Giving it Your All

Notes:

Moving: It’s all ENCOMPASSING!

Moving to Raleigh

Each closet

Each drawer

Coming into Christ is a similar experiencing. A complete move from living in one thing, to being in another. “In Christ” mentality.

Philippians are moving to a new land, sort of...

Citizens of the Kingdom

Philippians 3:30-21: But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

What does it mean to subject all things to himself?

I think this passage is answering that question for us. What does it mean to make this move as Citizens to this New Kingdom?

You won’t come across the words “Some,” or “most,” or “average,” or “middle of the road,” or “close to.”

No grey, no blurred lines, no competing allegiances. I surrender ALL! It’s an everything sort of thing.

Part I: All Encompassing Christian Experience

ALWAYS Rejoice: Rejoice in the Lord always (v.4)

Be Reasonable to EVERYONE (v. 5)

Be anxious about NOTHING: (v.6)

ALL Prayer Requests Come with Thanks (v.6)

God’s Peace surpasses ALL understanding (v. 7)

Okay, Paul, we get your point… Back off, man!

A set of imperative=Piety

All 2nd Person Plural.

Experience Permajoy in the LORD

Word group appears 16x.

““Joy,” unmitigated, untrammeled joy, is—or at least should be—the distinctive mark of the believer in Christ Jesus.” Fee

To be in Christ is to experience joy:

Matthew 25:23:  His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

Rejoice always DESPITE circumstance:

Paul are smearing his reputation from prison.

Writing from Prison

Philippians are struggling to figure out how to live as Christians...

Paul possibly facing DEATH!

2:17-18: “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.”

ALWAYS Rejoice IN THE LORD

“You can always rejoice in the Lord because you’re always in the Lord”

Paul’s not primarily in prison. He’s in the Lord.

We’re not primarily in suffering, or grief, or pain, or disease: We are PRIMARILY in the Lord.

Rejoice is not a rejection of our struggles, it’s the lens in which we make sense of our struggles. We are in Christ. We are safe in him. We are comforted in him.

Some of you here may be like: “Mark, you don’t know what I’m going through.”

“You didn’t have the week I had.”

“You don’t hurt like I hurt.”

For those of you who can’t get yourself to experience Joy, you need to hear it again...

Paul writes, I will say it again, REJOICE!!

Do you need to hear it again?

Do you experience joy?

Experience Permajoy IN the LORD

Express Gentleness TO Everybody

Reasonableness for Others Out there

NIV: Gentleness

Young’s Literal: “Let your forbearance”

“Let your clemency be known to all.”

“Leniency”

Christians should have “a reputation of being courteous.” Hansen

Eugene Peterson: “Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them.”

Temperate.

Wise

Advocate,

Non-reactive

Not polarizing.

Paul is equipping them: You’ve moved to a new reality IN CHRIST, which means you don’t need to fear or be intimidating by anything. The culture around you may be vying for attention, jockying for promotion, aggressive in their pursuit for pride, prestige, power, and pedigree: BUT NOT YOU. You don’t need to fear those around you with their reactive comments, the put downs, the beat downs, the competition.

Those around you should see someone who is reasonable. Gentle. As calm and winsome, as someone so EMBEDDED IN GRACE, THAT YOU DON’T NEED TO REACT OUT OF FEAR.

How do you know if you need to grow in this area?

Well, I think Paul tells us…

DON’T BE ANXIOUS ABOUT ANYTHING!

“The Lord is at at hand.”

You don’t need to be anxious about anything because you the Lord is at hand...

NIV: “The Lord is near.”

Could be… Proximity, relationship, or in time...

You can be a non-confrontational, non-reactive joyful person because the LORD is at hand. In time, in relationship, in space.

Why worry when you have the God of universe right by your side…

Why worry when Christ has saved you from your sin, who reigns victorious in heaven!

With whatever you are dealing with, the LORD is near and that puts everything into perspective!

EVEN, within your suffering and struggle… He is WITH you in that suffering.

NO Anxiety

Anxiety: lit. “Torn up”

Nothing should tear us up… Nothing should rip us apart…

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, is a proper object of the continuous stress of worry.” Hensen

Does this mean we ought not to grieve? Or doubt? or Question the future or God’s faithfulness?

Take the whole of the Bible: There’s permission to grieve, or doubt or question:

But you can’t ultimately stay or reside there.

Because God is near. God is here. God is in that place with you. He brings a comfort to you even in that grief.

Within our grief, suffering, and struggle, WE don’t need to be consumed with worry, because God meets is there…

II Corinthians 1:3-4 “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Living WITHOUT Anxiety Influences your Prayer Life:

Notice when we are supposed to be thankful in this passage:

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Never noticed this: Thanksgiving comes in the requests, in our pleads to God we are called to be thankful…

Isn’t Paul getting this backwards?

Should it be, “In everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be known to God, and then when he gives them to you, be THANKFUL”?

Thanksgiving comes in the REQUEST, not in receiving the thing you’re REQUESTED! Backwards prayer: Be thankful in your petition, not IF you get the petition!

So often, our worries guide our prayers:

How?

I’m worried about finances, so I will pray about finances.

I’m worried about getting laid off, so I will pray that I won’t.

I’m worried that I can’t get this desire of my heart, so I will pray for that desire.

BUT, Imagine a prayer life when your prayer life is guided by THANKS, and not of WORRY?

You pray with THANKS.

When you request in thanks versus thanks in receiving the request, you have a peace of mind that passes all understanding.

You’re not thankful because you got something, you’re thankful because God is with you, near you, knows you, has the best for you, understands you, is sovereign OVER You, who knows what you need more than you do...

When you reside in JOY, your request with THANKS

The result is this peace of God that doesn’t make sense...

Peace OF God

Not peace in receiving what your requested.

You’ve received Peace of God of HIMSELF! Which surpasses all understanding.

This is a type of peace that doesn’t make sense to the world!

The experience of Joy IN the Lord BECAUSE He is Near, means we Don’T need to worry about anything. God’s peace resides within us and then what? God’s peace PROTECTS US!

“Peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Protection from worry and anxiety

Guard: “Soldiers surrounding a city to protect it.”

For the Philippians, they’ve been taught about the Peace of Roman. Pax Romana was the slogan way.

But with Christians who now move to this new citizenship in Christ, they live with a Pax Theos: The Peace of God.

“Beyond understanding”=It doesn’t make sense! The world doesn’t understand why we’re so level headed, calm, gentle, lenient, fair, and balanced.

In the fact of adversity, struggle, conflict and suffering, we aren’t torn asunder. We remain in God who is near.

What is this NOT saying:

Stupid Peace verses Smart Peace:

Stupid Peace is ignoring our problems, meditating by emptying the mind… Ignoring the realities of the world by escaping the world.

Stupid Peace: Coming to worship to hide from our struggles, getting lost in praise without lament.

Smart Peace: Honest with reality, honest with our struggles and sin. God’s peace comes in. God’s proximity to those in Christ don’t stand under God’s wrath or revenge. We don’t need to hide from God’s face.

Not, Smart Peace is place reality at the foot of Christ’s throne.

“The peace of God, which doesn’t make sense, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Story:

Think:

Thinking Christianly

List Whatevers: true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent worthy of praise

Christians live in Christ, but that doesn’t mean an abandonment of Culture:

Chapter out of Greek Literature: “It is almost as if he had taken a current list from a textbook of ethical instructions, and made it his own.” Beare

“Paul expects his readers to see how the noblest aspirations and highest standards of Hellenistic culture are uniquely fulfilled in Christ and in those who are in Christ. But his challenge to think about such things also calls for discernment evaluation of all that is virtuous and praiseworthy in their own culture.” Hensen

Joy and peace is found through a sound mind that focuses on what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy...

v. 8: “Think about such things”

“Reckon” or “take into account”

“Paul is telling them not so much to ‘think high thoughts’ as to ‘take into account’ the good they have long known from their own past, as long as it is conformable to Christ.” Fee

v. 9: “Peace of God will be with you”

Doctrine:

True, honorable, just: If you want peace, think doctrine.

Why are people actually anxious? They don’t think!

Biblical perspectives

Keller:

“Stupid Peace”: Don’t think

“Smart Peace”: You think big, big picture: Everything is going to be ok!

Aesthetics:

Pure, lovely (“causing pleasure or delight”), commendable (“fair-spoken, fair-sounding”)

Excellence and Praiseworthy

Excellence or virtue: “Exceptional civic virtue” BDAG

Plato had his lists. The Stoics had their list.

Argument: “Paul’s challenge to think about these Hellenistic virtues indicates his desire for the church to appreciate all that is good in the surrounding culture.” Hansen

“Ultimately, life in Christ brings to fulfillment the highest moral aspirations in the surrounding culture.” Hansen

“Paul is calling for followers of Christ to be attentive, reflective, meditative thinkers. Developing a Christian mind and character requires a lifetime of discernment and disciplined thought about all the things that are excellent and praiseworthy.” Hensen

Way to see the world:

Seeing what is right: Doctrine

Focusing on what is beautiful: Asthetics.

Part III: Use Paul as an Example

“As a good teacher in his day would customarily do, Paul sets before his students his art: his portrayal of the suffering of Christ and his participation in Christ’s sufferings present what is most excellent and praiseworthy. He calls for believes to imitate him and acquire his art.” Hansen

Always rejoicing while in jail

Not worried about his situation

Prayers of thanks

Peace of Mind

Put these things into practice, and God’s peace will be with you.

“Think about such things as acts of selfless love in the service of others because they are excellent and praiseworthy: the self-emptying, self-humbling love of Christ on the cross. Put into practice the selfless love of Christ that you have learned from me and seen in me so that your lives will be excellent and praiseworthy.” Hansen

4 Aspects of Watching Paul: - Learned, received, heard, and saw.

Learned the Gospel

Shared the Gospel.

Heard the Gospel

Saw the Gospel

Full-orded.

Peace of God will be with you. Future tense.

“When the God of peace will be with you, then the peace of God… will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Hansen