Philippians 4:4ff

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
“Rejoice in the Lord always.”

Then in case we miss the point, Paul says, “I will say it again: Rejoice!” Most of the moral exhortations in this last chapter of Philippians actually emerge from themes that are already right through the entire book. Resolve always to rejoice in the Lord.

Of course, Paul himself was a good example of what he was advocating. As he wrote this, he was in prison. There is a sense in which in the light of the sweep of Scripture, this exhortation ought to be so obvious as scarcely to be needed. Surely every redeemed person will want to rejoice.

To us has been given forgiveness of sins. Imagine forgiveness of all of our sins before the God who is our judge. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the down payment of the promised inheritance, the fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ.

We have so much to be thankful for. To us has been given the promises of God which finally issue a resurrection existence in the new heaven and the new earth.

We will stand by graves. We will weep at funerals. But not as those who have no hope.

It’s slightly shocking that there has to be an exhortation in Scripture to Christians, “Don’t forget to rejoice. It is so bad, I’d better say it again: Rejoice!” There’s a sense in which this is crazy, except God knows and Paul knows that such exhortations have to be here because we so quickly overlook the spectacular blessings we’ve received because of Christ on the cross.

If our hearts fail to respond with joy and gratitude when we think of the most fundamental Christian truths, it is probably because we have not really grasped the depth of the abyss of our own self-focus, sinful natures, and the danger we are in apart from him.

Neither have we seen just how high we have been lifted by Jesus and all the glorious prospects still to come.

The rejoicing here is not a certain style of joy, it is much more bound up with the genuineness of the rejoicing because of its focus on why we are rejoicing rather than on a particular style.

This text insists that we rejoice in the Lord, not even in the Lord’s blessings but in the Lord.

That alone is what makes the “always” more tolerable.

Sooner or later, you become so enmeshed and ensnared in your own self-focus, you’re entangled in your own sin, and you cannot see it. You cannot see your way ahead. You’re like the psalmist who cries, “My sins are ever before me. They surround me, and I cannot see.” So the text comes and says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”

Does that mean at a funeral we’re supposed to be rejoicing in the Lord? Yes.

It doesn’t mean there are no tears, there’s no loneliness, there’s no despair, there’s no grief. Of course there will be! Jesus himself is called a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. But it does mean that despite all of the vicissitudes of life we will ever face this side of the new heaven and the new earth, still when our confidence is anchored in the living God, we can look to him even in the midst of tear-weary eyes and rejoice in him.

It is what enables Job to say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”

That’s why Nehemiah can say to the discouraged people of his day in Nehemiah 8: 10, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”

You will never, ever be a strong Christian if you do not learn something of rejoicing in the Lord.

When? Always.
For how long? Always.
Because the Lord doesn’t change.

The cross is not undone. The prospects of the new heaven and the new earth have not been cancelled out. We have already received forgiveness of sin. We have already received the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives, and we begin to say with the writers of old, “Lord, I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on you.”

God has commanded that we rejoice in the Lord because he well knows that a believer who is rejoicing in the Lord cannot simultaneously be a backbiter nor a gossip nor spiritually proud nor filled with conceit nor stingy nor haughty nor prayerless nor a chronic whiner nor endlessly unbelieving.

The believer who practices rejoicing in the Lord discovers an ease the midst of heartache, rest in the midst of tension, love in the midst of loneliness, and the presence of God in control of the most difficult circumstances.

James says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Not because the trials themselves are intrinsically happy experiences but because James outlines those trials are used by God to increase faith and multiply perseverance and steadfastness, and that brings maturity.

Do You want to be mature?

Resolve to be known for gentleness.

V5: “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” The word translated gentle means just the opposite of self-seeking, of pursuit of being number one all the time yourself. You’re known, for selflessness,

How do you want to be viewed?

Paul writes to Timothy, he says God has given us a spirit of self-control. Yet so much of our seeking for things is bound up with a kind of self-focus.

Fulfillment in Scripture is a byproduct of seeking other things. But if you’re seeking fulfillment, then it becomes merely an exercise in selfishness again.

A.W. Tozer in his book, The Pursuit of God, points out how damnably treacherous and tricky self-sins are. He writes, “To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them.

The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.”

God says, “Be known for selflessness. Be known for gentleness in that sense.”

You can look at sins in many different kinds of ways. One of the ways to analyze sin is that it is a form of pervasive self-justification so that we present ourselves to others as being strong or victorious.
It should be a natural reaction to want to be known for selflessness. Paul actually gives us a reason for this injunction, it is, “The Lord is near.” This could mean one of two things. The particular expression that is used is used two ways elsewhere in the New Testament. It could mean simply, “The Lord is constantly present.”

“The Lord is near is often used to talk about the Lord’s impending return. “The Lord is near.” This prospect of Christ’s return is commonly in the New Testament an incentive for holiness. 1 John 3:3, “Everyone who has this hope in himself [that is, in Christ and his return] purifies himself as he also is pure.”

“What would you like to be doing when Jesus comes back?

What would you like to be saying when Jesus comes back?

What would you like to be thinking when Jesus comes back?”

“The Lord is near.” Perplexing decisions become relatively elementary in the light of eternity, of the Lord’s presence, of the Lord’s return, and selfishness, harshness, self-focus all become disgusting in the light of eternity.

Resolve not to be anxious about anything but to learn to pray.

V 6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

We’re supposed to worry about all things, green earth, world peace, family pressures, future of our children, old age, opportunities at work, deadlines, recession, being sacked, bills, promotion, car troubles, frustration, bereavement, and on and on.

And most will say, “You don’t understand this injunction, don’t worry, It can’t be done!”
But it can be.

Our problem is we hear this command about worrying, and we forget there is a positive bit to it as well as a prohibition. The text says, “Do not be anxious about anything.” That’s the prohibition. “But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

It is written, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” The way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything. It doesn’t take away all the stress, but you will come down on one side or the other.

It’s because of the One to whom we pray.

Resolve to think holy thoughts.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

Does it ever make you fearful to remember that God knows our thoughts?

“You’re not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.”

It’s all in the mind. It’s all in the head. It’s what we think.

Isaiah 55:“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

We must repent of our thoughts and turn from our thoughts and forsake our thoughts and think new thoughts.”

The fundamental difference in this passage between God’s thoughts and our thoughts is the purity of God’s thoughts and the wickedness of our thoughts. “Let the wicked forsake their thoughts.”

Paul says, “Watch your thoughts.

“Rejoice in the Lord always.” When you find your mind going down those tracks, you want to think God’s thoughts after him. You shut out those things, and you remember how often our minds repeat what you feed them. Garbage in; garbage out. You listen to better music, and you read better materials, and you think about holy things, and you learn to pray together. Then you learn some of those disciplines and pass them on to another generation.

Resolve to learn the secret of contentment.

v10-13. Paul acknowledges he has had to learn the secret of contentment when he has had little and he has had to learn the secret of contentment when he has had much.

Some of us think you only have to learn the secret of contentment when you have little. That is not the case. When you have more, you always want more. Sometimes you suddenly come into a situation where you’ve had little, but now you have more, and you’re really frustrated and guilty there too.

The way you learn contentment is, Your contentment comes with contentment in God. Your contentment comes with contentment about God’s ways and God’s sovereignty and God’s providence, and especially what God has done in Scripture and God’s gifts like the Bible and the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of God’s people.

Still what is changeless is the sovereign wisdom and goodness and promises of God, and your contentment rests there. Then and only then can you say, “I have learned in every circumstance to be content.”

Resolve to grow in the grace of gratitude and courtesy.

V 14 “Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.

In all of these exhortations, this is what you should do, there is a God-centeredness that is either explicit or presupposed behind it. It is bringing us back to the way Christians look at morality, to a God-centered life that, in the midst of vicissitudes and challenges and laughter and tears, in the midst of moral temptation, in the midst of covetousness,

we learn to think differently, we learn to give differently.

It is transformative. It is transformative over all of our lives.

Almighty God says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say: Rejoice!”