OPEN:
It is especially important as we
approach chapter four of Philippians that we remember Paul is primarily
addressing a local fellowship of believers—a local church. The letters of the New Testament were written
primarily to churches and only secondarily to individual disciples, with only a
few exceptions.
·
The
Western church has lost this with its individualistic lens on reality.
·
We
have, therefore, lost an understanding of the nature of the church because we
have made the church incidental to the individual believer.
In
this passage, Paul will show us that the general strength of the fellowship
becomes the strength of the individual.
The corollary is true—the more isolated a believer is from other
believers, the more spiritually unstable she/he is likely to be. Loving unity in the fellowship creates an environment for individual
stability that gives rise to genuine joy.
I. Understanding the Command to Rejoice (v.4).
v.
4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”
·
This
verse expresses the theme of this letter from the apostle Paul to the
Philippian church. Joy is such a vitally
important factor in spiritual stability that Paul repeats his command for
emphasis. The repetition presupposes that it was not easy to be
joyful. The Philippians needed to arise
above the dissension in their midst in order to regain joy in their fellowship.
1.
Joy is Confidence,
Not Emotional Response.
·
Some,
wrongly identifying joy as a purely human emotion, find Paul’s twice-repeated
command to rejoice puzzling. How can people be commanded to produce an
emotion? But joy is not a feeling; it is a
deep down confidence (hope) that God is in control of everything for the
believer’s good and his own glory and therefore, everything is well regardless
of the circumstances. Neither
Paul’s imprisonment nor the Philippians trials should eclipse their joy.
·
Emotions
are fickle—always changing, rarely dependable.
I certainly hope Paul has something more in mind than human emotion when
he tells us to “Rejoice.” Because, quite
honestly, I don’t think I have the energy to keep the plates spinning if it’s
up to me to ‘keep the joy flowing.’
·
It
is true that believers often cannot find reason to rejoice over their specific
circumstances. Nor are people a reliable
source of joy since they can change, hurt, judge, and disappoint. The only sure, reliable, unchanging source of
joy is God. That is the reason Paul
qualifies the imperative/command to rejoice with “in the Lord.” Spiritual
stability is directly linked to with how a person thinks about God.
1)
Knowing
God is the key to rejoicing (Phil 3:8)—intimate knowledge.
2)
Joy, hope, faith are interchangeable biblical terms since
they all have to do with knowing God intimately and the resultant confidence in
Him. Read anywhere in the Bible and use any of
these terms in place of the others and you retain the same meaning, perhaps
even enhancing your understanding of it.
·
Faith=knowing
the character of God; believing the promises from God. Hope=confidence in God born of intimacy with
Him that never ends.
Romans
12:12,
“be joyful in hope”
·
How is joy related to confidence in
God? The Greek is charete. The root of the
word is charis=grace. The idea is that if God has saved us by His
grace, will He not take care of everything else on the same basis? READ Romans 8:28-32.
God’s grace is what enables us to rejoice.
II. Understanding Joy’s Connection to the
Community (v.7).
“And the peace of
God, which transcends all human understanding, will guard your hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus.”
·
Remember
that this is a message to the church primarily, and to the individual only in a
secondary sense. This can be seen in 4:7,
“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” It is not coincidental that Paul’s
command to rejoice is placed in the same context of dealing with church unity.
1.
True joy is known only in community with other
believers.
·
Other
Christians with whom we are in relation are a source of incomparable strength
and encouragement to the believer.
·
The
believer should feel no shame when he/she yearns for the physical presence of
other believers.
·
Christianity
means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than
this.
1)
This means, first, that a Christian needs others because
of Jesus Christ.
·
This clarifies the goal of all
Christian community—exalt Christ in the lives of one another. Fellowship is founded solely upon Jesus
Christ. (Phil 1:14, “brothers in the Lord”).
I am a brother to another person through what Jesus Christ did for me
and to me; the other person has become a brother to me through what Jesus
Christ did for him.
2)
This
means, second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ.
·
We who have received grace freely
extend grace to one another.
READ Romans 13:9-12—It
would be unthinkable of me to condemn someone else when I, myself, am clinging
desperately to God’s grace.
·
This establishes a foundation of trust
where individuals can freely share their hurt and failure without fear of
reprisal or repercussion.
·
This
is not true merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something
else were to be added to the community; it remains so for all the future and to
all eternity. The more genuine and the
deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us receded,
the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and
only thing that is vital between us. “We have one another only through Jesus
Christ, but through Jesus Christ we do have one another, wholly, for all
eternity.”
·
Because
God has laid the only foundation of our fellowship we enter into common life
not as demanders but as thankful recipients.
Phil 4:6 “…with thanksgiving”
3)
This means, third, that in Jesus Christ
we need open worship, open sharing, and open ministry to maintain our common
life in Christ.
·
If
you’ve ever felt lonely and unimportant in church, there’s a good reason: In
most churches you are alone and unimportant.
From 11 to 12 Sunday morning, you’re just another pretty face in the
crowd. Though surrounded by others,
you’re cut off.
CLOSE: Loving unity in the fellowship creates an environment of individual stability that gives rise to genuine joy.
·
Joy comes from knowing God and having confidence that by
his grace he will take care of us.
·
God’s grace is what enables us to rejoice.
·
And this joy is known most clearly in the context of a
community of grace sharing and receiving with other believers.
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