Philippians 4:4-7

What is it about Heaven that you are looking forward to specifically? Are you looking forward to seeing Jesus? You gotta say yes to that, sitting here in church, right? But I think we all really are. Can you imagine getting to spend time with Jesus one on one? Can you imagine getting to take long walks in the countryside with Jesus explaining things to you? Can you imagine getting to hear Him explain all the “whys” you have?

“Lord, why did this have to happen? Why did I have to lose this person or this job or this thing I loved?” And then Jesus will explain all the things you couldn’t see or know that affected your life and it will all make sense and be okay.

I can’t wait to see Mama and my grandparents and King David and Paul and Peter and all those other people too. I can’t wait to have perfect joy and peace; no more tears, no more death, no more sorrow. I can’t wait to eat heavenly Mexican food and not get fat! There is a lot that I look forward to about Heaven.

But until I get to Heaven, I want this life to be the best that it can for me and everybody else. We can all agree on that. Where the disagreements come is how to do that. The world says to go for the gusto. Live your best life now. You deserve it. He with the most toys wins. You only live once.

They look at Christianity as a hindrance to living well. “Why would I want to go to church? That’s my only day off. I gotta have some me time. Plus, they just want my money. No thanks!” But what they don’t understand is that Christianity is the true way to peace, joy and happiness in this life PLUS there is all of eternity to think about and the only way to have any peace, joy and happiness in eternity is through knowing Jesus.

The book of Philippians is all about how to have joy. We have talked about that over and over as we have gone through this book and we have seen that Paul says that the only way to have any kind of true, lasting joy is through knowing Jesus and being obedient to Him. And we learned the past couple of weeks that the better you know Jesus, the more joy you will have. So, this book is really telling us the secret to making this life the best that it can be for us and everyone around us and I have enjoyed just eating this book up.

But now…now we come to the fourth chapter of Philippians and speaking of eating it up, this chapter reminds me of eating a really great meal. Have you ever eaten at one of those Brazilian steak houses? Some friends invited me to Texas de Brazil years ago. I’m sure it’s crazy expensive because it is all you can eat and it is incredible!

Now, the first three chapters of Philippians is sort of like the salad bar at Texas de Brazil. Their salad bar is amazing. Not just salad but meats and cheese and fish and soups and seafood. It’s easy to get filled up on the salad bar. But that’s a rookie mistake. Same with Philippians. Don’t stop with chapter three because chapter four is like the main course. It is the filet mignon, the leg of lamb and pork ribs and barbecued steak, the parmesan-crusted pork loin. Good grief, my mouth is watering. We are all going to have a hard time not thinking about lunch now. Sorry.

But my point is, if you want a great meal, eat at some place like that. If you want a good life, in this life AND the next, eat at Philippians chapter 4. Let’s quit drooling and go there now and we will taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34)

Now, what you have to remember is that Paul is writing this letter to his Christian friends in Philippi from a jail cell. Some of y’all have been in jail. Some of you may be reading this message sitting in jail. How is or was your attitude while you’re in the pokey? It is hard to have a good attitude while there, isn’t it? Well, Paul didn’t have TV or pillow or warm clothes or even three meals a day and he can’t quit talking about joy. Let’s see what the secret is.

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

Paul says twice to rejoice. Have “calm delight” in the Lord. That’s my favorite definition of joy – calm delight. Have joy or rejoice; have calm delight in the Lord. Now, if Todd was telling you to have calm delight always in this life, you might be nice and nod and smile while inside you are thinking, “Ain’t gonna happen, fat boy.” Right? But it’s not Todd telling you this. In fact, it’s not originally from Paul. This is God speaking through Paul giving that church in Philippi and this church in Lake Bridgeport a command. Rejoice in the Lord.

God is not saying, “Hey, it would be really cool if, you know, maybe if circumstances were good and you felt like it maybe you could fake a good feeling every now and then.” No. This is a command of God telling you how to live and it is the best way to live for you and everyone around you.

But I hear ya. “You don’t know how bad my circumstances…” STOP! Who said anything about circumstances? John MacArthur says, “Joy is not a feeling. It is the deep-down confidence that God is in control of everything for the believer’s good and His own glory, and thus all is well no matter what the circumstances.” (Philippians, pg. 273) Repeat.

Our joy is not found in circumstances because circumstances change. People will hurt you. They will disappoint you. Jobs will be lost. Health will decline. Fish will be uncatchable and old pontoon boats will sink. Don’t expect people or things to bring you joy. They can bring happiness but that’s different.

There is nothing wrong with being happy, of course. In fact, Jesus tells us several times in the Beatitudes how to be happy. But your joy should be permanent. And again, I hear ya. Todd, I want to be joyful. I want to rejoice always but sometimes, it’s just hard. I get it. I do. But here is where you have to make a trip back to the salad bar of chapter three and see why Paul made such a fuss about knowing Jesus and knowing Him better and knowing Him more intimately even to the point of suffering and death.

Because the more you know Jesus, the more joy you have. The more you know Him and the closer you are to Him, the easier it is to be still and know He is God. The easier it is to not worry about your circumstances and allow Him to work in you and through you for your good and His glory. So, without repeating too much of the last two messages, get to know Jesus better by spending time with Him in prayer, Bible study and with others who want the same thing.

Let’s keep going because in the next verse, Paul says two things that seem like they are from out in left field and we wonder what in the world he is talking about. Look at verse 5 again. He says to rejoice and then re-rejoice in verse 4. Keep on doing it. Then he says, “5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The LORD is near.” And I believe those two sentences go together hand in hand.

Now, somebody tell me what your translation has for that word the NIV translates gentleness. It may say moderation, considerate and unselfish, forbearance, magnanimity (!), reasonableness, gentle spirit or tolerance and they are all wrong. I say they are wrong because our English just can’t translate this word exactly right. It is a combination of all of that and more. After reading six or eight different commentaries and the concordance, the best way I can describe it in today’s language is to just chill. Chill out.

It means to know what is right but when somebody does something wrong, you don’t hammer them for it. I’m not talking about doctrine. We have no chill when it comes to what we believe about Jesus and how to get to Heaven or any “spinal” issue. But for the “rib” issues, just chill, baby.

When I was in high school, I remember taking a test in some class and the instructions were to finish the test and then walk up to the teacher’s desk, staple the sheets together and hand it to her. No problem. I finished my test, walked to her desk and I see the stapler is sitting on this plastic two-tiered stackable paper holder on her desk. So, I put the papers in the stapler and pressed down and completely crushed her paper holder. Broke it into twenty pieces. And I still remember the look she gave me like, “Really?” But she just smiled and said, “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

It was a stupid mistake. I should have known better but I didn’t mean her any harm and so she didn’t get mad. What good would it have done to get mad? And 35 years later, I still remember her gentleness, her tolerance and reasonableness. I don’t remember her name but I remember that because it is so rare in this world. We are all just dying to be able to get mad at somebody for something when it never helps and never makes us feel any better and can do lasting damage. Let your gentleness be evident to all.

Then the next sentence goes hand in hand with that one because when you realize that the Lord is near, your gentleness will be more evident. Now, when Paul says the Lord is near, it could be that the Lord is near in time or in space. Either one works. The Lord is near in time in that He is coming back soon to get us at the rapture or at our deaths to usher us into Heaven and He is near in space in a way that He is always with us in a real way.

If you are a little kid and you know there are bullies down the street, life is scary. But if your big brother who is home on leave from the Marine Corp walks you to school, are you worried? You aren’t worried about what anybody is going to do to you because you know your big brother will protect you. But you also aren’t going to do anything that displeases your brother either. You aren’t going to act the fool and have him get onto you.

It’s the same way with knowing that the Lord is near. You know that all things work together for the good of those that know Him (Rom. 8:28) and so you have joy but you also don’t want to displease Him and suffer His wrath. So, all is well. Now act like it.

This moves us right along to verse 6 which is a verse that needs to be tattooed onto the back of some of your eyelids. Be anxious for nothing. The King James says to be careful for nothing and that’s not how we use the word “careful” anymore but it means to have a distracting care about something and again God is saying through Paul, “Don’t! Stop it!” It’s a command and to do what God commands us not to do is a sin and some of you need to repent right now.

Now, at this point I could read to you all the statistics about how stressed we all are these days and all the things that might bring worry and anxiety in this world. All I would have to do is read a few news headlines and we would all need to repent probably.

Or I could read to you what the internet says we should do to combat stress and worry in our lives and they aren’t necessarily wrong to recommend exercise and breathing and getting away from it all and all that stuff. But what it boils down to is anxiety stems from having a low view of God. When I say that, I know some of you are offended. You think you have a high and lofty view of God but you were just made a worrier. It’s how you were created. It’s what you do. You think I just don’t know what all is going on in your life.

Well, you’re right. I don’t know what is going in your life but God didn’t say to be anxious for nothing unless I created you a worrier. He didn’t say not to worry about anything except, you know, the really bad stuff. And if you think God created you to be a worrier that is basically the definition of having too low a view of Him. God is not going to create you to violate His commandments so stop saying that. Repent and let God handle it.

Jesus said in Matthew 6, “So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Do you know what He is saying when He says to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness? Jesus is saying to get to know Him better. Seek Him. Pursue Him. Run after the things of Jesus with all your strength. Paul said in the last chapter that is what he did. He pressed on. He strained forward trying to know Jesus better and better forgetting about what was behind only trying to know Jesus more intimately whether his circumstances were good or bad.

My favorite verses in all of scripture are Isaiah 43:18-19 where God says, Todd, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

The more you know Jesus, the more you will want to know Him and the more you will forget about what happened in the past and you will only be anxious in a good way, waiting to see what God is going to do next, not worried about anything. Why should you? If God is with you and in control and He loves you then what in the world is there to be worried about?

Okay, hey, have you ever watched a TV series that had a cliffhanger at the end of each episode? Then you couldn’t wait to see how it played out the next week, right? That’s part of the beauty of preaching through Philippians. It is so rich and so practical and helpful. I don’t want to skip through the next few verses in a hurry and I know after talking about food earlier, that’s all some of you are thinking about anyway.

Let me close with this. I was talking to a friend the other day who told me that he had started paying somebody to worry for him. I said, “Really? How does that work?” He said he tells the guy everything going on in his life and the guy does all the worrying. I said, “How much does that cost? I may want to hire him.” He said, “Well, I promised to give him a million dollars a year.” I said, “A million bucks? You don’t have a million bucks!” He said, “That’s his worry.”

In all seriousness, you have two choices in this life. You can be a slave to sin and live this life like you think is best and worry about every little thing and big thing. You might have some fleeting joy and a little happiness but it will disappear as soon as trouble comes. You will need to be really smart, really good, really wise and in the end you will die and spend eternity in Hell separated from God and everybody else. That’s what the Bible says.

Or you can be a slave to God and spend your days allowing Him to work in you and through you and revealing Himself to you more and more. You have nothing to worry about because He is near. He loves you and He is in control. And that brings great and lasting peace and joy. All you have to do is have faith that what He says is true; that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father except through Him.

Admit that you are a sinner. Sin is anything that displeases God. You have sin in your life and the only way to get to Heaven is to ask God to forgive you of those sins and 1 John 1:9 says He is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. That starts a lifetime – an eternity, in fact – of knowing Him better and better and relying on Him more and more. That is yours by His grace. He wants to give you that grace. All you have to do is accept it. Do that right now as we pray.