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December 17, 2006
Third Sunday in Advent
Philippians 4:4-7
Pastor Joel Zank

Christian, Rejoice in the Lord Always!

(Philippians 4:4-7) Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! {5}Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. {6} Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. {7} And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In Christ Jesus, the source of all our joy and the answer to all our prayers, dear fellow redeemed,

Can you tell when someone is joyful? Sure, very often you can. It's not unusual to see a joyful person smiling, maybe even laughing. Sometimes you can spot a joyful person by the bounce in his step, or by the care-free tune she's whistling. Joyful people just seem to beam with happiness, don't they? So much so that sometimes you feel the need to ask them, "What's up with you?" "Why are you in such a good mood?"

Of course, there's no way for us to spot a smile on the Apostle Paul's face or to hear him whistling some happy tune, but Paul was a joyful man if ever there was one. You can see it in his letters. In fact, his letter to the Philippians has sometimes been referred to as Paul's "epistle of joy." It's not hard to understand why. In the opening verses he tells the Philippian Christians, "In all my prayers for you, I always pray with joy..." (1:4). In chapter four he speaks of these same Christians has his "...joy and crown" (4:1). And here in our text he urges his congregation to share his joy. Because they are inspired by God's Holy Spirit, Paul's words are timeless and are meant for us as much as they were for his first readers. With this in mind, Paul is saying to each one of us today: Christian, Rejoice in the Lord Always!

It's easy to rejoice when things are going wonderfully; but things don't always go wonderfully, do they? So do you suppose that Paul really means "Rejoice always" or is he just getting a bit carried away with his words? Paul must have known we'd ask, and so as to make his meaning crystal clear, he adds, "I will say it again: Rejoice!-Yes I mean always!" But how can this be? How can Christians be expected to rejoice when they're sick, when they're grieving, when their marriage is in ruins, when their family life is in shambles, when the bills are piling up, when there's no income to speak of? What is Paul thinking of? Well, first of all, Paul is not suggesting that Christians simply put on a happy face. The joy of which he speaks is not a silly numbness to all the troubles around us. Paul knows these troubles are real and painful. In fact he's writing these words while chained to a Roman soldier. Paul's on trial for preaching the gospel. His life hangs in the balance. But still he is filled with joy. Still he can say "Rejoice!...in the Lord." There's the key to true rejoicing.

Friend, through the gracious working of God, you are "in the Lord." In other words, God has given you saving faith in his Son, and through that faith a relationship with him who has the power and love to watch over and to bless all your comings and goings in life. Think of what joy would come from having a rich and famous uncle who has pledged to use all of his resources and all of his connections to take care of your every need. If you have no such uncle, that's all right, because what you have is even better. Through the bond of faith, a bond stronger than that of blood, you are related to the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The CEO of the Universe, whose love for you is beyond all measure, is your friend and Savior. Nothing can change this, not even trouble or heartache. What a reason to be joyful!

But how will this joy show itself? Will we Christians walk around with a smile on our face all day long? We might, but a smile is not the only measure of contentment in the Lord. In fact, in our text, Paul makes no mention of a smile at all, but he does suggest that Christian joy will show itself gently. What does that mean? Paul explains: "Let your gentleness be evident to all" (4:5). Here's a case where no one English word is able to capture and convey the word picture Paul drew out for us in the Greek of his day. The word for gentleness might be better described as "sweet reasonableness." Paul expresses a similar thought in Romans 12:18 where he writes, "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Paul says if it's possible. "Sweet reasonableness" will never compromise the Bible's truth about sin and about its forgiveness in Christ. We won't make peace with people at the Bible's expense. But in all other matters, our Christian joy can afford to show itself in patience an humility.

It's helps to understand that Paul did not write these words in a vacuum. In the verses just prior to our text we learn that there were two ladies in the Philippian congregation who were at odds with each other. Both of them were good friends and coworkers of the Apostle Paul. We don't know the exact cause of their disagreement, but obviously the two had taken a stand at the opposite ends of some issue, and each of them was insisting that she was right and the other wrong. As a result, their stubbornness was robbing both ladies and their fellow Christians of their joy in the Lord.

Might that same sort of thing be happening in your life right now? Are you at odds with someone, engaged in a battle of wills, afraid that any compromise on your part might make you look and feel weak? Then Paul's words are for you. He reminds you today, "The Lord is near" (4:5). He's coming back to our world very soon. Do you really want to spend these last days bickering? How distracting that can be. When we are constantly devoting our energy to being right, to winning the battle, it interferes with all of our tasks in life. Our thoughts are consumed by conflict. We become emotionally drained, having so little left of ourselves to give to family and friends. And it can hurt our relationship with God too. We tend too pull away from him, fearing that something he has to say to us might prove us wrong, or at the very least, it might weaken our resolve to win. Because each of us has a sinful nature, this is a huge problem for all of us.

So what's the solution to this problem? The solution is to the let the inner joy we have in belonging to Christ show itself in gentleness, this "sweet reasonableness" that Paul is talking about. Or said another way, the solution is to be a person who would much rather suffer wrong than inflict it. Now your thinking: Who in their right mind would do that? Christians-those who believes that true joy comes not from always proving themselves right, but from always having a Savior who makes everything right for them. Isn't that Christ's promise-to make all things serve our good (Romans 8:28)? Believing this, and at the same time knowing that Christ is about to return to give you and me heaven, really makes all bickering here on earth seem petty and foolish. When we step into heaven, nothing that happened here on earth will matter, except that it was here that we came to know Christ crucified for sinners. Since this is true, we have so many better things to be doing with our time and energy than squabbling-better things like building each other up with God's gospel promises and sharing those promises with people who do not yet know Jesus. Friends, we can't afford to be distracted from these efforts, not by quarrels nor by any other troubles. That's why Paul also says to each of us, Christian, rejoice in the Lord always; do so prayerfully.

Paul says it this way: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (4:6). Worry has got to be the biggest killjoy there is. More than that, worry is a sin that springs from doubt and unbelief. We worry because we don't trust God's promise to love us and care for us. But here Paul offers us an exercise to perform whenever we are anxious - the spiritual exercise called prayer. Prayer is worship; it flows from and is an expression of God-given faith. In such faith, we can and we will want to take every problem we have to God - every problem large and small. You see when your God is the Lord of the whole universe, as your God is, no trouble is to trivial, no burden is too big for him to handle. Of course as God, he knows of our problems long before we pray. He doesn't need prayer. Rather prayer is God's gift to us. He has made prayer the way for us to lay our concerns in his lap, the way to acknowledge that he can and he wants to help us, as he himself has promised. This truth is further confirmed in our hearts and minds when each and every one of our prayers is joined with thanksgiving. What a blessing comes back to our own spirit when we take the time to thank God for all that he is doing for us. The tiniest trouble can leave us feeling like there's no good in our lives at all, but how quickly the clouds of gloom and doom disperse when we give just a little thought to what God's love is still accomplishing for us each day in regard to both our physical and spiritual well being. When we bring our prayers and petitions to God with thanksgiving, joy replaces worry and faith erases doubt.

This is what our God wants for us, but we must confess, "Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer! (Hymn 411:1 C.W.). Lets face it, the same pride that has us convinced we're always right also has thinking we can solve all our own problems. Do you realize that the pain that pride causes us here on earth is just taste of the eternal misery it has earned us in hell? It's true, because the ultimate expression of this pride is to say to God, "I don't need you. I don't need you telling me what I've done wrong. I don't need you telling me you'll fix what I've broken. I just want you to leave me alone." What if God were to do just that? What if her were to leave us alone? Imagine how horrible it would be to face him in the Judgment only to hear him say, "You are on your own. You found no joy in my promises during your days on earth. I showed you the blessings of living the kind of "gentle" life my Son lived, but you chose to bicker instead. I gave you the gift of prayer, but you found no joy in talking to me, you couldn't have; I hardly heard from you. So now I'll leave you alone in your misery forever." This is what I deserve to hear from God and so do you. How foolish we've been, how ungrateful and stubborn. Can God ever forgive us? Or must we live out our days in fear and dread?

Listen to Paul's answer: "The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (4:7). The punishment from God we deserve is gone. In its place is the peace of God which no one can fathom. Oh we understand the word "peace;" that's not the problem. Peace is the end of hostilities. What transcends understanding is how this peace came to be. God, whose laws we broke, and whose love we rejected, God whose has no need of us sinners, and is under no obligation to help us, this same God forged the peace in the fires of hell where he sent his own Son to suffer in our place the punishment of our sins. I cannot begin to comprehend the love behind such a sacrifice. I cannot understand how God can take the perfectly gentle life that his Son lived on earth and credit that life to you and me. I do not know how God can take all this love of his, pack its power into words and by his promise alone give us life eternal. But that is what he has done, and not only so, but by that same powerful gospel, he promises to guard our hearts and minds from Satan's power, from sin's temptation, and from death's cold grasp until we're safely with him in heaven. No, I don't understand any of it, nor can you, but that doesn't matter. For here's the joy of it all: Peace with God is ours, not by reason of our intellect, but through God's gift of faith. And as faith grows through the gospel's promises, so does our rejoicing-our gentle, prayerful and peaceful rejoicing in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.