Philippians 4:4-9
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say,
Rejoice. 5 Let
your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry 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. 8 Finally,
beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever
is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if
there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think
about these things. 9 Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received
and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
I’m usually not one who likes to
begin a sermon with a joke, so forgive me for breaking with my own pattern.
There’s an old Jeff Foxworthy joke that goes like this: if someone in your
family buys a new house and you have to help take the wheels off of it…you
might be a redneck! Well, I might be a redneck, because back in 1998 my aunt
(my mother’s sister) and her husband had bought a new house. While we didn’t
help take the wheels off of it, we did help them break it in with the closest
thing to a house warming party I’d ever been to. My mom, my sister, and I had
gone over to my aunt’s new double-wide, and she was eager to show it off: there
was the giant, new Jacuzzi tub, in the giant, new master suite, and there was
the enormous living room with a gas fireplace, a nice, sparkling new kitchen,
with new appliances like a dishwasher and a refrigerator with ice and water in
the door. Everything about their new home was new—so new in fact, it smelled
like a combination of a new car and a brand-new pair of sneakers.
At some point during the tour, my
mom had slipped outside onto the back porch. I figured she had just gone
outside to smoke a cigarette, but when it seemed she was taking too long, I
went outside just to make sure she wasn’t chain smoking one after another
(after all, she was missing some really cool stuff inside). When I walked out
the door, I didn’t find my mom smoking. No, she was crying. I was a little
confused, so I asked her what was wrong. She looked at me and pointed at my
aunt’s new trailer—her brand new house—and said, “We’ll never have anything
like that.”
At the time we lived in the house in which I spent most of my childhood,
the house at 200 North Hill Street in Enterprise. You can go by there today,
but you won’t see the house. The tornado back in 2007 sucked it clean off the
foundation—not even a stick is left, just the blocks and concrete that made up
the crawlspace foundation. We moved into that house when I was in the third
grade. We rented it from a nice lady who lived in Daleville for less than $300
a month. It was an older, wood-framed house, with worn hardwood floors, natural
gas forced-air heat, a window air-conditioner, and a kitchen with appliances
from another generation (but no dishwasher). It wasn’t much, but at least we
had free cable since the cable company never disconnected it when the previous
owner left. But there, on the back porch of my aunt’s new trailer, I began to
loathe that house.
I remember riding home that night in the back seat of our Ford Taurus
station wagon, watching the moon follow us home. I remember looking up at that
moon and praying to a God I could only hope was real and asking him to give my
momma a house. If he’d give us a house I’d do anything (even if it meant going
to church every Sunday—God has a great sense of humor!).
It was likely a few weeks later, but in my memories it seems like it was
the next day: my mom came home and told us that she had been talking with a
doctor at the nursing home where she worked about a trailer and some land one
of the nurses was selling when she retired at the end of the year. If things
worked out, we were going to be able to buy the trailer and the land. Today, my
mom and step-dad still live in that same trailer on that same land, and they
own it outright. God gave my momma a house.
I’m sure many of you could tell your own stories of how God provided an
answer to one of your prayers. In this season of Thanksgiving, it’s important
to take time to look back at all that God has done for you, to thank God for
the many ways your prayers have been answered, for the many ways you’ve been
cared for by God. When we honestly reflect on all that God has given us, how
can we not do what Paul commands the Christians at Philippi to do in verse 4 of the passage we’ve heard
today? “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
As Paul brings this letter to his beloved Philippians to a close, he
commands them to be joyful. Joy, however, should not be confused with
happiness. Rather, joy is an attitude, a perspective on life. Joy, unlike
happiness, does not depend on the result of things that happen in life. Joy
does not spring forth from the end results of positive outcomes. No, joy, true
joy, grows forth from your genuine relationship with God.[1]
That’s why Paul is sure to say “Rejoice in the Lord always…” If you have a sense of joy
in your life, it comes from one source—God. If you don’t have true joy “just
momentary spells of fleeting happiness) then perhaps as you reflect on all that
for which you have to be thankful you should examine your heart, your spirit.
Is God the true center of who you are?
You see, that’s what Paul is saying to these early Christians—to us current
Christians. God is the true source of joy, and that joy, that God-centered
life, is made evident through the selfless way we live with one another. That’s
what the apostle is driving at in verse
5: “Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”
When Paul speaks of gentleness, he speaks of the kind of spirit that patiently
endures the faults of others, a spirit that doesn’t seek revenge when provoked,
the kind of spirit that stands in stark opposition to the kind of spirit that
is contentious and self-seeking. Paul, with his closing words of this letter,
is still addressing some issues of contention and division within the church at
Philippi,[2]
but that doesn’t mean that his words do not hold true for us in a context two
thousand years removed.
In this season of thankfulness, it is easy to reflect on all that God has
done for us. It may even be tempting to puff out our chests and brag a bit
about all that we’ve done for God. But true thankfulness from the heart of a
believer begins with selfless, long-suffering gentleness. Remember that this
week as you gather with family and friends, for (if you’re anything like me)
there will be times when someone will say something that may grate against your
nerves, or there will be those who you will be less than excited to see. May
you (may we all) remember the command from the apostle Paul in Holy Scripture:
“Let
your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near,” because Paul
goes on to tell us in verse 7 “And the peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
It’s that “and” at the beginning of verse 7 (the tiny Greek word kai) that is worth noting. It’s more
than just a simple conjunction, a part of the language connecting two clauses;
it is used in such a way as to say that the words following it are
conditionally linked the preceding words.[3]
Another way to say what Paul writes is, “Let
your gentleness be known to everyone and (when you do) the peace of God will
guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” This “peace of God” is more
than just an easy, peaceful feeling; it’s more than just some brief experience
of quiet tranquility. The peace of God is the peace that God possesses and
bestows onto others; it is a peace that leads to contentment.[4]
How important it is that we understand that in this season! Contentment can
seem like the farthest thing from our spirits when we stop for a brief breath
to rush a word of thanks before piling in the car to run to “Black Friday”
sales or begin to start our own wish lists. Most importantly, though, this
peace from God is not simply the kind of peace experienced by each of us
individually: it is the kind of peace that reigns over the whole of who we are
as the gathered people of God.[5]
This peace of God is so important to Paul, and it is so important to all
of us who call ourselves the people of God, that Paul says in verses 8 and 9: “Finally, beloved, whatever is
true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is
pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is
anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing
the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the
God of peace will be with you.” There it is again, “the peace of God.”
Paul commands the Christians at Philippi to think on the things that are true,
honorable, just, pure, pleasing (to God), commendable, excellent, and
praiseworthy, but to “think about these things” doesn’t simply mean reflect on
them from time to time. No, when Paul tells them to think about these things,
he is quick to drive home what he means when he tells them to “keep on doing
the[se] things.”
You see, the joy of God, the peace of God, are not things that suddenly
dawn upon us in the midst of self-reflecting prayer. The joy and peace of God
are not things that overtake us when pause the one day out of the year to give
thanks. The joy of God grows out of our living
in relationship with God. The peace of God grows out of our actions that are true, honorable, just,
pure, pleasing (to God), commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy. When we do
the things God calls us to do, when we live as God calls us to live, then—then
the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will be with us, and it is
that peace that lets us rejoice and give thanks.
It is the peace of God that allows us to still have joy when our prayers
aren’t answered the way we’d wish God would answer them. It is the peace of God
that creates within us the gentleness it takes to be God’s hands and feet in a
world that often rejects, while so desperately needing, God. It is the peace of
God that fills our hearts and our souls with the kind of contentment that sings
with the words of that great hymn by Horatio Spafford: “When peace, like a
river, attendeth my way,/ When sorrows like sea billows roll;/ Whatever my
lot,/ Thou has taught me to say,/ It is well, it is well, with my soul.”
May you let your gentleness be known to everyone. May you experience the
joy that can only come from knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. May you experience
the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. If you are here today and
do not know such joy, such peace, then I invite you to come forward during our
time of commitment and give yourself to the One who is the ultimate source of
joy and peace, so that you may add to your thanksgiving a new spirit of
gentleness, contentment, joy, and peace as a follower of the Lord Jesus.
Let us pray…
[1]
David E. Garland. The Expositor’s Bible
Commentary: Volume 12. Zondervan:
Grand Rapids, MI (2006) p.252.
[2]
Garland, p.252.
[3]Frank
Theilman, The NIV Application Commentary:
Philippians. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI (1995) p.219.
[4]
Garland, p.253.
[5]
Ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment