Philippians 4:4-7: "A Hope Filled 2021" Part 1

"A Hope-Filled 2021" Part 1 You may be wondering why we sang this song, as a round with the simple words of "let everything that has breath praise the Lord." This answer is simple. This song serves to remind us of the core of who we are as God's people-created to give him praise! Now, 2020, as a year, has not been easy for anyone, whether Christian or not. And that has to be the height of understatements! Unless you have been living under a rock since January, you have been drastically affected in one way or another. It's time to turn in calendar 2020, and trade it for calendar 2021. What will this next year hold for you? For us? Those of you in school, what will you be doing in the last half of this school year, especially those of you who will be graduating high school--and we have at least one senior here! Some here will be starting a new job--wonderful in this season of whatever people want to call it--Pandemic or otherwise. What will 2021 bring politically and nationally? Not a very good outlook, I'm afraid. For starters, though 2021 marks a new year, huge problems will carry over from 2020. A very divided, dangerous country. Many people thought the election was stolen and others gladly accept the results even though they, too thought there were many "irregularities". I have said for awhile now that we may enter a new system of government, that of socialism--a single political party system. If we do, how much of it will be foisted on us right off the bat? That remains to be seen. I hope I'm wrong about the direction of our country. I've been wrong at least once in my life! But God specializes in revivals! Let's continue to pray he pours out a spirit of revival in our country, beginning with Grace United. But regardless of whether or not I am correct, in one sense we have always had a single system of government. God the Father has given his Son, his Messiah, all nations for his inheritance. Though, "on the ground" we are living in a Constitutional Republic--NOT a democracy, by the way, the truth is, the monarchy of Jesus has always been in place in this country. The glorious truth is that the Lord Jesus is King over not just the United States, but every country you can name. And he will be forever. Regardless who sits in the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office beginning next month, it is comforting to know that King Jesus has never abdicated his throne. When 2024 rolls around he won't be running for re-election. He will never become too old to function--He is from everlasting to everlasting! King Jesus can never be bought. Indeed, how can a person who owns everything be bribed? As perfect man, the God-man, how can the Lord Jesus subject himself to a bribe, corrupting his position as King of kings? With that said, there is much struggle that remains in the here and now. A lot of transition yet to come. And given what I just said, the best is yet to come. So, how to obtain and maintain hope between now and then? That is what I want to talk about today-and next week. My prayer is that these messages over the next 2 weeks will sink so deeply into our hearts that we will never see the world, or even difficult times quite the same for the rest of our days. God has something to say to us at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. The fact we live in a world filled with evil and decay is reality 101. And Christianity 101. We know how sin got here: Adam and Eve committed high treason against the King of the universe--an act worthy of eternal death. And we have been suffering ever since. Not that we would have fared any different if we would have been Adam and Eve! Now we live in a world tainted by sin, and death. The entire human race is made up of people full of self will, rather than seeking to worship and serve the one living and true God. And so decisions are made that benefit some but not others. Laws are enacted which reinforce what Isaiah said, where people call evil good and good evil. Crimes are committed. Diseases are actually invented and patents are secured. Let's not forget all the natural events brought on because the world itself is tainted by sin. All because Adam opened a Pandora's box of evil. But our sin did not take God by surprise. Even before he created us, he had already taken the Fall into account. That's how wise and all-knowing God is! He set his plan in motion and even let us know how he would take care of our sin: "Christ was the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world." God has never left us alone. He has been working his plan. He will use the evil in the world to glorify himself. And he has even told us about it in the Scripture. Just a surface reading of God's word tells us that down through the ages, God's people and sinners alike, all share something in common: we all experience pain. Suffering. Difficulties. Sin. Sickness. Death. And God, who is good and desires all to be saved offers every person hope. Now, hope is a word that is thrown around alot but what is? It seems that "hope" is like what I call a container word. We fill that container with whatever suits us. For example, what was Obama's campaign slogan? "Hope and change." All well and good. But did he define hope? Not that I remember. It was like he allowed people to fill that container with whatever they wanted to fill it with. It's been said that we can live about 40 days without food. About 3 days without water. But we can only live about 4 seconds without hope. I'm not sure about the 4 seconds. But the point is clear. Hope is necessary for every person to live. John Ortberg in his book If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat, sites a medical study in which 122 men who had suffered their first heart attack were evaluated on their degree of hopefulness and pessimism: "Of the 25 most pessimistic men, 21 had died eight years later. Of the 25 most optimistic, only 6 had died! Loss of hope increased the odds of death more than 300 percent; it predicted death more accurately than any medical risk factor, including blood pressure, amount of damage to the heart, or cholesterol level." Ortberg adds his own thought to this study: "Better to eat Twinkies in hope than to eat broccoli in despair." Indeed. So, what is hope from God's point of view, which is really the only point of view that matters. Simply, true hope is something we as Christians look forward to with absolute certainty, so much so that we stake our lives on its reality. Hope means that it is impossible for it not to be. For example, I have hope that heaven awaits me because I have placed my faith in the Christ of the Bible. Many others say the same thing. Like the apostles in the first century or the persecuted church in the 21st century. Do you think they would willingly suffer martyr's deaths if their hope was not set on Christ? Me neither. So, hope is absolute certainty that something is real or that will come to pass. When it comes to hope, what we don't say is "I hope so." No, when it comes to hope, we say, "I know so." That's biblical hope. And I'm profoundly grateful to the Lord that he gives his people hope that he will restore all things exactly the way he wants them when it's all said and done. God gives his people the absolute certainty that this life is not all there is. Christ awaits us! The Father awaits us! Heaven and our loved ones await us! Who is Us? All who have faced the reality of the bad news-we are sinners doomed to face an eternity in hell. But we have also embraced the good news of Christ Jesus. We turned away from going our own way-repented of our sins. We have placed our full trust in Christ-who he is and what he has done. His death paid for our sins-my sins. His resurrection gives me hope. He promised his disciples, "Because I live you will live also." In light of the absolute certainty that the Lord is indeed the Lord, and will remain so forever, what kind of persons are we to be as Jesus' disciples? How can we demonstrate biblical hope, in the class room, on the job, or even at home where no one but those closest to us see us? Let's look no farther than the apostle Paul. Paul set his hope on Christ and literally fell on his sword for it--or should I say a sword met his neck, and he died, ushered in to Christ's very presence. I can't think of a more practical passage of Scripture to demonstrate biblical hope than Philippians 4.4-7. Next week we will cover Philippians 4.8-13. I was going to have us cover these verses today but there is no way we can do it justice! So we will content ourselves in walking through these 4 verses today and savor Paul's commands of what our lives should look like as those who have set their hope on God. But first, let me give what is probably a familiar backstory when it comes to Paul's circumstances and motive for writing Philippians in the first place. Paul suffered greatly because of his hope in Christ. Scripture tells us of the number of times he was flogged, beaten with rods, even stoned. He should have gone to heaven then but the Lord had more work for him to do. It had been a number of months before Paul wrote Philippians since the Lord Jesus appeared to him in a vision that he would actually go to Rome and give testimony there. There was a time in Paul's life when he spent 4 continuous years in confinement, both in Caesarea and also in Rome-2 years each. He was originally imprisoned because he was falsely accused in Jerusalem. His accusers purposely misunderstood him but no matter. He was guilty till proven innocent. When he arrived in Rome to serve out what would be years 3 and 4 of his incarceration, his first order of business was to find a place to live. He was a political prisoner and unlike our prison system, there were no holding cells. The onus was on him to find a place to stay--and to pay for it out of his own pocket. The scholars tell us that Paul probably had to enter a contract while he waited to get on the docket -- to face Nero. But all the while, he was chained to at least 1, if not 2 Roman soldiers for the entire time he was in Rome--sort of like a primitive form of ankle bracelets we have today. In other words, while Paul was in Rome for 2 years, as Luke writes in Acts 28.30-31, he was under house arrest. And day after day, Paul waited. He was already a social outcast, probably had very little money. He could not exactly get a job to pay for his expenses. And he lived with the temptation to be all wrapped around the axle at the thought of facing a bloodthirsty, wicked emperor. But instead of Paul living in dread or fear or anxiety, he got to work, even where he was. He did not let moss grow under his feet, spiritually speaking. He created opportunities to preach and teach. "The whole Praetorian guard"--Rome's finest troops--knew why he was there--"in chains" for the cause of Christ. He had a captive audience as the guards listened to him as he preached and taught all who came to his door. So, in reality, who was chained to whom? The guards to Paul or Paul to the guards, who had rotational "Paul duty" every 6 hours. And because he could not get a job, Paul took advantage of the time. Besides preaching and teaching, he wrote 4 letters while in Rome during those 2 years: Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon and a thank you, joy-filled letter to the Philippians. We will find out next week why he thanked the Philippians. And so now that you have some back story, let's go to our passage for today, again, Philippians 4.4-7. Again, my prayer is that we will walk out of here demonstrating to the world which desperately needs to see us as God's people living our lives centered on the hope found in Christ alone. As I mentioned, we will walk through this passage, stopping often to take in this amazing way to live hope-filled lives. Let's begin: Phil 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. The first step in living a hope-filled life is here. It begins by rejoicing in the Lord. And just in case we didn't get it the first time, he tells us again: rejoice! Let me point out the heart of this verse. "Rejoice" is a command. Imperative. Going back to school, what role does an imperative play? It tells us to exercise our will to accomplish something. One of my favorite movies as many know, is "The Princess Bride." Remember how Fezini and the crew were in the boat with Buttercup. And Fezini commands, "Move the thing! And the other thing!" "Exercise your will Inego. Do something about what I just told you Fezek." We are to exercise our will--do something about--rejoicing! Express your praise! And we are to express our praise and thanks--in the Lord. We don't rejoice in circumstances-that is nothing more and nothing less than happiness. 2020 is almost over. We are happy, and relieved about that, but we rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord! And the more we know of the Lord, the more we can rejoice in him! So in 2021, make it a priority to know the Lord, because the more you know him the more you can rejoice in him! And what of the Lord do you know? How do you see him? How do you experience him? How do you understand him? Now we just observed the traditional day of Christ's birth a few days ago. God sent him as Immanuel-God with us. During the days of his ministry Jesus often spoke of eternal life. And the most well-known of all of Jesus' words is John 3.16: Say it if you know it: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. But what is eternal life? How does the Lord himself describe it? That would be John 17:3: And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So, eternal life is not gaining heaven. Those who have eternal life will go there. But Jesus' own words tell us that eternal life is knowing God. See, we need to go to heaven, for it will take eternity and even longer to get to really know our God and his Christ! If we make a habit of rejoicing in the ever faithful, strong, all wise, holy and good God, then we can relax, and it will show in our lives, even in the middle of tough circumstances and difficult people as we find in Phil. 4.5: Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. So, what does reasonableness mean? It can be defined this way-gentleness of attitude and behavior, in contrast with harshness in one's dealings with others. Now there is a lot we can say about this--like does God really expect us to allow people walk all over us? Because that is what many of us think, when we hear "gentleness". Let's remember that Jesus described himself as meek and humble in heart. And I don't think Jesus was a wimp. Also, let me just point out the idea of the Lord's nearness. It can mean that the Lord is coming soon--and today his return is one day closer than yesterday! We can also understand the Lord's nearness as in he is as close as our next prayer. But let's put these verses together this way. If we are consistently exercising our will by rejoicing in the Lord on one hand and always aware of the Lord's nearness on the other, we can put up with a lot in this life. We can let a lot of stuff go! That's step one of living a hope-filled 2021. Now, let's move on to step 2, which is really the heart of the message. If you get nothing else out of the Scripture today, get what I'm about to say. I guarantee, that if this truth gets to the heart of our heart, we will never be the same. Very familiar words, and if we are not careful, we will miss their power and significance. Hear them again, for the first time: Philippians 4.6-7: do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Let's take a little time here in these powerful verses. First, once again, we are back to obeying a command. Don't be anxious about anything. And as some versions have it, pray about everything. As we know, as we go through life, we have all kinds of problems, the vast majority we won't see coming. How many times do we simply fall down the stairs and wonder how we got there? Or just bending over and you can't straighten up--next stop, chiropractor's office! Or out of the blue you get a text or a call and a friend has severe words for you--you are falsely accused. You try to explain but to no avail. And the next thing you know, your friend de-friended you on social media. Or what about all the little things the seem to pile up? Little frustrations, little problems. Then before you know it, you are blowing up at someone. How do we handle all the things that come our way? We are to, as I find Cathy often saying, "give it to God." Absolutely. But what does giving it to God look like? And how do we know that we have given it to him? Let me give you 2 hooks to hang your thoughts on. The first is "play catch". The second is give thanks. Let's talk about playing catch-with the Lord. In order to do that, let's look at 1 Peter 5.6-7. SLIDE 6: Here Peter gives us a prayer command, as does Paul-interesting how we are commanded to pray! Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Peter tells us that when we have an issue, as in anything that causes anxiety in us, then we humble ourselves before the Lord by casting our anxieties on him. Why? Because he cares for us. What an invitation! Now, what does that mean, casting our anxieties on him? It literally means to fling them from ourselves. Like tossing a ball to someone. The point is that we allow our anxieties to leave our spiritual hands and we "toss them" to Christ. But how do so many of us pray? Depending on how long it's been since we last talked to the Lord, we have a spiritual bag of stuff that we need to pour out before him. We spend a lot of time opening up our bag, pulling out all the things that give us concern. And when we are finished, we put our stuff back in our bag, pick it back up, and carry it away. No, my brothers and sisters, we need not set our anxieties before the Lord. We need to cast them upon him. Toss them to the Lord. And when we toss them to him, what does he do? Let's find out in the next part of this passage, looking at our second hook, and v.7. The second hook is thanksgiving. The heart of our prayer to the Lord, whatever concerns us, is that we pray with thanksgiving. See, when we give the Lord thanks we are showing him that we trust him. Our Lord is trustworthy. Tell me that isn't so! How often has the Lord shown his grace, love, power and faithfulness, and even his discipline to us? It's all for his glory and our good. So, what happens when we toss our anxieties on Christ, with an attitude of thanksgiving? He plays catch with us! But what he tosses back to us is different than what we tossed to him. Let's look again at v.7: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. See the dynamic at work here? Whatever the concern we have, we play catch with the Lord. We cast our anxieties on Christ and he tosses his peace to us! His peace then guards our hearts and minds in Christ. The bottom line is that we know that we have given our concern to the Lord when we experience the peace of God in Christ. Would to God that we would always play catch with him! But there's more to our second step in living a hope-filled 2021. God, through Paul promises us his peace in Christ to guard our hearts, when play catch with God. But what does his peace look like? What kind of picture can we paint to see this? And here is where things get good! Scripture paints what godly peace looks like. It's a tender moment with the Lord, described by a man after God's own heart, David. Let's turn to Psalm 131.1-2: O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. Do you see this picture in your mind's eye? In our Wednesday study and prayer through of the Psalms, we often see David in trouble. He writes a lot of lament psalms, pouring out his complaints, hurts and sorrows to the Lord. But in this psalm, David pauses as it were to express his appreciation and gratitude for the God who loves and tenderly cares for him. With all the troubles David had, his relationship with the Lord was like that of a small child leaning against his mother. Closeness. Protection. Contentment. A non-weaned child wants food. A weaned child experiences closeness. And notice how David describes his closeness with God. His heart is not lifted up. His eyes are not raised too high. He does not occupy himself with things too great and too marvelous for him. In the midst of all his storms, David expresses his trust in the trustworthiness and strength of his Lord who loves him dearly and tenderly. What a picture of peace! So, let's apply David's tender picture to our prayer life. Let's look at prayer, our step 2 of a hope-filled 2021 like this. Anything that ruffles our feathers at all is what we come to God with, for anything that concerns us, concerns him. We play catch with the Lord, casting our anxieties on him, and showing that we trust him by giving him thanks. What does the Lord give us in return for our anxieties? His peace that surpasses all understanding--peace that looks like a weaned child on the lap of his mother, not concerned with the anxieties of life. Like wondering how God will answer the prayer we just prayed! How often are we filled with anxiety over how God will answer us? But what do we know about prayer? The spiritual fact of life is simply this: we don't know what to pray for in a given situation. Romans 8.26-27: Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So, the bottom line of step 2 is that every situation is God's invitation to cast our cares on him in prayer, and then linger in his presence, leaned back against him like a weaned child. We are not concerned with how he will answer, we just know that he will. We rest assured that he will answer every prayer we pray when we pray according to his will. When we abide in him and his words abide in us we ask what we wish and the Lord promises it will be done. We don't know how. We don't know when. But we know that he will bring glory to himself as a result of our prayers. And out of simple childlike trust, our confidence in him grows. So, let's review what we have so far. Step 1. We rejoice in the Lord, and living in the light of his nearness, we can show gentleness to all. We never have to get wrapped around the axle about anything that comes our way in 2021. As the song sung by the Gaithers goes, "Why Should I Worry or Fret?" Step 2. Every situation is God's invitation for us to play catch with him. We toss him our anxieties. He gives us peace that passes all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ. We live in the tender moments the Lord provides as a weaned child against his mother. This is contentment and peace beyond words!