Evidential Joy

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

In December 1776, Thomas Paine wrote these famous words, These are the times that try men’s souls. That’s how he began his paper titled The Crisis. He was writing to bolster the courage of his fellow Americans in their war for independence from Great Britain. Paine’s words seem appropriate to life in general if you think about it. Even Job observed that man is born to trouble as readily as sparks fly up from a fire. Trials are inevitable. That’s the bad news. Thankfully though, there is good news for followers of Jesus. As Christians, we are never alone in the midst of trials. The Holy Spirit is ever present and He supplies the grace and the comfort.

Yea, even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will not fear, we will not lose hope, we will count it all joy because we know that our help is in the name of the Lord. May they have a hearing. O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. For the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it and his hands formed the dry land.

Oh, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our God, our maker, for he is our God. And we are the people of this pasture and the sheep of his hands. And father, we do come into your presence this morning and we pray that you would meet us where we are at and bring us to a place of greater hope, greater joy, greater faith than before. We pray for you to do for us what Isaiah said you would do for those who mourn in Zion. We ask that you would give us a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting, so that we might be called oaks of righteousness.

Father, thank you that your will is for us that we should be full of joy in Christ. When Satan tempts us to despair, help us to think aright and to remember greater is he who is in us than he was in the world. These are not just Christian platitudes we placate ourselves with, but with their ironclad promises made by the Father, secured by the Son, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. As we enter now into our time of corporate worship, may you help us fix our minds and hearts upon you, and may our worship truly glorify and honor you, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Do you have enough faith? Where does your faith come from? What do you need faith for? Maybe times like these. Maybe this situation God has you in or has our little family in at the moment. It’s always an exercise of our faith, the circumstance that we live under. In James 1, 1 through 8, James says, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes and the dispersion.

Greetings count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let status steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

That ends fairly cheerfully. If you find yourself being tossed around, seek the Lord. Ask for wisdom. Ask him to strengthen your faith. The second question I asked is, where does our faith come from? Sometimes we forget that. Again, the Bible tells us where it comes from. Ephesians 2, 8, and 10. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Your faith is a gift of God. If your faith is weak, it causes you sometimes to sin, which brings us to this part in our service and part of our liturgy that we corporately confess our sin together to God so that then we can move into the next parts of our liturgy.

So if this is brought to mind weakness in your faith or other sins that you may have committed, this is the time that we ask for forgiveness.

So we take a moment now and you can quietly examine and confess your sins, you who are able and are interested in or invited to kneel before the Lord. And after we have some silent confession, I will get up and close this with a prayer. So let’s pray. Father, we confess our need for you. Help us to strengthen our weak faith. Forgive us our sins against each other and you. Help us through your spirit to repent and reconcile with each other when needed. Help us to be those people that you are growing. Help us to understand the supernatural work that you do in us each and every day those of us that believe how you’re conforming us to the image of your son. Help us to recognize that and we pray in your son’s name Jesus Christ. Amen. You may stand and And today, one thing you’ll notice, that Jim’s message is going to be from Philippians, and my encouragement that your sins are forgiven comes from there, and at the end of our service, my charge to you is going to come from the same passages

that Jim is going to preach on, Jonathan is going to read. So we want you to see that there’s a neat little package here that all this comes together. Philippians 3, 8, and 9, Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and counted them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. And you are who our believers have that, and so on we go in our service.

And as Dave mentioned, our scripture reading this morning is going to come from Philippians chapter 3. I will be reading verses 1 through 16 from the English Standard Version, Philippians 3, 1 through 16. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same thing to you is no trouble for me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.

Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, our temptation is to try to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and muddle through life unassisted.

And this is an evidence, actually, of Your kindness to us, that we have the resources and the ability, physically and otherwise, to be able to do any good thing is an evidence of Your kindness and is the sort of thing that we routinely abuse. These remove this habit from us, make us aware of who we are in light of, who you are, and what you are like. As we gather this morning to worship you, we pray that by your grace you would conform us to your Son’s image and an accurate likeness of yourself as we worship you. When we do that, then our perspectives will be aligned, our vision will be clarified, and our humility will increase.

Because you have told us to do so, and because Christ has worked on our behalf, we, with confidence and obedience come before you this morning, making our requests made known to you. As Jim already mentioned this morning, we mourn with the Higgins family the passing of Brooke Higgins and we ask that you would please grant comfort and peace as well as the energy to now handle the logistics related to Brooke’s passing. We pray that the memorial service would bring you great honor and as Morgan and the kids are now flying to Ohio and as Shawn is already there, we ask that you would equip them well to serve Sean’s family and to be a blessing while also finding comfort themselves. May it be fruitful for all. Most importantly, we thank you for saving Brooke last year and that this passing is now a see you later rather than a permanent goodbye. We want to pray for Steve Snyder, that is the nephew of Mary Kay Durden and Okinawa.

He’s having some nervous neurological problems affecting his feeling and his mobility, his ability to work and the rest. We pray for full and speedy recovery for him. We want to pray for Debbie Walden or continued cancer treatments. We know that she is going to be having a blood test this Tuesday and then a CAT scan on a week from Monday to determine whether to continue the current course of action. If this treatment is being successful and we ask that you would make it very clear and please grant direction to her doctors as they work on her behalf. And Father, we ask that you would allow her to, by your grace, have victory over this and to be healed completely as you are capable of doing.

We want to pray for other illnesses in our sphere of influence, including Audrey Barnes and her ear infection, Travis Upson, and as he is trying to figure out what to do with this severe rash in his arm that has puzzled the doctors so far, but has not puzzled you. Many are recovering now from recent surgeries. Judy Reeves, Ralph Durden, Carmen Nielsen, Taylor Rothenberger, Grady Bone, Elizabeth Ratzlaff, Carol Slice, Morgan Higgins, and no doubt others. Father, we long for the day when we will no longer be subject to illness or injury, and we will not be in broken bodies that are tainted by sin, but we will be in transformed, heavenly bodies that will be able to withstand your resplendent glory.

And that is something to look forward to. In the meantime, please use these reminders of the frailty of our bodies and the consequence of sin and even death to align our perspectives and to bring you honor. We thank you for the men in our congregation who get to serve both you and our country in the Navy, namely Jubal Marlat, Ben Hackbarth, Dan Wibbenmayer, as Jubal is at the twilight of his military career. We ask that you grant direction for the next season of life for them and grant him permanent employment that is going to be such that he would be really excited about the work that he does. That’s hard to do for a guy who’s so qualified as he is. Make your will clear there. We’re excited about this army of small children that runs around our church. It shouts of your blessing on our families. It is exciting to think what a force they will be for your kingdom’s sake one generation from now. Along the way, please grant grace and wisdom to the parents as they try to obey your command to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Along those lines, we do pray for uneventful pregnancies for Karen Walton, Alicia Kulishov, Cheryl Wivenmeyer. We are grateful for the return from Canada of Julie Ratzlaff and also for Anastasia Lomakin, getting back with her little one from Russia recently and others who are away for extended periods of time, but come back. The return is so much sweeter. We ask that you would please bless our ministry outreach opportunities as we are privileged to be able to partner with the Good Shepherd Children’s Home in southern India. We ask that you would grant wisdom and direction to Sajji and Yancey Thomas as they shepherd those precious young ladies and may their influence and their faithfulness have echoes in southern India for generations to come.

We pray for the Children’s Law Center of Washington and the good work of Andrew Schneider and others under his charge and leadership. As they are trying to place children and foster children of Washington State and forever homes, we know that that is something that is near and dear to your heart. As we at Evangel Classical School work hard to be faithful and to advance culture, we ask that you bring to the school just the right families and at the right pace as we make plans for next year. Help all of those decisions to be easy and clear while also being faithful to work hard. We are grateful that you call us every week to wield the battering ram of worship and take a swing against the gates of the citadels of unbelief as we do so this morning.

And as we fix our eyes on you, as we fix our minds on your word, and even slides with truthful lyrics to the words we would sing, we ask you to transform us. Into the likeness of Christ by your grace may we worship in spirit and in truth, And may you glorify yourself among us, we pray. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen. Father, we have just sung about your tremendous faithfulness. We a needy people crying out to you, Father, confessing our faults, our weaknesses, and you a gracious God who gladly comes and rescues us and provides for us and delivers us. Father, impress upon our hearts, again, just how awesome you are.

As we open up your word this morning, as we talk about the topic of joy, Father, help us to deeply appreciate and understand this attribute, to understand that it is yours and the Son’s will, that our joy may be made complete, that it may be full, even though we live in these mortal coils that are failing, that are temporary, that’ll dry up like the flower dries in the sun and blows away. that we have not put confidence in our flesh, but put our confidence totally and completely in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We just ask these things now in your Son Jesus’ name, amen. This morning I’m going to attempt to re-preach a message that I first preached in June 2011.

When the elders got the call Thursday night that Sean had to make an emergency trip back east, the three remaining elders, we put our heads together and we were discussing What are we going to do today? How are we going to cover it? There wasn’t really enough time to put together a fresh sermon for today from scratch. So I suggested that I re-preach this sermon on joy. And given how many trials our church members have been going through these past few years, and if you think about it, it’s been quite a few years of trials, I thought it might be a good reminder for ourselves of the hope and the joy that the Lord brings during times of difficulty.

So with your permission, I’m going to go ahead. Even though I guess I don’t have your permission, going to repreach this message and hopefully you’ll be encouraged by it. Don’t you like when they ask those questions when there really is no answer for it? Several years ago, Sean taught a series based on the book, Religious Effections by Jonathan Edwards. A key principle Edwards taught was that we always do what we most want to do. We always do what we most want to do. That is, we can have multiple affections, and sometimes those affections pull us in opposite directions. For example, I have a very strong affection for cheddar cheese and Oreo cookies, but I also have an affection for a healthy heart and less than 18% body fat.

Those affections are not pulling in the same direction. that are the strongest will largely determine what choices we make. Not only do our affections drive the choices we make, but they also lead to our joy or lack thereof. Soul-satisfying, hope-producing, witness-intriguing joy can only happen when our strongest affection is for God. Now, the good news is that our affections are something that we can cultivate and change over time and in so doing increase our joy immensely. So if you’re sitting there this morning thinking, well, my grace of affection is not for God, you’re not doomed to that position. That is something that can change with time and effort.

Joy is vitally important. Hebrews 12 too, speaking of Jesus says, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. of all that Jesus was facing as he approached the death on the cross, all that he was enduring, all that was going on. I mean, just from a human standpoint, it was atrocious. But think about the God of the universe going through that. And yet for the joy set before him, he endured that. I love this example because it shows us that joy is independent of circumstances and that it has the power to help us to endure all manner of hardship. So what does joy look like? I mean, how does it manifest itself?

We do a lot of talking around here about waving our joy flags. What does that mean? What does a joy flag waver look like? We know that joy is not the same as being happy about something, although joy and being happy often go hand in hand. You’ve probably had lots of Bible study discussions about happiness versus joy. And back and forth, the debate goes. Some have described joy as an inner peace in the face of external trials. It’s often said that joy is something internal while mere happiness is an external thing. But I wonder if we have downgraded joy to something less than it is in order to make excuses for why our joy is not always obvious.

If we are a joy-filled people, shouldn’t that joy express itself? We give each other pep talks about being joyful in quote spirit even while our outward countenance communicates anything but joy. Shouldn’t a joyful spirit manifest itself in our countenance? Charles Spurgeon seemed to think so. He wrote, when the heart is full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It’s like the fountain in the marketplace. Whenever it is full, it runs away in streams. And as soon as it ceases to overflow, You may be quite sure that it is ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing heart. I like that. Joy always finds a way to escape, to be expressed.

Being joyful does not mean we are impervious to the many painful things that come with being mortal. But it does mean that joy will always emerge out of whatever chaos is going on in our lives. Joy can’t be suppressed. It always rises to the top. Our joy or lack thereof tells us where our deepest affections lie. Consider that we are commanded to rejoice in the Lord. How would you compare the Lord to some of the following things? Let’s just do a comparison thing. The joy of the Lord on one side versus the joy you might find in these. A huge pay raise, a wedding engagement, a new baby being born, being healed of cancer, being debt free, winning a once in a lifetime vacation.

What would your response be to those events in your life? Clearly Jesus far and away outstrips the values of those things. Those things are as rubbish compared to Him, but how do those things affect your countenance, your conversation? The joy of the Lord is the gauge on our spiritual dashboard telling us if our heart is full of affection for God or not. Joy should impact every aspect of our being and it shouldn’t be hard for anyone to detect it in our life. In the time remaining then, I’d like to show from Philippians 3 verse 17 through 4-8, five ways that joy is developed and displayed in a maturing Christian, and that’ll be the passage we’ll be focusing on. So there’s five observations I want to make talking about how joy is developed and displayed in the believer’s life. Those five points, if you want to have points to follow, you can follow these five. I’ll repeat them as I go on so you don’t have to scribble them all now. The first point, joy mimics godly examples. Secondly, joy

delights in holy transformation. Joy loves the unity of the brethren. Joy produces real peace and joy causes pure thinking. So I had Jonathan read Philippians 1 through 16 to kind of give us some of the backdrop for this passage that we’re going to take a look at. Again, we’re in Philippians 3, 17 through 4-8. Our passage comes out of the larger context. It starts in Philippians 3-1 and it goes all the way to 4-8. Paul begins 3-1 with the command to rejoice in the Lord. And then in 4-4 he says again to rejoice in the Lord. In the case we’re not getting the point, he says in 4-4 rejoice in the Lord a second time. Joy seems to me to serve as the bookends to this section of the Scriptures. And so what I want to do then is take a look at that, given these bookends of joy on both sides of that, I want to take a look at what’s in between there and see what we can glean about what joy-filled people look like how people get that joy-filled life.

So we’ll just make these five observations in our time remaining. So firstly, joy mimics godly examples. One of the best ways to foster and maintain joy in life is to mimic other joyful Christians.

17 brethren join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us Paul instructs the Philippians to follow his example as well as any others who exhibit the same pattern of godly living that he did now the world system that we live in today tends to value free spirited independence conformity is viewed as equivalent to mind control and going against the flow and going to going against the flow becomes a virtue onto itself we just live in that kind of a culture where do your own thing in his book for a glory and a covering Doug Wilson speaks to the issue of imitation and he writes in scripture learning is profoundly incarnational but we have been taught in countless ways that true knowledge is abstract and disembodied when people begin to self-consciously imitate their parents and their elders, it is not long before the charge of mind control and cult begin to fly.

Part of the godly fruit of incarnational imitation is like-mindedness, which the Bible praises in a number of places, in which our modern world condemns. It is not even hard to find Christians who are wary of like-mindedness. Instead, they say, you have to be an individual. You have to think for yourself. Be your own dog. You must not imitate others, period. The result of this vain exercise, like throwing rocks at the moon, does not eliminate imitation. It only guarantees the imitation of fools. There is no way to escape imitation in life. We all do it. Biblical discipleship stands in stark contrast to this mindset.

Discipleship says, come, follow me, and do as I do. In the same way, the coals in a fireplace keep each other glowing, so do joyful Christians help each other keep on rejoicing in the Lord. Finding other godly persons and following their example will benefit us in several ways. It will tend to help us avoid joy-robbing sin, especially if there is mutual accountability in a relationship. Sadly, many Christians go through life without ever really having any kind of true accountability where people are asking the hard questions, how they’re doing in their life. And it’s easy for us to get into that independent mindedness.

We’re doing our own thing, and pretty soon we’re off in the weeds in some area of sin. It will also help ward off discouragement by nipping negative thoughts and attitudes in the bud before they blossom into a critical spirit. Again, when we’re left to our own thoughts, we can tend to spiral into negative thinking, critical thinking, and pretty soon it’s coming out through our mouths. And we’re just being very negative, Joy is being taken away as we allow that negative thought to carry us away. Joy in the Lord is the fuel that keeps us pressing on towards our upward calling Christ. When we don’t have joy, then life will feel like pushing a car uphill in a hundred degree weather.

Walking with and observing those who exhibit true joy are some of the surest ways to maintain a healthy spiritual demeanor. Ecclesiastes four nine through 12 illustrates the principle this way. Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor, for if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion, but woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together, they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. Now, there are good examples to follow that will help bolster our faith, But there’s also bad examples to avoid that will be a drain on our joy.

And Paul identifies them starting in verse 18. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose goddess are appetite, and whose glory is their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. What is so bad about these people that it causes Paul to weep? Paul is a tender hearted guy, but he’s no sissy, so his concern should concern us as well. He cites two things specifically, and the context implies a third. The two specific things he mentions are, one, there are many of these individuals, and two, they are enemies of Christ.

It should be no surprise that there are many, since the path to heaven is narrow, but the road to destruction is wide. Not only are there many, but they are enemies of the cross. What makes them an enemy of the cross? Given what Paul has said thus far, we can conclude that these enemies are those who are either rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ outright, or they are those who are perverting the gospel by adding man-made strictures to it. And then the third reason for Paul’s weeping implied from the text is that these individuals represent a real threat to those who are of the true circumcision. Those who have been saved must be ever vigilant against those who seek to modify the gospel by adding requirements to it. It is easy to see how the major cults seek to do this today. It’s more subtle when those within the true church start to add standards of practice and conduct they call biblical, when in fact it’s preference.

Now before we leave this section, let’s look at Paul’s description of these enemies of the gospel. I believe Paul is showing a progression here in reverse order. So starting at the end of verse 19 and working backwards, here’s what we learn about these enemies of the cross. First, they set their minds on earthly things. This mindset is sin and inevitably leads them deeper and deeper into sin. So step one is they set their minds on earthly things. We can see this pattern today in our own society where increasingly that which is evil is declared good. We have many examples of that in our culture today. Secondly, once that sin has become entrenched, it leads to a reprobate mind where their glory is their shame.

We see this everywhere today. Behaviors that even the unsaved once were embarrassed by are now flouted in full public view. Not only are they not ashamed, they do in fact glory in their debauchery. Most recently, does anyone recall what the costume of choice was in the recent women’s march? What was shameful, they call empowering. Sin is gross. The third step in this progression is that these enemies of the cross become so blinded in their sin that their appetite for wickedness becomes their God. Instead of worshiping the true God, They worship the God of self-indulgence and are never satiated and thus continue their downward spiral, which leads to the fourth and final step in the progression, which is their destruction.

Look again at where this progression started. Their minds were set on earthly things. This should serve as a warning to us who are of the true circumcision. We must make sure we have the correct mindset. And once again, we see how our strongest affections dictate our path. The only possible hope for lasting joy is to fix our gaze or our mindset on what lays ahead future glory and not upon what lies behind the things of the world. I always warn those who are sporadic in attending corporate worship or small groups. Christianity is not based on the concept of individualism. I have never seen anyone. I’ve been in the faith for 45 years.

I have never seen anyone who chose to neglect these basic spiritual disciplines, who has not succumbed to worldliness and joylessness. Joy mimics godly examples. Second point, joy delights in holy transformation. Earlier in chapter 3, Paul tells us of the security we have as believers because we have been laid hold of by Christ himself. Verse 12, not that I’ve already obtained it, the resurrection of the dead, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. The second half of this verse was illustrated for me one day when I was helping my then 10 month old granddaughter, Noel, learned to walk around my house.

And as I’m sure you’ve done this, um, I put my fingers out like this and then She took her little fists and wrapped around my fingers and then popped up on her feet. And then as I would guide her, she was walking through the house quite proud of where she was going. But it reminded me was that in fact, while she thought she was laying hold of me, which she was, in fact, I was laying hold of her. And I was the one that was really in control of where she was going and what she was doing. Paul affirms his truth again, starting in verse 20. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Again, we see the security that comes from knowing that Jesus is at work transforming us into His image. One of the marks of a joyful Christian is his eager anticipation of the fulfillment of his salvation. Of course, I’m referring then to what we call glorification. Salvation, as you know, has three aspects, justification, sanctification, glorification. For those who’ve been saved and are still here on earth, we have already been justified. That’s done. Now we’re in the process of being sanctified, and that’s going to continue until we’re raptured or until we go to heaven.

And then Paul reminds us that we are aliens in this world for now by telling us that our citizenship is in heaven. Heaven is home to us and that is where Jesus resides, now sitting at the right hand of the Father. This means that our highest affection should include longing to go home to be with Jesus. If we find a hesitancy in our heart that says not yet, it indicates that our joy is not completely in Christ. All of us should have that longing to go home, to be with Christ. Paul describes the joy-filled Christian as one who eagerly awaits for our Savior to come from heaven and complete the transformation process. When Jesus comes, He will change us from the body of our humble estate to the body of His glory. Every morning when I look in the mirror, I’m reminded of my humble estate, and I’m looking forward to a heavenly makeover.

Notice again the recurring theme that it is all of God. He will come and complete this transformation by the exercise of his power and his authority. How secure and certain is that? Genuine joy in Christ is evidenced by a deep longing to be delivered from this body of death and to enter his presence forever and ever. Does that describe what preoccupies your mind? Or have you set your mind on things of earth? And so that’s just a distant thought. Third, joy loves the unity of the brethren. One of the truest measures of joy in a person is their affection for other believers. This only makes sense. If we are rejoicing in Christ, then it stands to reason that whatever’s near and dear to his heart will be near to ours as well.

And this was certainly true of Paul. Look at 4.1. Therefore, my beloved brethren, whom I long to see, my joy and crown, so stand firm in the Lord, my beloved. Can you see Paul’s tenderness towards the Philippians? Twice in just one verse, he refers to them as my beloved. He also calls them my joy and crown. Now calling them this, his crown shows how proud he was of them. He wanted to show them off as a testimony of what God was doing in their lives. Now Paul isn’t commending them because of their own accomplishments. That would contradict his repudiation of putting confidence in the flesh. What caused him to feel such love and joy and to want to show them off was their faithfulness to what God through Paul had taught them. Their joy in the Lord was on display and it helped make Paul’s own joy complete. That’s how joy works practically. One person ministers joyfully to another, which increases that person’s joy, which in turn increases the joy of the first person. God designed it to be that way.

We’ve we encourage each other in our joy abounds and grows as we mutually encourage one another Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way when sometimes sin or immaturity Which is another word for sin causes disunity in the body Disunity is a joy killer and something that we need to strive hard to eliminate Apparently some kind of discord was happening in the church in Philippi. Look at verse 2 I urge Yodia and I urge Syntheke to live in harmony in the Lord. Indeed, true comrade, I ask you to help these women who have shared my struggles in the cause of the gospel together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the Book of Life. Now we don’t know what the source of the conflict was between these two sisters in the Lord. Apparently they had been faithfully ministering in the church because Paul describes them as women who had shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel.

Paul’s concern was that these two women who once labored hard for the sake of the gospel now risked being a hindrance to the gospel because they had allowed some dispute to overtake them. Paul exhorts his women to live in harmony in the Lord. The Greek word used here for harmony literally means to have understanding. Disputes are almost inevitable given our humanness. We’re just different people. We’re going to have disputes. When they do occur, however, we must make it a high priority to resolve them and to seek to have understanding. Often sin, in the form of stubbornness or pride, causes one or both parties to become so entrenched in their own point of view that they are unable or unwilling to understand what the other person is coming, where the other person is coming from.

I mean, it really reminds you of our political realities today. I don’t know about you, but it drives me crazy watching the talking heads, and they’re always talking past each other.

never responding to what the other person said. We have national debates, which are never debates. They’re just sound bites and arguments. But we never have that desire to truly seek to understand what the other person’s thinking and what’s going on. A wise person is the one who will take the time to listen and understand where another person’s coming from rather than just reacting with anger or hurt. Proverbs 20, verse 5 provides a wise word on this point, and I love this verse and I’ve always remembered it, a plan in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding draws it out. A man of understanding is another way of saying a wise man. Too often disputes get inflamed because no one is wise enough to figure out what the other person is saying. We react to those initial hot-button words or maybe the tone or whatever it is and we off we go, we’re reacting to that, or we’re making assumptions rather than asking clarifying questions. We’re not taking the time to probe and dive deep

and try to understand where that person is coming from. And then on the other hand, sometimes the best course of action might be to simply let it go and exhibit a forbearing spirit. Proverbs 17-14 gives us the balancing view. The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so abandon the coral before it breaks out. Sometimes you need wisdom, sometimes, okay this is one I just got a smile, a and bear it and just let it go because if I prick that thing, the water is going to come gushing out. So sometimes walking away is the right thing. Whichever course of action you take in dealing with a dispute, humility is the key.

Joy and pride cannot exist together. That makes sense since God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. If you find your joy flagging, check your heart to see if you have allowed some pride to take root in there. our relationships with other believers and striving to live in harmony is an essential part of rejoicing in the Lord. We cannot have the joy of the Lord if we are walking around with unresolved conflicts that have disputes that are going on amongst ourselves. The next point. Joy produces real peace. Earlier in Philippians we saw Paul weeping as he talked about the enemies of the cross. Then we saw his burden for two sisters in the Lord who were at odds with each other.

You might think that Paul is starting to get a little melancholy at this point, but then like steam and a pressure cooker that just can’t be contained, he blurts out in verse 4, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Real joy is like that. It can’t be contained. It must express itself. Like the character Uncle Albert and Mary Poppins who can’t keep himself from laughing, So is Paul, who can’t control his outburst of joy. Paul is so filled with joy that he repeats himself three times in verse 25 he tells us to rejoice in the Lord. And then starting in verse 5, Paul shows us then three more ways joy manifests itself and the peace that results from it.

So in verse 5, let your forbearing spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. The three ways joy manifests itself are straightforward. Be forbearing. Do not be anxious. Be prayerful. First, a joyful person demonstrates a forbearing spirit before all men. The word used here for forbearing means seemingly, fitting, equitable, fair, moderate, insisting on the letter of the law. It expresses the idea of looking humanely and reasonably at the facts of the case. Its opposite would be contentiousness. Joy is not easily provoked.

It’s not looking for a fight. It thinks the best. It has tolerance for others. Poor choice of words. True joy will always seek to be at peace with other men. It is a command found Romans 12 18 if possible so far as it depends on you be at peace with all men it’s not always easy now to be at peace and it’s tempting to just walk away from a dispute rather than go through the often messy and frustrating process of trying to make peace brothers and sisters in Christ give up too quickly on unity and settle for a pseudo peace by agreeing to disagree I have seen this so many times occur in churches where they claim they’re maintaining this spirit of peace but what it is is I don’t agree with you, you don’t agree with me, we’re never going to resolve this difference so let’s just agree to disagree and then we go off in our corners and fume and tell other people do you know what the other guy thinks or believes and that is not real peace agreeing to disagree. More often than not this leads to a fracture in the

overall unity of the body. If Christ died on the cross so that we can be at peace with him, we shouldn’t be willing to, we should, um, let me start over again. If Christ died on the cross so that we can be at peace with him, shouldn’t we be willing to put more effort into being in unity with one another when disputes arise. And then a second way that joy manifests itself in this section is it does not worry, it’s not anxious. Paul rather curdly gives the command, do not be anxious. He just says, don’t be anxious.

Now to someone who struggles with anxious thoughts and I’ve known you know several people who have dealt with real serious problems with anxiety To those people that might sound a little bit like Bob Newhart telling someone in the counselor’s office just stop it You know if you haven’t seen that skit before just go google Bob Newhart and counseling Where the person’s in there were presented all their problems and he’s just listening carefully then he just says stop it And that that’s his solution to the problem. I I don’t believe Paul is being purposefully callous here with the anxious person. He wants this person to understand that rejoicing in the Lord is incompatible with anxious thinking.

You can’t say, I’m rejoicing in the Lord, but I’m still anxious about something. Rejoicing in the Lord produces peace. It produces security. It removes fear. Being anxious originates in our thinking. The only way to combat it is to change our thinking. To the anxious person, Paul says, stop it. Instead, rejoice in the Lord. Now you may have noticed that I missed a little phrase in that section there. It’s a short but critical statement Paul makes. He says, the Lord is near. It’s interesting that he slips that right between the command to be forebearing and the command to not be anxious. It certainly applies to both commands.

we are struggling to be at peace with someone or we’re struggling to stop wrong thinking, knowing that the Lord is near will or should motivate us and encourage us to obey these commands this week. A little exercise. Try meditating on that one phrase. The Lord is near just throughout the week. Just meditate on the Lord is near. The Lord is near. The Lord is near. How would a full understanding of that truth shape your work and your relationships? In the third trait of a joyful person that Paul gives here is the antidote to ancient thinking. He says, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

To those who think that God is not a personal God, this verse blows away that idea. What are we supposed to bring to God’s attention? Everything. If God didn’t want to be bothered, he would not have inspired Paul to tell us to bring everything to him. speaks of God’s intimate and personal care for each of us individually. It also demonstrates his expectations of our reliance on him. When we only pray from the foxholes of life, we’re demonstrating an arrogance that says we can do life on our own until some crisis overwhelms us. We must bring everything to God in prayer in good times and tough times. This shows our proper understanding of of ourselves and of God.

Lots of people, even pagans pray, you know, I know who they’re praying to, but they pray to something when they’re in trouble. But Christians should be praying all the times, good times, hard times. Paul says to bring everything by prayer and supplication. He uses a word for general prayer, followed by a more specific word translated supplication or need. Our prayer life should include times of worship and adoration to God, as well as a time for presenting our needs. Only bringing our supplications to God in prayers reduces Him to then some kind of a cosmic sugar daddy who we turn to whenever we feel we have a need.

By spending time worshipping and adoring Him, we show that we have a proper understanding of who He is. He’s the Holy One, the majestic One, the giver and the taker of all things. Praying this way also helps us increase enjoying the Lord because it helps us to see the rubbish we still cling to for what it is and to forsake it. It grows our affection in the right areas and decreases them in the wrong ones. That discipline of constantly focusing on the Lord and meditating on His goodness and how He supplies all of our needs. In my prayer life I love going through the Psalms and Lord You are my rock and my shield and my shelter and my defender and my hope of glory and on and on. I think there’s 40 or 50 of those. Lord You are my’s. You can fill in the blank.

And You’re training your heart to believe and to reject all of the rubbish of the life and to turn your heart and clean to God. Notice the attitude that is to pervade our thinking as we pray with thanksgiving. Paul doesn’t indicate that we are to pray sometimes with thanksgiving. Every time we pray we are to do so with thanksgiving. This includes when we are praying for someone with cancer or someone who has lost a job or a loved one. Obviously issues we’re dealing with right now. How can a person honestly pray with thanksgiving for these kinds of things. It goes back to rejoicing in the Lord. When we can say with Paul, for me to live is Christ, and I consider all things rubbish for the sake of knowing Christ, we can sacrifice our hopes and expectations at the altar of God’s sovereignty over all things.

This is how Job could say about his overwhelming trials, though he slay me, I will hope in him. Praying for thanksgiving requires that we throw ourselves upon the wisdom and the mercy of God and not question his plan. Whatever life throws at us fits in the category of God is good. And we have to train our hearts to understand that and to believe that. Think of it this way. If I said you can have the entire universe but no God, or you can have God but nothing else, which would you choose? The question is a no-brainer for the person rejoicing in the Lord. The person who is rejoicing in the Lord can pray always with thanksgiving because their deepest desire is found in him.

It doesn’t mean these other areas aren’t unimportant and trivial, but it means their deepest desire is found in him, hence they can trust themselves through a loving God. I love the conclusion of this section. Paul says, And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Once again we see God at work in us. He lays hold of us, making it possible to lay hold of Him. He will transform us into the image of His glory by the exercise of His power.

In addition, we see that the peace He gives us will guard our hearts and minds. Notice it is a peace that passes all understanding. That is all human understanding. How else can you explain the calmness that comes over a true believer in the face of sometimes horrible afflictions. How precious it is to see someone who by worldly standards should be an emotional wreck but instead is standing strong in the Lord. It defies human reason, it defies logic. To the undiscerning it may appear that they are in denial but in reality they are wrapped securely in the blanket of peace that God gives to those who rejoice in Him. And then lastly, joy causes pure thinking.

In verse 8, finally brethren whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute. If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. Rejoicing the Lord can’t help but change a person’s thinking. Note the operative word, dwell, in the verse. Paul is not saying, don’t ever let a negative thought cross your mind. That would be impossible to do. What we must do is take our thoughts captive and choose not to meditate on or dwell on the things that feed the flesh. That is something we can do with it. It’s a discipline we can develop. Our minds are going to naturally go into the negative. We can capture those thoughts and bring them into submission in Christ Jesus.

Think of what’s right, what is pure, what is lovely, what is good report. This can be difficult to do, especially when we are inundated with many unpleasant things. Again, back to earlier point, one more reason why we need to be around the fellowship of the saints so they can encourage us when they hear us starting to go into the negative, party thinking they can guide our thinking back to the Lord rejoicing the Lord can give us victory in this area because it is hard if not impossible to be rejoicing in the Lord and thinking negative thoughts at the same time in our mind have you guys ever met anybody who was really joyful while they were griping about life yeah I’ve never seen such a person when you look at all of the words Paul uses to describe what we’re to dwell on I like to think of of it is making a very tight filter.

It’s a grid like this and then another grid like this and another grid and by the time you layer all these grids, there’s nothing going through. It’s a pretty good filter. I can think of things that are true, for example. So thinking of things that are true but I’m not thinking of things that are honorable. Well, but the next layer of the grid says, well, only think of things that are honorable. Oops, okay, caught that item. I can think of things that are right but I’m not thinking of things that are worthy of praise. So, as I just apply all of those descriptions in that verse, pretty soon I’ve built this multi-layered grid that captures all of the wrong, the negative thinking.

I think if you take these traits of right thinking together, it will pretty much shut down a lot of the thinking that we tend to do when we’re idle. A practical way we can get victory in this area of right thinking is to fill our minds with worthwhile stuff. Makes sense. You know, you’ve always heard the old adage, garbage in, garbage out. need to be filling our minds with the right things. Obviously Bible reading and memorization, good books that bolster our faith and knowledge of God, recorded sermons, just plain talking with other believers about the Lord are all good ways to seed our mind with proper thinking. I would be in a world of hurt if I did not have a team of elders that I meet with on a regular basis and we’re reading all kinds of books and challenging our thinking and I’m human.

I’m my thinking. I’m real good at going negative in my thinking and I need other guys and brothers to remind me to be thinking right and what’s good. We need the fellowship of the saints. We need the Word of God in our hearts. And again, when we don’t avail ourselves of that, we are really putting ourselves into serious trouble. If you study the lives of great men of God that we all like to quote today, you’ll find that they were serious thinkers who spent long hours in prayer and meditation. Sadly, many Christians have not cultivated these spiritual disciplines with the result that there seems to be a collective dumbing down that’s going on. I don’t know if you sense it or not but just where are the Spurgeons? You know where are the Jonathan Edwards? Where are the men like this of old men and or women you know who really shaped our Christian thinking today? We’re dumbing down to it. Jesus loves me. This is this is all I need and know. This is all I care to know and it’s a it’s a sad travesty. It’s happening to the church. In Romans 12 1 Paul said,

be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Too many Christians today are instead being conformed to this world by the neglecting of their mind. May it not be so with us. And then in summary, so then we are to rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Beware those dogs, those evildoers, those who long belong to the fake circumcision who try and take away your joy by making you adhere to manmade rules and restrictions. Congregate with other believers who are exhibiting the joy of the Lord so that you can benefit from the mutual encouragement that brings. Identify and throw out the rubbish that is keeping you from pressing on towards your upward calling Christ. Pursue Christ with all your heart and let him take control of all aspects of your life. Abandon your hopes and expectations for this life. Trusting that his plan for you is far greater. And humbly submit to God’s sovereign will for your life and strive to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

When you’re done with all that and above all else, rejoice in the Lord always. Let’s pray. Well, Father, that was probably drinking from a fire hose of a lot of information crammed in those few verses. But I trust that you will have taken nuggets of truth from that and applied it to each of our hearts sovereignly in ways that are appropriate for each one of us. Father bottom line is we do need to be people who rejoice in the Lord always All right it we must confess that we probably fail in that area far more than we should may you help us to Consider our own life does our life exhibit joy is it that fountain Spurgeon talked about that is filling up the fountain and flowing Out and pouring streams down the street and if not why not what do we need to do differently father?

perhaps we’ve been forsaking the fellowship of the saints, perhaps even allowing life circumstances to overwhelm our hearts, whatever it may be, help us to identify it, repent of it, to correct it, and that we would then, Father, come to you with all gladness and all joy, and that you would be glorified and honored as we live out our lives before you. We just pray this now in your Son, Jesus’ name. Amen. You invite us to stand, and again, invite the worship team back up. This is the time in the service and we also bring forward our offering. One more way that we can express our joy to the Lord, our thankfulness to the Lord, is by giving of our monetary fruits to him.

And so as we participate in Psalm and continue on the worship service, may we just do that with all joy. We’re now coming to the time in our service when we all commune together to remember what Christ has done for us. As we come to our time of communion, we need to remember what Christ has done for us and celebrate the most important event in human history, what God did to redeem us. It really is amazing when you think about it that the creator of the universe had to become like us and die for us because of our screw-up. Really stunning. Which brings to mind the things we’ve been studying. Solus Christus, Sola Fide, only Christ and only by faith.

We come to this table celebrating what Christ has done for us together. And in that time together, we, I think it’s one of the most moving things we do weekly to watch the families, watch the kids, the generations come up and participate.

really a fulfilling thing and I think there’s a lot of supernatural growth that goes on as we do it and different observations in our own mind and our own spirit I hope. As it is written in 2nd Peter 1 5 through 10, for this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. You will never fall. Practice these things. Our communion is an open one, and And as for those who have been baptized into the body by faith, as those who have

repented from their sin and put their faith in Christ, we are able to partake of his body in blood. As we do, we get up and come down through the center aisle, getting a piece of bread and the cup, and then go back to your seats and we’ll participate with this all together. As you notice, we have wine and and the trays that have the W, and then juice is that one there, the one inside. We offer both. So now let’s come together and get the elements, and then when you get back to your seats, we’ll all participate for this together. Now comes the time for the charge. I personally want to encourage you as a congregation as a whole and individually to continue in the good works that were prepared beforehand for you by our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

You as a congregation, I think, really do this well as a group, and I just want to encourage you in that. And for the benediction today, I’m going to read Philippians 3, 20 through 4, 1, that Jim just gave us the message on. But be encouraged and go and practice this. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself. Therefore my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown stand firm thus in the Lord my beloved.