Deo Gloria
Sermon for December 12, 2021
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Philippians 4:4-7
Theme: The Lord is Near!
- Rejoice in him always.
- Display gentleness.
- Present your requests to God.
- The peace of God will guard your hearts.
If you knew that Judgment Day was near, tonight perhaps—if you knew that Jesus was going to come back tonight, how would you act the rest of the day? How would you spend your time? What kinds of things would you do?
I asked the students in my catechism class that question once. The answers I got varied. Some said they would spend the day at church. Others indicated that they would spend the day reading their Bible. Still others said they would do pretty much what they normally do: watch TV, play with their friends, listen to music—things like that.
How would you live and act if you knew that Jesus’ coming was near?
Well, I’ve got news for you–actually, the apostle Paul does. As Paul says here in Philippians, ch. 4, “The Lord is near.” And Paul has some advice for us too, advice as to how we are to live our lives as we await our Savior’s coming. His advice can be summarized with four words: rejoice, gentleness, prayer and peace.
Paul’s first bit of advice is rejoice. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” he says. “I will say it again: Rejoice!”
“Oh sure, that may be easy for you to say, Paul. You don’t have to deal with all the problems I have to deal with. I mean, yesterday my car broke down on the way to work. Not only was I late, but they’re talkin’ 500 bucks to get it fixed. 500 bucks! Where in the world am I going to get 500 bucks? And then today, today the boss comes into the office and tells us they’re planning on doing some ‘restructuring.’ After the first of the year a third of the people in our office won’t be back. And did you hear what happened to Uncle George? Marge called the other day and said he had a stroke and they had to rush him to the hospital. They still don’t know if he’s gonna make it. We’ll probably have a funeral to go to yet this week. No, Paul, it may be easy for you to say, ‘Rejoice,’ but me—uh, uh. Right now I find it rather difficult.”
Believe it or not, the apostle Paul was no stranger to hardship. Paul knew what it was like to experience hardship and difficulty in his life. In fact, Paul knew what it was like to lose a whole lot more than just his job. Paul had lost his freedom. Paul was a prisoner—had been for almost three years already. And at some point in the very near future Paul was going to have to stand trial before the emperor himself. And guess what the charge was against him? Preaching about Jesus. “Rejoice in the Lord? Are you kidding? He’s the reason I’m in prison.” That’s what Paul could have said, what we might even have expected him to say. But he didn’t, did he? “Rejoice in the Lord always,” he said. “I will say it again: Rejoice!”
You see, as Christians, as children of God, we do have reason to rejoice, regardless of our circumstances. If you lost your job recently or are facing that possibility, don’t worry. God still has a job for you: to go and make disciples of all nations. And besides, God has promised to take care of you and your family. And God does not break his promises. If your life has been shaken by tragedy or sadness, remember that Jesus and his love for you remain constant. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And remember too that underneath you are his everlasting arms. If you’re frustrated because you’ve experienced one setback after another and nothing seems to be going your way, remember that you do have one thing in your favor, your heavenly Father, and that even in these things—however difficult they may be—even in these things he is working for your good. And remember something else as well: that the joy of the Lord is your strength.
This was the secret behind Paul’s joy. Paul’s joy in life was not based on all the wonderful things that had been happening to him lately–that his mailbox was full of Christmas cards, for example, from his family and friends; or that someone brought over a plate of Christmas cookies; or that there were several presents under the Christmas tree with his name on them. For prisoner Paul, there was no Christmas tree or Christmas presents. There were no Christmas cookies or Christmas cards, but that didn’t diminish his joy. Paul’s joy in life was found in the Lord and all the wonderful things he had done for him: that in love he had come into this world of ours to be his Savior, to set him free from his sins and from eternal imprisonment in hell; that he had brought him to faith and adopted him as one of his children; that he had given him the honor and privilege of being his ambassador and proclaiming the good news of salvation to others; that he had a present waiting for him, a present even better than a new Xbox, the crown of life in heaven. That was the basis for Paul’s joy. And that’s the reason for our joy as well. Our joy is in the Lord. “Rejoice in the Lord always.”
Secondly Paul advises us, in view of the fact that the Lord is near, “Let your gentleness to evident to all”(v. 5). Let your gentleness be evident to all? Yes, that’s right. There’s no mistake here. This is not a mistranslation. “Let your gentleness be evident to all.”
“Now wait a minute. I can’t do that. People will think I’m a wimp. They’ll run all over me.” Maybe they will. And maybe they won’t. But even if they do, it doesn’t change God’s will. God’s will is that we be gentle, gentle in our dealings with one another, gentle in our dealings with everyone.
Before I go on, though, I want to make something clear. Being gentle does not exclude firmness. Picture a feather. Few things are as soft and gentle to the touch as a feather. And yet, have you ever tried to break a feather in half? For being so soft and flexible, they’re amazingly strong as well. You can be the same, gentle yet firm. You can be firm with others and still be gentle. It just means you can’t throw your weight around or chew people up and spit ‘em out. As a parent, I can be gentle in telling my children I want them to take their dirty shoes off by the door, and yet be very firm as well. If they forget, they’ll have to scrub the kitchen floor. The same goes for being a boss or foreman. If you’re not happy about the way one of your employees did his job, go and tell them exactly what they did wrong. You don’t have to rant and rave or use foul language or call them derogatory names. Just be honest and straightforward. Keep your words focused on the problem, not on the person. And after you’ve made your point, drop it. No grumbling and complaining about that person to everyone else.
Being gentle also does not exclude ambition. You can be very ambitious, just don’t take advantage of others in the process or do things behind their back.
Being gentle does not exclude hard work either or effort. If you play on the basketball team, play hard and give it all you’ve got. But when you play, make sure you play fairly and by the rules. And be a good sport too. Win, lose, if you beat them by 20 points or they beat you by 20 points–always be a good sport. That’s what it means to be gentle.
The hardest one, of course, is when someone makes fun of us, especially when they ridicule us on account of our faith in Jesus. When that happens, the first thing we normally want to do is retaliate: “Oh yeah, same to you, you blankety, blank.” But that isn’t what God wants us to do. God’s will is that we take it, as Jesus did; and then let it go. What other people think of us or say about us really doesn’t matter. The important thing is what God thinks and says of us.
If you want an example of what it means to be gentle, picture yourself behind the wheel, cruising down the road, and suddenly someone cuts in, right in front of you. What do you do? Do you flip him off? Do you lay on your horn? “Yeah, take that!” Do you run up on his bumper and see how close you can get without actually hitting him? Or do you just slow down, swallow hard and forget about it? “Let your gentleness be evident to all,” says Paul.
And whatever you do, don’t worry. “Don’t be anxious about anything,” urges Paul.(v. 6) Why worry? What good is it going to do? It isn’t going to change anything, except perhaps your health, in a negative way. And besides, God is still in heaven. He’s still in charge. He’s still in control. Rather than worry, why not pray, as Paul says? “In everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God”(v. 6). If your family is struggling because of financial hardship, take it to him. If your uncle has suffered a serious stroke, take it to him. If you’re facing a difficult decision and it’s robbing you of your sleep at night and disrupting your ability to concentrate at work, take it to him. With his almighty power and his perfect understanding of all things, God can do a whole lot more about it than you can with your worrying. Take it to him.
And when you do, remember to thank God too. Sometimes I think our prayers get a little heavy on the request side and a little light on the thanks side. I know mine do. Here’s an example: “Lord, please be with Grandma Olsen, who is sick with COVID. Please help her get well again. Please comfort Aunt Louise in her loneliness since Uncle Fred died. Lord, please forgive all my sins. And please help me get an ‘A’ on my semester finals this week. Amen.” Sound familiar? As a parent, don’t you get irritated sometimes when your children are always asking for things? Do you suppose God ever gets a little irritated with us when we’re forever asking and so seldom thanking? I know it isn’t that we don’t have things to be thankful for. No, we just tend to forget and take God’s goodness for granted. “In everything,” says Paul, “by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God.”
And the last thing Paul says—well, it’s not exactly a directive. It’s a promise: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”(v. 7). Guards were a common sight in the city of Philippi, protecting the entrance to the home of some important Roman official, or maybe guarding the entrance to the local jail, where Paul himself had been in prison. Here Paul says that the sentry that guards the door of our hearts is the peace of God. That inner peace that God gives to his people; the peace that comes from knowing that God has taken all our sins away through our Savior Jesus and does not hold them against us; the peace that comes from knowing that the almighty God is our dear Father and not our angry Judge; the peace that comes from knowing that our lives are in his hands and no one, absolutely no one can snatch us out of his hands—that peace, that goes beyond all comprehension and understanding, will guard your hearts and minds. It will protect them against the assaults of Satan, as he tries to shake our faith and confidence in God. It will protect them from the cares of this world, which tend to weigh down our hearts and weaken our faith in Christ. It will protect them and keep them safe in the fortress of our Savior’s love.
The Lord is near. Indeed he is. How near I cannot say. But I can tell you this much: He’s roughly 1,960 years closer than he was when Paul wrote these words in Philippians, ch. 4. And if this is the advice he gave to the Christians back then as to how they were to live, as they waited for their Savior to return, what do you suppose he would say to us today? The Lord is near. Amen.