Jody Killingsworth: Good morning. Welcome. If you're newer here, and you have not observed infant baptism done faithfully, and you have questions about that, how that could ever be, Even among the pastors and the elders and deacons, we have different views about the time, and the mode of baptism. We don't disagree about what baptism means or what it does. We believe our commitments there are the same and that they're grounded very much in the scriptures.
And we agree that our children must come to personal saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and that baptism does not accomplish the rather seals at 2. In the day, that Christ blesses them with You know, that's what Job says in Job 23. He says that God ordains trials so that we'll come forth as gold. He wants us to He wants us to come forth as gold through our difficulties. But they don't automatically do that.
They present to us a choice of whether we're going to persevere in faith, walking through this trial, accept it from God's hand, from his good hand, or are we going to turn to self reliance and fear and anxiety and abandon faithfulness before him in the face of this difficulty. The word. Paul gives us this passage today to lay out for us what how we can benefit from our trials, from the difficulties in our life that God sends our way, so that we can shine forth the light of joyful face before men. And at the end of this message, I have a question for all of us to try to answer together. And I do invite your feedback at that point.
So be ready for that, and don't be shy when I ask that at the end. Let's look together at Philippians 4 4 to 7. This is God's word, and it is eternal.
Jody Killingsworth: Again,
Jody Killingsworth: I will say, your genital spirit be known to all men, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This is the worst. Well, this is the second of 3 concluding applications that Paul is making to his friends in Philippi here at the end of the letter based on truths that he's laid out in the course of the letter. To 2 leading women in the church, Euodia and Syntyche, that they would get along in harmony with one another in the that was the internal pressure that they're experiencing that Paul is trying to deal with here in this letter. But they're also undergoing, some other pressures, external pressures that are bearing down upon them as a church.
If we take a bird's eye view of the letter of the Philippians and you just take stock of all Paul's themes and his teachings and his illustrations and his personal, anecdotes in this letter. What emerges is a picture of a church in Philippi that's going through difficulties and that those difficulties are mounting on them. And those difficulties are in the form of hostility from the surrounding culture and world. They it seems like, we're not told this explicitly, but the picture that emerges when you just take stock of all that Paul says here is a church that is facing the increasing threat of persecution. And I think we can safely guess the reason for this because it's the same reason everywhere in in the Roman Empire at this time.
Philippi was a Roman colony. And along with just a whole bunch of paganism and idolatry rampant throughout that society, the the Romans, in particular, had a kind of religious way of relating to the state and to their emperor. They offered sacrifices and and and offerings to Caesar as a god. This is common practice. And it was just understood that as a part of being a good citizen of Rome, you engaged in this and you participated in it regularly with along with everybody else.
Worship and ultimate authority, has transferred from anything in this world, any created thing, to the one Lord who had made both heaven and earth, and to his son, Jesus Christ. A Christian turned all of his worship because he's been redeemed by the blood of this savior to Christ. And he he could not participate any longer in the idolatry around him, including the idolatry that involved praying to Caesar and calling him lord without abandoning the one who had bought him and redeemed him with his own blood. And that put him at odds. A Christian in the Roman Empire with his surrounding culture, with his neighbors, with the rest of the town, obvious, would have been noticed by everybody, would have been conspicuous.
You could not hide this. It's what everyone's doing. And if you're not there, it's obvious. And we don't know if this, church at the time at the writing of this letter, what exactly what degree of pressure they're coming under from their neighbors because of their commitment to Jesus. But we sense that it's there in Paul's themes and emphases in this letter.
And we we believe Paul is writing to strengthen them, and to prepare them, and to help them stand in the right way. And what he gives us here, in this at this point in the letter, by way of application, based on all these themes he's laid out, is the right spirit with which to confront the pressures and the hostility of the world. Some of the themes that Paul has talked about are his own imprisonment for the cause of Christ. That's where he starts. I'm in prison.
And his view of that is optimistic and positive. He's like, things are actually going well. God is actually using this for his glory. People are getting saved because of my suffering, my imprisonment. Everybody, even people in Caesar's household and his whole guard knows about this, that I'm here for Christ.
God's using this. And then he goes on to say to them, when I come and see you guys, I want to find you standing and striving together and not being in any way afraid of your opponents. They have opponents. Paul acknowledges it. And that every knee is going to bow before him someday, including all the.
Just tell them that, those who follow after Christ with purity, with pure hearts, they shine out like lights in the darkness. God uses their life as a testimony, a powerful testimony to the world of The Truth. And then at the very end of chapter 3, right before this passage that we're in now, Paul draws on a concept that was very familiar to all the Romans, the concept of citizenship. And he says, folks, brothers and sisters in Philippi, you're citizens of an eternal kingdom. They're you're citizens of Rome, but you have been called out of the world and you belong your citizenship is in heaven, and you wait together for a savior to come.
All these themes are preparatory for and and and a way of bolstering this church for a time of persecution that seems to be heating up and upon them. And Paul writes here with these concluding application, this application in particular, to give them the spirit with which they should meet this challenge and this pressure in their life. What is the response that they're to have when they come under fire? Well, Paul tells us in Philippians 4:4 to 7, what to do, where to go, in response to pressures. He may be addressing the pressure of persecution specifically, but this applies to all of the distresses and the difficulties and the trials of life.
Equally well, this is the prescription for what to do, how to respond, where to go, where to run when you have difficulty that you face. And so, in summary, that we should go to God and gladden ourselves here. And we should in doing this, we should show ourselves always to be gentle, Now, let me ask you how natural is that. How easy is that? Is that your reflexive, instinctive response to difficulty, to stress, to trouble in your life?
Is that what you do? My wife, Jenna, can tell you it's not often what I do. And I'm afraid my kids could too. I took, Friday afternoon, I sat down and I tried to write out a version of this passage I tried to rewrite these verses with that message. This was Pastor Baker's idea that we give this a try with these verses.
And I tried it on Friday, and I want to read it to you. Philippians 4:4 to 7, as my sinful heart would have written it. Complain and turn inward when things don't go your way. Yes, I say despair. Let your panic and irritability be felt by everyone.
Your God is fear. Fret and victimhood are there to comfort you. Call on them obsessively through irrationality and sleeplessness. And the root of bitterness which corrupts many will darken your hearts and minds to God's goodness. Now, maybe you're a different animal than me.
Maybe if you got got honest and wrote this down according to your sinful heart, the details would be different. But I don't think it would be an utterly different story or message. And that's because when we encounter trials and difficulties, our natural innate instinctive with unbelief, bitterness, some combination of those things. It's not natural, but supernatural to do what Paul commands us to do. So our natural response to difficulties is a very serious spiritual problem, because God sends trials into our lives to test our faith, and to prove our faith, and to grow our faith.
Each trial presents an opportunity for us to come to the Lord and to seek for refuge in him and to seek for our satisfaction and our hope and our help in him. That's why he gives us difficulty.
It's clear in his word. Word. We will show ourselves to just be like the world, because this is how the world lives. This is how the fleshly mind operates. Paul writes to show us the other way, the godly way, how God's children should respond when pressures mount.
So what does he say to do? Verse 4. The first thing Paul tells us to do is to gladden ourselves in God. Get glad in God. He says, rejoice in the Lord always.
Again, I will say, rejoice. That's very emphatic. Of utmost importance that he really wants us to feel the responsibility of. Is there any word in that first verse that's your least favorite? What's your least favorite word?
I have one. Always. Know, economic pressures of inflation, getting not getting the job, that you wanted, or the raise that you wanted, the water line breaking in your ceiling, like it did to me, your furnace going out on the coldest day of the year, doesn't it always? Your mom and dad saying to you, no video games today, son. Fracturing your ankle and missing the season, being grounded for a month, things like that.
But it also includes more serious and heavy sorrows, like a loved one, not being able to get pregnant for many years or ever, watching your child suffer, walk away from the Lord, a spouse being unfaithful to you, singleness, when you really, really want to get married, being a victim of emotional sexual abuse, debilitating illness that nobody can diagnose, being betrayed by a friend, you just fill in your deep sorrow, the hardest thing or the hardest things in your life. And Paul says, this is what you need to do in the midst of it. This is your answer. Is Paul crazy to say to people who are hurt, rejoice, is he insensitive and cruel? Hard hearted.
Now, the apostle Paul has suffered a lot himself. And he has a big heart for where to go, how to get help, how to seek for ultimate relief and comfort and hope in the midst of your difficulties. What Paul is saying here is not does not amount to whistling in the dark. You know that expression whistling in the dark? I'm not scared.
I'm not scared. Life is great. Being in the dark, putting on a mask to pretend that everything's happy, happy, joy, joy, when it's really not. That is not godly. It's not honest.
It's false. It's It's not honest. It's false. Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes that there is a time to mourn. That's it's a it's a Christian thing to mourn, when it's appropriate to mourn.
There's a time to mourn, time to weep. You know, plaster on smile. But Solomon does go on a few chapters later to talk about heart, even in the midst of sorrow, heavy things, the great sorrows of life. He says that when a face is sad, a heart may be happy. That's a possibility.
Joy and rejoicing that the apostle Paul has talked about. It's having something rooted in you of supernatural origin that That's something that's possible. And Paul, so that we don't lose heart, so that we persevere, and so that we please Solomon talks about and that Paul is talking about. That is not something you can work up in yourself. To peace and hope of this sort.
Jody Killingsworth: Saying
Jody Killingsworth: that or self help is unhelpful. I'm not I'm not saying that efficiency, best practices, and things like that are unhelpful. They really are helpful. There's a lot of practical wisdom in them. But they're only helpful increasing modestly, our happiness.
And we need something stronger than happiness. Happiness is tied to circumstances with which change. That's what the word literally means. That talks about speaks of luck and chance. So luck and circumstances.
Lucky circumstances that result in a feeling of elation and joy temporar. Happiness is tied to circumstances and it rises and falls with them. It thing. It transcends circumstances because it rises above them. It looks through to one who never changes, who's always the same, who's always good, who's abounding in goodness and faithfulness and strength.
Look to him, the one who is always constant and and always good. Look to him. Christ alone is the source and cause of this true and abiding joy, and it's obtained through spiritual union with him by faith. Joy is a spiritual emotion that is of supernatural origin. It comes as the fruit of the saving union with Christ who rules and reigns in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
It's a fruit of his spirit from him through the spirit to us. Joy, Jesus told us to say, would be in them. And they would know it to the fullness. To over flow. But we have to do the work our laid hold of by faith.
All the blessings that are of Christ, including his full joy, exercise it, to reach out continually, to come to you for the good things that he offers. So Paul is saying that us today, reach out and take hold of, by faith, the blessing of the joy of the Lord. It will strengthen you and a true and that work? Maybe today you're in the midst of troubles or sorrows or difficulties.
Jody Killingsworth: Maybe you'd say, the last 10 years of my life have
Jody Killingsworth: been the last 10 years of my life have been the last 10 years of my life have been there. This is the work God calls you. And if you do, you will find grace and peace and strength that will carry you through. You'll find and experience the blessing continually of this this bed. This
Jody Killingsworth: bed.
Jody Killingsworth: To everybody who's watching. Look at verse 4, we're told to find joy and Christ here and in our troubles, not only for ourselves, but also for other people as a testament to them and an encouragement to fellow sufferers. Paul adds in verse 5. Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is Christian, who in the middle of his difficulties abounds in joy.
It's pure expresses contentment and a and a supernatural peace that holds him steady and in check like a rudder, an anchor on a ship that's battered by the storm, is kept from the rocks, by the this anchor. That's what this joy that comes from the Lord is in our life. It doesn't, it doesn't, get rid of difficulties for us. Jesus never promised us ease or comfort in life. Quite the opposite.
He said to expect trouble. But he says, you can have peace and joy and rest and a place of safety within you, through faith and me. And through faith and me. There should be something different about the way you, as a Christian, go through difficulty, different from the world around you. God wills it so partly for your sake, but also for everybody else around you, for the watching world and for your brothers and sisters in otherwise, if you don't exhibit this kind of faith and this look for this joy in the midst of your difficulties, how is anybody to know that there's anything good about your god.
Store there's something different, quantitatively different about that than what everybody else can do. Suffered. How were the other guys suffering around? They were hurling abuses and curses at Jesus. So were all the people in the crowd, and how did Jesus let your gentleness, Christ like gentleness, Let your gentleness, Christ like gentleness, be known to all men in the midst of your troubles.
That's what Paul is saying. Brah, And he respond to this incredible
Jody Killingsworth: hostility towards him with grace and peaceable. And he respond to this incredible hostility
Jody Killingsworth: towards him with grace and peaceable. By putting joy before us and seeking it in the Lord. The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus, because of the joy set before him, endured the cross and despised its shame. Endured the cross and despised its shame. He accepted it with grace and peace, patience, are theological, ecclesiological circles that this church, meddles in.
You know, like broad shouldered and cheerful about it. That's, that's the right approach. Those same people are the ones who shout the loudest about their rights. However, one's always stealing our rights and robbing us of our freedoms. They I mean, they raised quite a ruckus about this all over the country.
This is not the piece of Christ. Results in peaceable. And We want that joy, this joy, Christ like joy, as we suffer abuse. Paws, be anxious for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, Let your requests be made known.
It's a journey channeling Jesus teaching in Matthew 6 and the sermon on the mount. About asking saying things like this in a spirit of pain. What are we gonna what are we gonna drink? What are we gonna clothe our bodies? Right.
Why does Jus say not to do that? He gives a couple of reasons. But the big one is because that's what the gentials do. Of God and were not under his care. So he's speaking to the children of God and saying don't be like the people who are outside of God's house, Because outside of Jesus Christ, we have, we are spiritual orphans.
We have no knowledge or confidence in the care of God, but rather a sense of animosity and separation from him and we live under his judgment. We try to keep that judgment out of our minds as much as we can. But when but whenever we think about our needs, we think, I gotta see to that. And it stresses us out and we think, how am I going to how because the Gentiles worry about those things. Rather, trust your heavenly father knows already what you need and is going to provide them.
That's what Jesus teaches the Sermon on the Mount. Anxiety worry. That's the way that we try to exert control over things beyond our control. Things beyond our control are things in the future, and many things around us here and now, but especially things in the future out there in front of us. And they scare us.
Like we're in some degree of control over them as we exert anxiety. We express anxiety. And we are acting just like the Gentiles, like spiritual orphans who have no father. When all along God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ to be a perfect and loving heavenly father who blesses his children with everything they need and then some How do we lay anxiety aside? Because it's always there, ready to pounce on us.
The moment some concern or fear about the future comes into our minds, anxiety is ready to go. It's just instinctual because of our sin, because of our fear. Well, the vehicle that, Paul, the scripture gives us for how we entrust ourselves to God's care and turn away from anxiety is prayer. Stop itself. Quit being anxious.
No. God gives No, God gives us a vehicle by which we can put it away and turn. We have to turn by way of prayer and cast our cares on the Lord. Do you pray? And cast our cares on the Lord.
Do you pray in the middle of your difficulties, when you come up against challenges and stresses in your life, do you pray? Real. About an area of prayerlessness in my life that is shameful. I have developed a habit in the last, I'd say, 5 or 6 years of cursing under my breath. And the reason I do it, I've observed, I do this, like, reflexively.
Whenever I curse. And I think I do that because of the shame. That's a way of mediating the embarrassment. That's how I'm wired. I hate to be embarrassed.
I sweat at the thought of it. And when the thoughts of prior embarrassments and shameful things come into my mind, my instinct and my sin is to swear as a way of just trying to get rid of them, there is one who has borne my shame on a cross, and has accepted me as a sinner, and has given me everything I need to be fully accepted of the Father and loved. And he is not ashamed of me. Not ashamed to call me brother. And I could turn to him in prayer and have him remind me in conversation with him of his acceptance and his love.
We have all kinds of ways that anxiety afflicts us and all kinds of sinful responses to it. I share this to you, so maybe it will call some to your mind. And Paul says, pour out your heart to the Lord in prayer. Make your needs known. Oh, Lord.
I need clothing for my shame and my embarrassment that I'm remembering and feeling. Would you give me that, and remind me that I am safe and secure in you? And you've already borne my shame, and we're okay. I'm okay because of your work. That's the work of going to the Lord and prayer, making your requests known.
It's not just prayer that we're exhorted to, but prayer with thanksgiving. Psalms are of thanksgiving prayer. J. R. J.
Thank the father as he prayed. I thank you, father. The apostle Paul, in this very letter, gave prayers, in his prayer report. He reported about how he prays with Thanksgiving. He says to the Philippians, I thank my God and all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you.
There's a
Jody Killingsworth: man who practices what he Priya. There's a man who practices
Jody Killingsworth: what he Priya. Who practices what he preaches. Is it your habit to thank God as you make your request known to him? We often think that it's enough just to, you know, we've done enough just by just by submitting our needs to him. Well, it's what God has why is it important for you?
What does it accomplish? Well, thanksgiving is a confession of joyful dependence upon the Lord. That's what it is. It's a confession of joyful dependence upon It joyfully acknowledges that he is able to provide, that he delights to provide, that he has provided. Is how you're to approach me.
And prayers with thanks are prayers of faith. It's an exercise in joyful dependence upon the Lord. So make it a habit to thank the Lord when you pray to him. Thank him for listening to you. Thank him for being good.
Thank him for past prayers answered. Thank him for his attributes and his works. Thank him for undeserved mercies that you experience every day. This is gonna stir up your heart to joy. 7.
When you turn away from anxiety and fear in thankfulness and prayer and you make your request known to the father, what will you experience in your life? Paul leaves us with this promise. He says, you do this brothers and sisters and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Guarding you, protecting you, watching out for you. You're going to experience it in your core.
He calls it a piece that passes all comprehension because it's supernatural piece that abides with you even in the middle of difficulty,
Jody Killingsworth: when normally you would be
Jody Killingsworth: stressed to the max. When normally you would be stressed to the max. And it would fall to pieces. Is going to lead you to ruin into darkness, into bitterness, away from the Lord. Spiritual destruction.
For your needs. Okay. I said that we would end with a question. And I want you to answer it. Okay?
Speak up. Speak freely. Here's the question. What about Jesus Okay. One at a time.
I know. His reconciliation that we have peace with God through him. For the Lord Jesus Christ. What did you say? Kohler, did you say something?
Okay. That was you. Gandalf, did you say something? He died
Jody Killingsworth: for us.
Jody Killingsworth: He died for us.
Jody Killingsworth: While we were
Jody Killingsworth: While we were sinners. He's our mediator. He's faithful. Exactly the same thing, both of you. He's tempted like we are without sin, and so he's able to do what?
Sympathize with our weakness, tenderness towards us. He'll never leave us for sake, he prays and intercedes for us. And his spirit too, when we don't even know what to pray, prays for us with words deeper than we can even express. He's our brother. He's carried our griefs, borne our sorrows.
He had problems at work.
Jody Killingsworth: That's getting helpful. He had to put up with annoying people.
Jody Killingsworth: He had to put up with annoying people. He had to put up with annoying people. He loves little children. He takes care of us, amen. He loved Jews?
He loved Jews. I thought, well, David. He loved
Jody Killingsworth: Judas.
Jody Killingsworth: He was rejected by those which he loved. He suffered embarrassment. He knows our frame that we are but dust. He prayed for us on the cross. Have we exhausted it?
We've barely begun. Our gracious heavenly father, we pray that you would fill us with the spirit of joy and delight in our savior Jesus in the perfect obedience that he has rendered for us, which is ours by faith. In response in immediate response to difficulty, to the lord, for help, for comfort, for joy. And would that joy abide in us? Would you make us obedient to this word?
We pray in Jesus name. Amen.