Rejoice In The Lord

Philippians 4:1-7

There was a quote that sparked my spirit and got me to looking into Philippians 4, mainly at verse 4....but as I began to look into this chapter and verse, the first verse stood out to me greatly......we will try to cover the heart of all of that today.

There is some things to know about this first......Paul is writing to this church, in Philippi, whose foundation is the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. That is the sole purpose of the creation of this church and why it existed at this point. They had had several battles, several trials. None of those were fleshly............although they are disguised as such none of our battles are of a fleshly nature.....

Ephesians 6:12 “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Every human has been and will be in spiritual battles.......Christians most especially.......Paul tells that the god of this world is trying to blind the eyes of them that do not believe 2 Corinthians 4:4 “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

What better way to do it than attack Christians, as well!

There is an encouragement, command, however you want to call it........I prefer “a truth” that Paul is calling on this church and all churches to live by in this first verse.........”Stand fast in the Lord”

Read verse 1...........That one phrase stood out to me as I was looking to go down to verse 4, I could not get past it.

We admire resolute kind of people, people who are very stable against pressure, who are unwavering, who are uncompromising, who are courageous and bold. We admire people who can’t be bought, can’t be bribed, can’t be intimidated, can’t be softened up, can’t be defeated. Just in general, I think we hold out admiration for that kind of person.

I read behind a preacher that used this poem: Rudyard Kipling summed it up as well as anyone when he wrote these familiar words: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting, too; if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about don’t deal in lies, or being hated don’t give way to hating, and yet don’t look too good nor talk too wise; if you can dream and not make dreams your master; if you can think and not make thoughts your aim; if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same; if you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and built them up with worn-out tools; if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings, not lose the common touch; if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; if all men count with you but none too much; if you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run; yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, and which is more, you’ll be a man, my son.”

I believe we can get behind someone like that, we can trust them.......That is what Paul is talking about when he calls on this church to “stand fast in the Lord”. Standing firm!

Standing fast/firm in the Lord.......truly Jesus is the only One that has carried that out to it’s completion! So, Paul tells this church to trust that work of Christ and now stand firm in Him, in His truth!

Christ being our example, our Only Way......when we read of Him, when we look to Christ, we do or let me say I wish my faith was stronger than what it was!

I don’t believe any of us that truly believe in Jesus Christ are interested in stumbling and bumbling around in our faith, but yet some of us, most of us find ourselves there.

We all would desire to be firm in the Lord!

Strong

A writer wrote: “I don’t think we want to be victimized by difficulty. I don’t think we want to be knocked over by troubles and trials and problems in life. I don’t think we want to be defeated by temptation, the onslaught of the world, the flesh and the devil to trip us up and cause us to fall into sin. I think we would be like the apostle Paul who saw the sin in his life but hated it and said, “When I do it, I don’t want to do it.” I think we would all like to stand firm and be strong. We also must recognize that it won’t be easy because we are in a warfare. We were saved to conflict. We are soldiers; we’ve been called into battle. That’s why this term in verse 1, “Stand firm in the Lord,” is a military term because we are on spiritual military duty in conflict with the enemy.

2 Timothy 2:3 “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

There is something in these verses that catches my eye.........it is either in or of........

Yes, we are in a spiritual battle, but it is a battle that Christ has already won! And it is a battle where Christ is with us......

In example and in spirit!

Let’s keep reading in verse 2-3......You see there was a problem between these 2 faithful ladies in this church.........It was not a doctrinal problem or Paul would of wrote on how to solve it, as he did in when there was doctrinal issues.

However important this disagreement was to these 2 ladies, it wasn’t important in the Spiritual!

Paul calls these 2 ladies to be of the same mind, to come into harmony........”in the Lord”

That the key phrase in all of this is “In the Lord”

In......meaning “inside, within, in union with.”

Nothing is known of these ladies nor Clement, but what we do know is that they are all in the book of life......Paul calls on all of them, those that have labored with Paul and helped him in the Gospel!

Stand firm in the Lord.......to come back into unity......drop the unnecessary worldly things and come back into the harmony which is in union with the Lord!

So, many things vie for our attention, standing firm in the Lord will bring us to a place to put importance to what is real, true, and right and not give way to things that are contrary to that!

That goes back to that kind of person that we admire that is not swayed but other things going wrong and even going against him.......He just keeps his head.......we instead keep our faith and we are being called to stand firm in the Lord!

Now, as we move on to verse 4.......Rejoice in the Lord........There it is again....... “In The Lord”.......The true believer can rejoice in everything that the Lord is.......

In our Wed. night Bible study, we was reading about some bad thing happening in the Corinthians church and Paul was discussing church discipline......Correcting that lifestyle, getting that out of the church and out of the person.

In my study of this I read about how these things even happen.......it was discussed that when we lose our attention off of Christ then we start getting lost in the world and the worldly things that cause us trouble.

One writer wrote this:A great missionary, David Brainerd, who spent his life - and a brief life indeed it was, I think he died before the age of 30- ministering to American Indians, wrote in his journal these words, quote: “I never got away from Jesus and Him crucified, and I found that when my people were gripped by this great evangelical doctrine of Christ and Him crucified, I had no need to give them instructions about morality. I found that one followed as the sure and inevitable fruit of the other.”

He also said this in another place: “I find my Indians begin to put on the garments of holiness, and their common life begins to be sanctified, even in small matters, when they are possessed by the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified,” end quote.

What Brainerd was saying was this: that when a Christian realizes who Christ is and what Christ has done for him so graciously, as we have been singing about, it tends to have a dramatic effect on his life, not only in salvation, but in holiness.

When our lives become about Christ and everything that He is.........Colossians 2:9 “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

Everything about the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, reveals to us the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit!

We know the Father intimately, because Christ did and told us that He only has come to do the Father’s will…John 14:9 “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”

All the holiness of God, the characteristics of God.....everything that we need is given to us in Jesus Christ.......Jesus Christ is our life.....Colossians 3:3–4 “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”

Let me get back on track here........The true believer, the true worshipper will rejoice in the Lord......Paul repeats it “again I say rejoice”.............let’s go back to what is going on in this church 2 ladies are having a disagreement, Paul is telling them to be done with it......One of things get back into fellowship, harmony of what we are in the Lord......In the Lord has nothing to do with the worldly things or our worldly desires........come back to unity and then rejoice in the Lord....

Keep rejoicing in the Lord........You know we set our sights on the future of this life and the worldly things, without a glimmer of what is going to happen, but if we can get our minds out of this world and focus on the spiritual, the eternal and see that our future is already fixed.....then we can say as Paul does in Philippians 1:21 “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Our lives then we be summed up “In Christ” and our hope will be fixed on the proper gain and then we can truly rejoice!

I read this: “When Paul says “rejoice in the Lord”, it doesn’t say rejoice in your circumstances. It says rejoice in the Lord. That is rejoice that God is the God of goodness and power and mercy and grace and provision......Rejoice that the Lord is your Shepherd and you shall not want!”

If we continue in the next couple of verses and if you keep in context of what Paul is referring to about this dispute with these 2 ladies.....

It becomes about our conduct in front of all men......that the Lord is at hand....we are living for a future that the Lord is in control over and our lives so display that truth!

Next, we see about not being anxious which is the cause for most of our troubles.....be done with that and go to God with all prayer and supplication (that word meaning to beg).........take these things to the Lord........

We go to the Lord with thanksgiving........I would say because He would actually allow us to even call upon Him, but in that our names are written in the book of life because of His dear Son Jesus Christ!

The peace of God will keep your hearts and minds...........Through Christ Jesus!

it doesn’t have anything to do with us or the problem or the answer to the dispute, but it is the peace of God through Jesus Christ!

This does really pass all understanding but when we stand firm in the Lord, when we rejoice in the Lord, all the problems, temptations, when they come, we plead with the Lord and His peace will rest over us, maybe even the value of His existence, His Son’s life, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of a life with God forever will give us peace and settle us down!

Hebrews 12:1-2.........Let us lay aside all/every weight that so easily besets us.......and the sin we fall into because of those......Bro Joe spoke about this a few years ago at a men’s study........

So many things can get on us easily, quickly.........

Here is where harmony, rejoicing, and peace reside.......Looking unto Jesus.....the Author and Finisher of our faith.