that tough luck, just stick the ‘joy badge’ and bear it?

No - an emphatic NO! The Bible is not treating us as robotons, or emotionless Schwarzeneggers in the Terminator series. Neither is Paul asking us to be Masochists or stoics.

In fact, in Phil 2:27-28 he admits to being sorrowful. We read here that Paul thanks God for not adding to his sorrow by delivering Epaphroditus from sure death.

We see that Paul is sorrowful in the circumstances, but rejoicing in Christ. Paul has the confidence that in spite of the circumstances, the Lord is in control.

Let me explain how a seven-year-old put it. She is the daughter of a friend of ours. While enjoying a scary scene in some TV show she said this, “Mom it is fun to be scared when you know the danger is not real”.

She is saying things look scary but I KNOW they CAN’T HURT ME.

It is like the father and son standing by the kerb as a Mack Truck drove furiously past. It scared the child AND so the father explains, “See son you don’t need to be worried. It was only the shadow of the truck that passed over us and shadows are harmless”.

Circumstances cannot do what Christ won’t allow and we REJOICE in the fact that we are kept as the apple of His eye.

“Rejoice in the Lord” is the confidence of every person who knows the Lord. If we even begin to understand the privilege and the worth of what it means, we can and always will be rejoicing.

“Know the Worth” Christian – Know the worth of what it means to be the Child of God.

Romans 8:32. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

The Lord indeed is the reason for your rejoicing.

Secondly, the Lord is not just the reason but the source and end of all our rejoicing.

In Revelation we read Jesus say, “He is the Alpha and Omega”. That He is the beginning and the end of all things; and that includes our joy.

Our Lord is saying, “Let ME be the source of all your joy; and when all is stripped away and nothing is left standing let all your joy CULMINATE in me”. It is learning to rejoice NOT in the blessing BUT in the Lord. It is learning to STOP putting our joy in things and circumstances, BUT in the Lord.

This command you see is directed to our WILL for we must decide DAILY who or what brings us joy. And as we stay focused on God’s PROMISE, we wills see that He never fails.

II KEEP THE WITNESS

Phil 4:5. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;

This term reasonableness is best translated “kind,” “gentle,” or “yielding”. “Moderation”, as we have come to understand it, is a poor and dated translation. We are not called to be average or moderate; but that our gentleness, and sweet reasonableness be known to EVERYONE.

This gentleness is the fruit of the Spirit. If we are God’s children this is one of the virtues that sets us apart – For we don’t grow wings; nor do we sport a halo. One way Christianity is evidenced is in our Christ likeness. That’s why we need to learn to “Keep the witness”.

So how does gentleness behave?

First, be “intreatable” just like our God. Let me read you a passage about Manasseh to help us better understand what it means to be intreatable.

2 Chronicles 33:11–14. Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. And when he was in distress, he entreated (italics mine) the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty (italics mine) and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

This is Manasseh, Judah’s most wicked king, who took up wickedness with a vengeance. He sacrificed his son to molech; introduced witchcraft and sorcery in Judah. If any person deserved pain and punishment, he did; and yet God is intreated when Manasseh humbled himself and prayed to God…it says “and God was moved by his entreaty”.

It is a tall order to be intreatable; BUT only with the Spirit’s enablement we can.

(More examples: Gen 25:21. Isaac intreating the Lord for Rebecca. 2 Sam 24:25. David intreating the Lord and the plague is stayed. Ezra 8:23. Ezra and the people of Israel, fasted and intreated the Lord).

How else can our sweet reasonableness be known?

Be willing to listen. Don’t mistake stubbornness, for lofty principles; be willing to forgive just as you were forgiven; and be willing to restitute.
Many times my wife has reminded me that I should be thankful I am not god. For I am quick to speak the truth but forget the essential ingredient of LOVE (Eph 4:15). I have this tendency to keep chewing on the bone and not let go. Not sure if there is anyone here who wants to join me in this confession. For we hold off forgiveness, wanting the ones who hurt us to burn just a little more. God’s imperative is to be intreatable – and that He says is only being ‘reasonable’ as a Christian.

Let your gentleness and sweet reasonableness be known to all men. Let people know you can be intreated.

It also means to be willing to agree in the Lord.
READ: Here is something I picked up which I’d like to read out to you.

“Nothing so hinders the cause of Christ as Christians who have unresolved disagreements with each other. Unbelievers are ever eager to pounce on dissension in the church as proof that there is nothing to Christianity. While the church has to work very diligently to publicize the gospel, a church quarrel always publicizes itself.” (unknown)

The Enemy gloats when there is dissension. Read Phil 4:2-3. There is that word intreat again.

Michael Bentley offers these thought-provoking words:
If in one hundred years’ time, your name was to be discovered mentioned in an old document, what one thing would you like the finder to learn about you? Would you like it to be recorded that you were a very kind and loving person, or that you were a mature Christian, or that you were good at making people feel at ease? Two ladies from the church at Philippi have gone down in history.

And I’d like to add, if God is recording every word and deed that we ever say or do–and He does in the “Book of Deeds”, then know for sure it is going to last more than a hundred years.

Someone said: To live above with the saints we love; Oh, that will be glory!
But to live below with the saints we know; Now that’s a different story!

This is Phillipi, the model Church that brought joy to Apostle Paul, and right there where it seems like nothing can go wrong there is dissension. So let us not fool ourselves, dissension can happen even among the best of us.

So be willing to agree in the LORD. It is possible to stand fast in the Lord (vs. 1) and still be at peace with each other (vs. 2-3). In fact, God is saying that is the only way.
Gentleness is not a compromise. It is discerning and being mature to realize that most times the issue is personality related rather than doctrinal or Biblical.

Let your candor, gentleness and good temper be known to everyone.

Reasonableness also includes willingness to step in and help. Read Phil 4:3.
Christianity is the only army that shoots its wounded. Euodias and Syntyche helped others ,and now they need help themselves, so don’t write them off. For when we do, we are no longer willing to be reasonable that what they need most is help not a cold shoulder. Apostle Paul’s heart is still tender towards them as he beseeches them to be of the same mind in the Lord.

Stand in line we could be next. Remember, we are all humans made of fine dust, and some not so fine. So when we see our brother and sister in need of help, be reminded of Hebrews 10:24, “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works”:

Paul mentions some by name who helped in the spread of the gospel and some he has forgotten, but he reminds us that God doesn’t and that their names are I written in the book of life. God never forgets what is done for the Kingdom and for His glory.

Let your sweet reasonableness be known among all men.

And the reason is Lord is at hand.

While the debate goes on about what that means – does it mean that the Lord’s return is near, or that the Lord is always close by? Whatever it may be, one thing is sure– Our behaviour needs to match-up.

Chapter 4, begins with a “therefore”. In the Bible when a sentence begins with a therefore, it is there for a reason.

Chapter 3 ends with the glorious resurrection, a reminder that the Lord is near. So both in terms of time and/or proximity, the presence of the Lord forms the two bookends of this passage.

This is the motivation that prompts our behaviour.

Our sweet reasonableness and gentleness MUST be known.

We are reminded therefore to KEEP THE WITNESS for the Lord is the REWARD.

This is the area of the HEART and it deals with the PRESENCE of God.

III KNOCK THE WORRY

Phil 4:6-7. 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 passeth all understanding (or the faculties of the mind), shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Paul is not suggesting a careles life. Paul and Timothy both cared genuinely for the work and for the word. Caring is different from worrying and that is what Paul is telling us here.

Here again the fruit of the Spirit is evident– ‘peace of God’. And this peace is available to those who are neither calculating in their expression of devotion, nor paralyzed by care.

You may not be able to speak the gospel; but you can live the gospel by your cheerfulness.
If gospel is “glad tidings of great joy”, then it must reflect in our entire being — it must become glad tidings of great joy to our hearts and mind.

Secondly, the ingredients of our prayers must constitute both thanksgiving and perseverance. It is the equivalent of a spiritual oxymoron. We are usually persistent when we haven’t received what we ask for, and thankful when we do and yet we are asked to be both thankful and persistent.
In the Old Testament law we read, “With all your sacrifices offer salt;” and here we read, “with all our prayers offer praise”.
Someone has summarized the verse as saying that we should be “anxious in nothing, prayerful in everything, thankful for anything.”

We are reminded not to let the shadow of concern cloud the brightness of the hope in the Son.

We can be quietly thankful for our LORD IS OUR REST. This covers the area of the MIND and deals with PRACTICING PRAYER with God.

Holy Joy, Evident Gentleness and Thankful Heart

Earlier to the Corinthian Church Paul had written be ye imitators of me ( 1 Cor 11:1)

Now some have taken offense to that. They can’t imagine Paul would have the gall to say “be imitators of me” rather than to say, “Be imitators of the Lord”, that they would be okay with.

The truth is– God is asking us to take these Biblical truths and apply them to daily living. These truths are not for Sunday morning preaching or Wednesday evening study. Paul understood that and he is encouraging us to follow suit, even as he applies them to his life.

Know the Worth. (Rejoice in the Lord)
Know the worth of what it means to have God on our side
Rejoice in circumstances for the Lord is the REASON
It deals with the WILL, and
It asks us to remember the PROMISE of the Lord.
Keep the Witness. (Let your sweet reasonableness be known to all men)
Let your gentleness be the evident gospel people see
Lord is near and He is the REWARD
This part deals with the HEART, and
It deals with practicing the PRESENCE of the Lord
Knock the Worry. (Be careful for nothing)
anxious in nothing, prayerful in everything, thankful for anything.”
We can do this because the Lord is our REST
This deals with the MIND, and
It deals with PRAYING to the Lord.
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