Philippians: Jesus Is Our Joy
IF YOU WOULD LIKE YOUR OWN COPY OF THE SERMON NOTES, PLEASE CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK TO DOWNLOAD A COPY: SERMON NOTES
PREACHING CHRIST THROUGH THE BIBLE |
Philippians: Jesus Is Our Joy
Philippians 4:4-7 (ESV)
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;
6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
During the very first Christmas, an angel appeared to some shepherds who were watching their flocks at night and declared this message to them:
Luke 2:10-11 (ESV)
10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
In this announcement, the angel was quite clear that the coming of Jesus Christ into the world is great news because He will bring joy to all people (not just some, but all people). You know, I believe that many of us need to be reminded again and again about this truth, especially during Christmas time.
In our studies of books of the Bible, we have now come to the Book of Philippians. Here, the specific representation of Jesus is that He is our joy. I explained to you last week that this book is also included in Paul’s Prison Letters, which he wrote during his first imprisonment in Rome around 61-63 AD.
I know I have limited time this morning because of our Children’s concert, but I don’t want us to miss the most important message of this book. When you think about it, “How can Paul talk about joy while being confined as a prisoner?” Think about Paul’s situation during his imprisonment. He was chained 24 hours a day. He has absolutely no privacy. Every four hours, he gets a new prison guard. Yet despite his tough situations, he repeatedly talked about joy. Within four chapters, he used the words, “joy” or “rejoice” about 14X (1:4, 18, 25; 2:2, 17(2X), 18(2X), 28, 29; 3:1; 4:1,4,10).
I know some of us think that life must be perfect for us to be really happy. Perhaps, we are saying,
“If I could just change my situation, my life would be happier.”
“If I could only solve my problems, my life would be so great.”
But the reality is that there is no such thing as a problem-free life. And so, the joy that Paul is talking about in this book is definitely not coming from the right situations in life or a problem-free life; it is coming from an inner peace that comes only from our relationship with Jesus Christ. For this reason, he can declare – “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” The question is, “How can we also experience this joy in our lives?” Here are three essential truths from this passage:
I DELIGHT IN HIS PRESENCE (v.5)
After the apostle Paul challenged them to always rejoice in the Lord, he then told them in verse 5, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;” To understand these words better, I want us to compare these words with the New International Version rendering:
Philippians 4:5 (NIV)
5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.
The context of these words is found in verses 2-3, where you will find the apostle Paul's exhortation to Euodia and Syntyche to settle their conflict and exercise gentleness to one another. And His primary basis for their reconciliation is that “The Lord is near.”
I know some commentators interpret these words as references to the second coming. But still, a much better understanding is that the Lord is near or the Lord’s presence is right here; He is close to us.
Can the perspective that the Lord is near change how we treat one another? Would it make us gentler to one another? The apostle Paul is helping us understand that we often are missing out on the joy of the Lord because of the way we respond to people who may be giving us a hard time. I recognize that often it is harder to be gentle when we are the ones who are being misrepresented, just like Paul, who was imprisoned simply because of preaching Jesus Christ, or we are the ones who have been hurt. But Paul’s reminder is right on target that we have to delight in the fact that the Lord is near. He knows everything that is happening with us, and He controls everything in our lives.
II DEPEND ON HIS POWER (v.6)
The second appeal for us to experience the joy from Jesus Christ is to stop worrying and start depending on His power by praying to Him. Listen to these words in verse 6 – “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
Before we talk about praying, let’s first discuss our worrying. Paul is clearly telling us to stop worrying, which I know is hard for many. In Dr. David Jeremiah’s Study Bible, he highlighted some statistics about our everyday worries:
40% of the things people worry about never happen.
30% of our worries are related to past matters, which are now beyond our control.
12% of our worries have to do with our health, even when we are not actually ill.
10% of our worries are about friends and neighbors and are not based on evidence or fact.
Only 8% of our worries have some basis of reality, which means that over 90% of the things we worry about never happen.
So, why do you keep worrying? Worrying is undoubtedly the number one tool of the Devil to rob us of our joy. Instead of worrying, we should depend on the power of God by consistently going to Him in prayer and thanksgiving.
I love this verse because it reminds me that I can trust God for all my sources of worry. Talking about our sources of worries, Jesus has some direct words about this subject in Matthew 6:25-33 (ESV):
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,
29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Here, Jesus pinned down our most basic needs – food, drink, and clothing. His assurance for us is found in verse 33 – that as long as we prioritize Him in our lives, He will provide for our every need.
Yes, He promises to provide, but as Paul told us in our main text, we can also tell the Lord directly our specific problems or needs in prayer.
What’s your favorite Bible verse about prayer? Mine is Jeremiah 33:3 (NKJV)
3 'Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'
III DEEPEN HIS PEACE (v.7)
Lastly, verse 7 says, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Another area in our Christian life that can help us experience the inner joy of Jesus Christ is through this more profound sense of peace or calmness in God. Of course, this is very much connected with our prayers. Once we are willing to entrust God whatever situation we have or whatever is going on in our lives, we can ultimately be calm, knowing God will take control of everything.
This kind of peace is perfectly illustrated to us by Jesus Himself in Mark 4:35-41 (ESV):
35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”
36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him.
37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.
38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
I’m sure we’re pretty familiar with this story of Jesus leading the disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee. While they were traveling, suddenly, they encountered this intense storm. I can assure you that this was a terrible storm because the disciples, primarily professional fishermen, started panicking for their lives. But while they were all terrified because of the storm, Jesus was enjoying his sleep inside the boat.
Now, that is a perfect picture of the peace of God. It is the peace not in the absence of a storm but despite the storm. How many of us can distinguish the difference? I hope we get this clearly – The Jesus who can sleep amid that storm is the very Jesus who is present in our lives today. So, listen, OUR PEACE IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF TROUBLE, BUT IN THE PRESENCE OF JESUS CHRIST IN OUR LIVES.
Allow me to close this sermon and go back to the main them that Jesus is our joy. Do you possess this joy in your life today? I trust we get this truth from this message:
“Joy is the most reliable proof that Jesus is present in our lives.”
-Bishop Jeremiah Lepasana