Everlasting Joy: Embracing God’s Faithfulness in Every Season

In this sermon, D. A. Carson delves into the exhortation from Philippians 4:4–20 and stresses the importance of finding continual joy in God regardless of life’s conditions. He discusses how this persistent joy strengthens personal faith and enhances communal bonds within the church, portraying it as a crucial response to the steadfast love and reliability of God.

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It’s wonderful to be with you for this fourth session as we work our way through passages that talk about joy or pleasure in the experience of God or the like, especially in the New Testament. This evening, I would like to direct your attention to Philippians, chapter 4. I shall read verses 4 to 20. Hear then what Holy Scripture says.

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

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need.

Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account. I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Well, you can see where I got my title tonight. It’s verse 4. “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Then in case we’ve missed the point, Paul says, “I will say it again: Rejoice!” Most of the moral exhortations in this last chapter of Philippians actually emerge from themes that are already aplenty right through the entire book. I’ll draw your attention to some of them as we go along.

For example, in this instance, beginning with joy, already in verse 4 of chapter 1, we read, “In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now …” Again, chapter 2, verse 17. “But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith …” That’s Paul’s colorful way of saying, “Even if I die a martyr’s death …” “I am glad and will rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.”

Again, chapter 3, verse 1. “Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.” There are several other instances of joy as a theme in this book. Now chapter 4, verse 4. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” That’s the first point.

1. Resolve always to rejoice in the Lord.

Of course, Paul himself was a good example of what he was advocating. As he wrote this, he was in prison. He was not in a chalet in the south of France or paddling in the water off the beaches of Tenerife or even vacationing in Northern Ireland. He was imprisoned. There is a sense in which in the light of the sweep of Scripture this exhortation ought to be so obvious as scarcely to be needed. Surely every redeemed person will want to rejoice.

To us has been given forgiveness of sins. Imagine forgiveness of all of our sins before the God who is our judge. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the down payment of the promised inheritance, the fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ. Have you ever noticed in our local churches that there is often a disproportionate number of misfits? Have you ever noticed that? Do you know why?

Because for all of our sins and faults (which, God help us, are many), the church is still the most openhearted organization in the universe. Wear the misfits in your church as a badge of pride, of thankfulness to God, as a sign of grace. We have so much to be thankful for. To us has been given the promises of God which finally issue a resurrection existence in the new heaven and the new earth.

We will stand by graves. We will weep in crematoria. But not as those who have no hope. Not ever! Not ever! In some ways, it’s slightly shocking that there has to be an exhortation in Scripture to Christians, “Don’t forget to rejoice. In fact, I’d better say it again: Rejoice!” There’s a sense in which this is almost bizarre, except God knows and Paul knows that such exhortations have to be here because we so quickly overlook the spectacular blessings we’ve received because of Christ on the cross.

If our hearts fail to respond with joy and gratitude when we think of the most fundamental Christian truths, I am sure it is because we have not really grasped the depth of the abyss of our own self-focus, our own sinful natures, our own danger apart from him. Nor have we glimpsed the splendor of the height to which we have been raised and the immeasurable glory of the prospect still to come.

This sort of thing is acknowledged in many different ways in Scripture, many different tones. For example, Psalm 40. “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.”

The apostle Peter likewise puts it in ways that are full of focus on Christ Jesus. In his first epistle, “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

You see, the rejoicing here is not a certain style of joy, whether more boisterous or more austere. It’s not necessarily Gregorian chant or necessarily drums and beat. Part of my job takes me to all corners of the world, except Antarctica. I have witnessed many, many different kinds of Christian praise. I have learned to try to distinguish not different styles but authentic and inauthentic. That’s hard to discern, but it is much more bound up with the genuineness of the rejoicing because of its focus on why we are rejoicing rather than on a particular style.

Nevertheless, this text insists that we rejoice in the Lord, not even in the Lord’s blessings but in the Lord. That alone is what makes the “always” here tolerable. Because, after all, sooner or later, if you live long enough, you will get kicked in the teeth. You may be blessed with a really sunny disposition. You might be a glass-half-full sort of person. In our family, my wife tends to be the glass half-empty, and I tend to be the glass half-full, so we get along famously. We get it about halfway right each.

Even if you’re not blessed with a sort of optimistic, glass-half-full sort of outlook on life, sooner or later all you have to do is live long enough, and you will get kicked in the teeth. If you haven’t gotten kicked in the teeth yet, you haven’t lived long enough. The only alternative in this fallen, broken, sin-cursed world to getting kicked in the teeth is dying very young. Sooner or later, you get cancer or you’re bereaved or you lose your job or your home breaks up or your kids kick you in the teeth.

Sooner or later, you become so enmeshed and ensnared in your own self-focus, you’re entangled in your own sin, and you cannot see it. You cannot see your way ahead. You’re like the psalmist who cries, “My sins are ever before me. They surround me, and I cannot see.” So the text comes and says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Does that mean at a funeral we’re supposed to be rejoicing in the Lord? Yes.

It doesn’t mean there are no tears, there’s no loneliness, there’s no despair, there’s no grief. Of course! Jesus himself is called a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. But it does mean that despite all of the vicissitudes of life we will ever face this side of the new heaven and the new earth, still when our confidence is anchored in the living God, we can look to him even in the midst of tear-bleary eyes and rejoice in him.

It is what enables Job to say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” That’s why Nehemiah can say to the discouraged people of his day in Nehemiah, chapter 8, verse 10, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” You will never, ever be a strong Christian if you do not learn something of rejoicing in the Lord. When? Always. For how long? Always. Because the Lord doesn’t change.

The cross is not undone. The tomb of Jesus is not somehow filled up again with a body. The prospects of the new heaven and the new earth have not been cancelled out. We have already forgiveness of sin. We have already the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives, and we begin to say with the writers of old, “Lord, I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on you.”

God has commanded that we rejoice in the Lord because he well knows that a believer who is rejoicing in the Lord cannot simultaneously be a backbiter nor a gossip nor spiritually proud nor filled with conceit nor stingy nor haughty nor prayerless nor a chronic whiner nor endlessly unbelieving. On the contrary, the believer who practices rejoicing in the Lord discovers balm in the midst of heartache, rest in the midst of tension, love in the midst of loneliness, and the presence of God in control of the most difficult circumstances.

The Bible is intensely realistic. That’s why James, likewise, says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Not (in James 1) because the trials themselves are intrinsically happy experiences but because James outlines those trials are used by God to increase faith and multiply perseverance and steadfastness, and that brings maturity. You want to be mature, don’t you?

Then a little farther down in the same chapter in verse 12, it’s also anticipation of the glory yet to come. So resolve always to rejoice in the Lord. Because this is the repeated theme, because it is the theme that dominates so much of Philippians, I suspect that in the apostle’s mind, a great deal of what follows in the following verses fleshes out what it means to rejoice in the Lord. That is, fleshes out some of the aspects, the features, the characteristics of what rejoicing in the Lord actually looks like.

Although I will list these moral exhortations in theories, we will see by the end that they all come back to a centeredness on God that calls us, as a matter of thanksgiving, as a response to the gospel, as the joyful response to grace, to rejoice always, always in the Lord.

2. Resolve to be known for gentleness.

Verse 5: “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” Now the word rendered gentleness in older translations is often rendered forbearance. It’s not an easy word to translate. I sometimes think it might usefully be rendered selflessness. Gentleness is not quite right. It can be right. The trouble is gentleness might in our ears have overtones of sort of a wimpish softness.

That’s not quite what is at stake. It’s just the opposite of self-seeking, of pursuit of being number one all the time yourself. You’re known, instead, for forbearance, for selflessness. In fact, there’s a certain kind of irony in all of this. It doesn’t say, “Be selfless.” It says, “Be known for selflessness.” How do you put that together?

If you want to be known for something, let something be evident to all, then there’s a sense in which there’s a focus on you. But if there’s going to be a focus on you, then let the focus on you be such that what you’re pursuing is selflessness. There’s a certain kind of built-in irony in the whole thing.

How do you want to be viewed? Do you want to be viewed as a stalwart Christian leader? Well, there’s a place for that I’m sure. A faithful parent. God help us, we need those. A disciplined Christian. We certainly need discipline. In fact, when Paul writes to Timothy, he says God has given us a spirit of self-control. Yet so much of our seeking for things is bound up with a kind of self-focus.

When I have prospective students at the seminary come to me and say, “I’m thinking of coming to seminary,” and I ask them why, the ones who make me nervous are the ones who say, “Well, you know, I think I could be quite fulfilled in the ministry.” Oh, there’s a real Pauline thought, isn’t it? “My dear Timothy, I would like you to be fulfilled.” Fulfillment in Scripture is a byproduct of seeking other things. But if you’re seeking fulfillment, then it becomes merely an exercise in selfishness again.

A.W. Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God points out how damnably treacherous and tricky self-sins are. He writes, “To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them.

The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.” This was written in the 50s! What would dear brother Tozer say now?

“Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the Reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace, and gain strength by its efforts. To tell all the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a Bible Conference than in a tavern. Our very state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow.”

God says, “Be known for selflessness. Be known for gentleness in that sense.” I was talking with Ray over one of the meals, and he was arguing rightly that although you can look at sins in many different kinds of ways, one of the ways to analyze sin is that it is a form of pervasive self-justification so that we present ourselves to others as being strong or victorious.

I have lost many arguments, but I have managed, to my shame, in retelling this to others afterward of somehow coming out on top. I lose arguments; I don’t lose reruns. Isn’t that shameful? It’s called self-justification. These things affect our relationships, our love for the Lord. Where is the justification of God secured by Christ if we’re busy justifying ourselves?

One recalls the perceptive comment of a visitor to Spurgeon’s tabernacle more than a century ago. His first time there, he was asked afterward what he thought of the sermon. He paused and puzzled for a while and then said, “Do you know? I was so drawn to Spurgeon’s Christ that I rather forgot about Spurgeon.”

We sing this in both some new songs and some old songs:

May the love of Jesus fill me

As the waters fill the sea;

Him exalting, self abasing,

This is victory.

May his beauty rest upon me,

As I seek the lost to win,

And may they forget the channel,

Seeing only him.

This is not a kind of death that twists us all into some boring, gray personality. It is rather saying that the huge diversity of the gifts and graces distributed amongst us both by creation and by new creation come to their fruition, their glory, and their beauty as we who have been made in the image of God and are renewed in the image of Christ become all we should be, not because we have promoted ourselves but precisely because we have grasped Christ’s love for us.

It becomes a natural reaction to want to be known for selflessness. Paul actually gives us a reason for this injunction. He adds (verse 5b), “The Lord is near.” This could mean one of two things. The particular expression that is used is used two ways elsewhere in the New Testament. It could mean simply, “The Lord is constantly present.”

Supposing the resurrected Lord Jesus now as I’m speaking somehow appeared in that aisle down in the overflow down there and quietly walked across the back. Somehow (I don’t know how) we all recognized it was the risen, glorious Lord Jesus. It might shake up our theology if he appeared that way, but let us suppose it for just a moment. He comes and walks right down the aisle and stands here, and we could tell him by the scars in his hands.

What would our instinctive reaction be? “Oh Jesus, you ought to see the witnessing I’ve done for you this week. It’s been fantastic! My prayer life has really improved maybe 30 percent this year.” Is that the way we would be approaching him? The point is he is here. “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the age.” When we are self-consciously in the presence of him who went to the cross and rose for our justification, self-justification looks like an abomination. Be known for selflessness.

But I suspect in this context it means the other of the two things (this expression, “The Lord is near”). I suspect. I can’t quite prove it. The word is often used to talk about the Lord’s impending return. “The Lord is near.” This prospect (the prospect of Christ’s return) is commonly in the New Testament an incentive for holiness. Thus, for example, in 1 John 3:3, “Everyone who has this hope in himself [that is, in Christ and his return] purifies himself as he also is pure.”

The question becomes, “What would you like to be doing when Jesus comes back? What would you like to be saying when Jesus comes back? What would you like to be thinking when Jesus comes back?” Be known for selflessness. “The Lord is near.” Perplexing decisions become relatively elementary in the light of eternity, of the Lord’s presence, of the Lord’s return, and selfishness, harshness, self-focus all become disgusting in the light of eternity.

When I was a boy, we sang …

With eternity’s values in view, Lord.

With eternity’s values in view;

May I do each day’s work for Jesus

With eternity’s values in view.

“The Lord is near.” I don’t know when he is coming, but I don’t know when he is not. It’s in the light of his own glorious triumph that the entire Book has set out not only the redemptive work of Jesus but the example of Jesus. Do you remember the so-called Christ hymn of chapter 2?

“Have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; but rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

But how does that begin? “Have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had.” Death first. Glory to follow.

3. Resolve not to be anxious about anything but to learn to pray.

Verse 6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

I suppose it’s arguable today that we’re called upon to worry about a greater diversity of things than any generation before us. If you were living anywhere in Europe 500 years ago, you were called upon to worry sometimes pretty intensely about the local village crops and maybe how the local feudal lord was operating and maybe what was going on vaguely in the palace somewhere. On the other hand, by the time that news got to you, it was pretty much out of date.

Of course, there was illness that swept through, and you had all of those kinds of things. But you really weren’t invited to think about unrest in Peru. If there was a rebellion of some sorts in one of the provinces of China, you didn’t know about it. You were not called upon to think about poverty in the Sahel.

There is a sense in which bad news makes more news, and our media so floods us all the time with things to worry about that there is a sense in which we can almost get burned out and say, “I don’t want to worry about any of that stuff anymore. There’s just too much. I’m burned out. Just leave me alone!” Thus we begin to worry about not worrying.

We’re supposed to worry about all things green and ungreen, world peace, family pressures, future of our children, old age, opportunities at work, deadlines, recession, being sacked, bills, promotion, car troubles, frustration, bereavement, on and on and on and on and on, so that the person who is by temperament likely to be more of a worrier actually begins to feel the nagging things play games so deeply that he begins to say, “You don’t understand. This injunction? It can’t be done!” But it can be.

Our problem is we hear this command about worrying, and we forget there is a positive bit to it as well as a prohibition. The text says, “Do not be anxious about anything.” That’s the prohibition. “But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Time alone and still with God … there is no shortcut. It is written, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” The way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything. It doesn’t take away all the stress, but you will come down on one side or the other.

Bengel wrote, “Anxiety and prayer are more opposed to each other than fire and water.” At the end of the day, this is not because of some magical power in the meditative quality of praying. It’s because of the One to whom we pray. We are casting our burdens on him. We are trusting this God.

Some of you know my wife and I have a son who is a Marine. At the moment, he suffers for Jesus in Hawaii, but he has put in his time in Afghanistan and Iraq in all of the worst fighting. He has seen AK-47 rounds bounce off his body armor. He has seen the chap on the left and the chap on the right shot or blown up. He has been blown up in Humvees twice, nearby a third time. He has been in more firefights than he can count.

When we relate these things just briefly to a few of our friends, they immediately respond, “That must have done wonders for your worrying,” or, “Bet you that improved your prayer life.” There is a kind of praying even there that can be frenetic. Do you know? Somewhere along the line in the mercy of God, my wife and I resolved to remember God’s providence works as well in Fallujah as in the suburbs of Chicago. You have to believe that, or you will worry. The praying is simply the casting of those burdens on the Lord.

William Cowper, who, of course, faced his own worries, so much so that four times he sank into the abyss of clinical depression and was incarcerated in a British asylum at a time when British asylums were not a place you wanted to be, wrote …

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds you so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessing on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust him for his grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan his work in vain;

God is his own interpreter,

And he will make it plain.

4. Resolve to think holy thoughts.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

Doesn’t it make you fearful on occasion to remember that God knows our thoughts? Just you men, would you like your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter to know absolutely everything you think? You women, would you like your father, husband, brother, son to know absolutely everything you think?

Don’t most of us have experiences of waking up in the night in a cold sweat as somehow in the horizon between wake and sleep, we remember some ghastly thing we said or did, some horrendous thing that just makes us writhe in embarrassment? We break out in a cold sweat because, I mean, we were so stupid. I mean, how could we have said that? How could we have done that? Embarrassed! We think what idiots we are. Am I the only one who has ever had experiences like that?

You know, the really sad part of that is most of our cold sweats as we remember stupid, sinful, harsh things we’ve done and said and thought are out of embarrassment in front of our peers. Where are our cold sweats before God? Hebrews reminds us, “All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

When I first went to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where I teach now, we had a chap in our department who taught preaching. He was known for his one-liners. He had scads of them. I wish I had written more of them down. Some of them were really clever. One of his best was, “You’re not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.”

Of course he is merely repeating Scripture. Proverbs says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” You’re not what you say or what you do simply because, after all, a little bit of civilization and a bit of discipline and a decent family and a bit of social pressure, you can say and do some pretty polite things. But God looks on the heart. “Oh, how do you do?” “I’m so glad to meet you.” You stupid twit. Overfed cow. Which one does God look at?

Then when it comes to nurturing bitterness when somebody hurts us or fanning the flames of jealousy or playing off possible scenarios in which we always come up on top and other people are always put down and we come in with a right answer and show the way.… Good grief! It’s all in the mind. It’s all in the head. It’s what we think.

That’s why Paul, writing to the Romans after those magnificent chapters that outline the power and the transforming grace of the gospel grounded in the cross, writes, “Do not, therefore, be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Because you’re not what you think you are, but what you think, you are. There are so many biblical texts that focus on God’s thoughts over against our thoughts. Isaiah, for example. Do we not find written out for us the fundamental distinction? Isaiah 55:

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Don’t you see? In this instance, it’s not just that God’s thoughts are lofty and ours are limited and mundane. It’s that his thoughts are holy and ours are impure. That’s why he doesn’t say, “Try to think a little more highly. Try and get a little higher up in the pecking order of lofty thoughts.” What he says is, “We must repent of our thoughts and turn from our thoughts and forsake our thoughts and think new thoughts.”

The fundamental difference in this passage between God’s thoughts and our thoughts is not the bigness of his thoughts and the smallness of our thoughts. It’s the purity of God’s thoughts and the wickedness of our thoughts. “Let the wicked forsake their thoughts.” Isn’t that what Paul is picking up on here? “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Think about the true, not the false. Think about the noble, not the base. Think about what is right, not wrong. Think about the pure, not the sleazy. Think about the lovely, not the disgusting. Think about the admirable, not the despicable, and so on, all the way through. In this regard, Paul dares go all the way to say, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

Do you hear that? Do you ever take a younger Christian under your wing in a local church (somebody who has become a Christian recently) and say, “Look. I know you’re 27, and you’ve been a Christian three months. I want to show you what being a Christian means. Watch me”? Do you ever say that? You jolly well ought to.

Doesn’t the apostle say, “Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ”? He is not claiming sinless perfection. Likewise, when he writes to Timothy and Titus again and again, he says, “Don’t follow those people with their bad examples, their sinful behavior, their wickedness, but man of God, consider my way of life, my sufferings, my rejoicing, my concern for the Word, my focus on the gospel. Watch me.”

Christians who are more mature (and it’s not just a question of physical years; it’s a question of spiritual maturity) have the obligation to stamp the next generation of Christians by modeling, for all of Scripture in teaches the priority of the ministry of the Word, of declaration. The Word is also lived out in our lives so that you have the heavy burden of making disciples partly by example. It is when the disciples see Jesus praying that they say, “Teach us to pray.” Paul has the audacity to say, “Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

Likewise, Paul says, “Watch your thoughts. Think about these things, these things, these things, and these things. In this respect, I want you to remember my own habits. I was with you in Philippi. I wasn’t there very long, only a few weeks. Church was planted. Remember who I was, what I was, what I thought about, what I talked about, where my conversation went, what my interests were, how Jesus was at the focus, what the gospel is, and follow my pattern. What you have seen and heard in me, do it.”

Because we are not sinlessly perfect, that will also include times when we confess how we’ve been stupid, how we’ve been wrong, how we’ve got to confess and come back and ask forgiveness all over again. Until the consummation, we are never more than poor beggars telling other poor beggars where there’s bread.

We’ve been on this road a little bit longer, and so you who have been Christians nine months should jolly well be helping some Christians who have only been Christians for two months. Somehow by looping them into Bible studies, young people who have been brought up in broken homes and have never seen family devotions and how they operate.… You who have been having family devotions for decades, aren’t you spending any energy to train them?

You who are Christian men, isn’t it your obligation also to show how to be a man to the next generation of young men coming along? You who are Christian women with maturity and grace, isn’t it your job also to train another generation of Christian women likewise? I don’t mean pass on all the cultural foibles and demand their music be your music and all the rest. I don’t mean that.

But if we’re going to train up a new generation in Christian faithfulness, we need to be exemplifying Christian faithfulness ourselves, not because we’re so much stronger or better. No, no, no. Because by God’s grace we’ve come to a deeper grasp of what the gospel is. We’ve learned to respond out of gratitude the importance and joy of thinking holy thoughts. Do you really think it’s really pleasurable to think bitter thoughts all the time, to nurture resentments, to build up lust? Does that really make you a happy person?

“Rejoice in the Lord always.” When you find your mind going down those tracks, you want to think God’s thoughts after him. You shut out those things, and you remember how often our minds repeat what you feed them. Garbage in; garbage out. You listen to better music, and you read better materials, and you think about holy things, and you learn to pray together. Then you learn some of those disciplines and pass them on to another generation.

5. Resolve to learn the secret of contentment.

Verses 10 to 13. The interesting thing about these four verses is that Paul acknowledges he has had to learn the secret of contentment when he has had little and he has had to learn the secret of contentment when he has had much.

Some of us think you only have to learn the secret of contentment when you have little. It just isn’t the case. When you have more, you always want more. Sometimes you suddenly come into a situation where you’ve had little, but now you have more, and you’re really frustrated and guilty there too.

I have a friend about my age named Steve. He’s a Canadian pastor now serving overseas. When he was a young man and I was a young man, I got to know his father. He was one of the last of the Canadian missionaries to leave China. He and his family had been up in the Manchurian border from the 1930s. He hadn’t come home in all that time.

When World War II came along, he and his family were interned by the Japanese. Eventually he was freed. He stayed in China, and eventually then he was kicked out by Mao in 1951. He had been up near the Manchurian border in really primitive conditions (typologically speaking) for 20 years, give or take, and then he came back to Canada. He was something of a hero in Canadian Fellowship Baptist circles. He was offered this church or that church.

“We’d be glad to have you here,” and, “Would you like to serve there?” and so on. He looked around, said nothing, and for two years he took on a job as a manual laborer in Canadian Pacific railway yards. When you asked him why, he said, “I’m not ready yet to return to this culture.” He talked about it with us years later when I was a young man.

He said, “When I came back, I had had 20 years of poverty, difficulty and challenge, a completely non-Christian society, loneliness. Here suddenly I found myself in Canadian churches with relative affluence, motorcars, enough food always, no physical danger, no bandit raids, freedom from opposition, no persecution of a government sort.

Yet so many of these Christians were fat and well favored, but there was no zeal. There was no fire. I knew if I became a pastor in any one of those churches, I’d be tearing strips off them every Sunday. I’d be lambasting them.”

He didn’t know how to be content in plenty. Do you see? No, no, no. The way you learn contentment is this. Your contentment comes with contentment in God. Your contentment comes with contentment about God’s ways and God’s sovereignty and God’s providence, and especially what God has done in Scripture and God’s gifts like the Bible and the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of God’s people.

It is so God-centered that in the vicissitudes of life, the things that come and go that really are troubling.… Cancer comes, and you are bereaved. You lose a child. You live long enough, and you go through all of these things. Still what is changeless is the sovereign wisdom and goodness and promises of God, and your contentment rests there. Then and only then can you say, “I have learned in every circumstance to be content.”

“I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that you renewed your concern for me.” “You sent along some supplies. That’s good. I know you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this now … like some missionary letters that are dropping hints all the time. I’m not saying this now so you can jack up the income.”

“I have learned rather to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

That verse in some of our versions simply says, “I can do all things through him who gives me strength.” That’s literally what the text says, but in the context, it means, “All things connected with contentment.” Sometimes this verse is ripped out of context, you know? A pastor will approach some woman in the church, for example, and say, “You know, we need a Sunday school teacher over there.” “Oh, I’ve never taught. I don’t think I could do that.” “Oh, you can’t say can’t. ‘I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.’ ”

The verse becomes a sort of battering ram for people to have their way in your life. This does not mean all things literally and absolutely. “I can do all things through him who gives me strength.” “I can be a nuclear physicist. I could find the final solution to some advanced mathematical theorem. I could invent a cure for cancer.” “I can do all things through him who gives me strength.”

That’s not what it’s saying. A text without a context becomes a pretext for a proof text. In the context, the “all things” means, “All things, regardless of what they are, do not roll me over. I am content in any and every situation. I can do all things in Christ who gives me strength.” It’s a gospel solution. Do you see?

6. Resolve to grow in the grace of gratitude and courtesy.

Verses 14 to the end. Let me just dip in and give you a couple of little hints on the fly. He has already thanked them. Then he has protested in verses 10 to 13 that he is content. He doesn’t need these things to be content.

Then he says (verse 14), “Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia …” Where the Philippians lived. “… not one church …” Of those he had planted there. “… shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for even when I was in Thessalonica …” That is, the very next town. “… you sent me aid more than once when I was in need.”

Then he hesitates, and he tries to explain again. After thanking them for the gifts, he says, “Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account.” Now to say that with a straight face and not in a manipulative way is wonderful. “You know, I’m thanking you. You’re exceptional among the Macedonian churches. Right away you were trying to figure out how to support me so I could preach the gospel.

I’m very grateful for all of that. Do you know what? It’s not the support I’m most grateful for. I am grateful you’re storing up treasures in heaven. More is credited to your account. I think that’s fantastic.” Do you hear that? So even while the officials of New Horizon tell you of the needs, which they have every right to do, and ask you for support for a strategic ministry, which is a good thing, what we must also see is that giving that is strategic and sacrificial is also something to your account. That’s what the text says.

The biggest joy should not be that we beat $225,000 but what it signals for the hearts and lives of Christians who are laying up treasures in heaven. Do you hear the gospel sensitivity in all of this? Even while he is thanking them, he is thinking along spiritual axes. He is not manipulative.

“Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account. I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.”

It’s God’s approval you should be after as you give gifts, not anyone else’s. It’s God’s approval that counts. It’s a response of gratitude to the gospel. It doesn’t make you holy. It doesn’t earn you special bonus points in heaven. It’s the sign of grace that is overflowing in your life because of what you’ve received in the gospel of Christ crucified.

Even then, even when you’ve given, even when you’ve given sacrificially, don’t forget that God is the ultimate giver. “My God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” Hear it again. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” For the last verse (verse 20) reads, “To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever.”

In all of these exhortations, although there’s a moral element of, “This is what you should do,” there is a God-centeredness that is either explicit or presupposed behind it. It is bringing us back to the way Christians look at morality, to a God-centered life that, in the midst of vicissitudes and challenges and laughter and tears, in the midst of moral temptation, in the midst of covetousness, we learn to think differently, we learn to give differently.

We learn to respond to people differently. We learn to die to ourselves. We learn to rejoice when others are weeping because we are anchored in eternity in the gospel of Christ Jesus. There is stability. That gospel doesn’t change. We hear the Word of God come to us, and we suddenly see it makes sense. It is transformative. It is transformative over all of our lives. Almighty God says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say: Rejoice!” Let us pray.

Shame us for our self-focus, we pray. Return our adoring gaze again and again to Christ Jesus. By your Spirit, strengthen our wills. Renew our minds. Grant that we may live in the light of eternity and turn to you incessantly in praise and petition, in thanksgiving, and learn because of who you are to rejoice in you always. For Jesus’ sake, amen.