God's People - Rejoicing and Reasonable

The Close of Philippians and the Call to Gospel Ethics

Turn in your Bibles or page down on your smartphone or whatever device you are using to have the scripture before you. And turn if you would to Philippians chapter 4, Philippians chapter 4. Our text today and God willing next week will be verses 4 through 7 of today, this morning.

My hope is to bring to you verses 4 and 5 and God willing next week verses 6 and 7, so a two-parter if you will, and I will read actually beginning at verse 1 so we remember the context of what we have before us this morning.

The letter that Paul has written to the Philippians is drawing to a close and as it draws to a close it is Paul's intent here to cement within the Philippian church, within the members there, the ethical and the lifestyle demands of the gospel.

Now you might remember that way back in chapter 3 and verse 1 Paul first hinted that he was bringing this letter to a close because back there he said, finally my brothers rejoice in the Lord. And here we are now in the middle of chapter 4 and he is not quite done yet.

And in the verse that we will come to in a few weeks from now, chapter 4 verse 8 he is going to again say finally and continue on after that finally to verse 23. So we've got a ways to go. This morning we are going to pick up the whole life necessity of rejoicing and with it and into next week some more characteristics of the Christian life, reasonableness and making requests to be made known to God.

So that's three R's, it makes it fairly easy to remember where we are going with this. It's not an acrostic I came up with, they came straight from the text. The words being R, rejoicing, R, reasonable and R, requesting of God what we need.

And as I read the verses this morning, I want you to think about, I want you to listen to how God's word is to encompass the whole of your life, all inclusive words and commands here. I begin at verse 1 and I'll remind you when I get to verse 4 that we're on our actual text for the morning.

Therefore my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown stand firm thus in the Lord. I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

Now this morning's text, rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone, the Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. The wonderful promise at the end there in verse 7 is sort of like of a present. It's as if Alexa and Google combined with Amazon to put on your porch a present, a box containing something.

You know what is in it, but you can't have it until we get it. Today, you can bring the box inside, but you cannot open it until we get to it. So knowing this wonderful promise so often claimed by the Christian, rightfully claimed, about the peace of God, guarding heart, guarding mind, but you're going to have to wait until next week when we get to verses 6 and 7.

This morning is verses 4 and 5. I want us to focus on rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone, the Lord is at hand. These wrap you up if you look at them, if you listen to them rightly, these are going to wrap you up from morning to night, from home to work and then back again.

Here in these verses is your spiritual discipline from the day you came to faith in Jesus Christ and to last until the day that Jesus Christ calls you to himself. Rejoice always, again rejoice, reasonableness is known to everyone, next week requests being made known to God.

And then the peace of God surpassing all understanding will guard your heart and guard your mind in Christ Jesus. You know the Philippians needed this. In ways beyond what is really just right on the surface of the text, they really needed to hear this.

You think about what was happening with them at this time. Their founder Paul was in prison. Their founder Paul the Apostle, the inspired Apostle of God, expected to be executed fairly soon. The Roman Empire all around them thought of them as atheists.

It was a terrible thing in those days in their eyes, a terrible moral failure to worship only one God. So they were surrounded by that pressure. From within they were being persuaded to add Jewish rites to faith in Christ.

You'll recall from chapter 3 about watch out for the dogs, watch out for the mutilators of the flesh, look out for the evil doers and all that. That was a pressure from within, adding Jewish rites to faith in Christ.

They had Eudia and Syntyche, these influential women who were at each other's throats for issues that were never really told what they are, they're never explained to us, but we do know that members of the church were lining up behind one or the other.

They had all these pressures around them, they had pressures outside of them, forcing in, they had pressures within, forcing divisions, and what is the answer? What does the Apostle Paul say? Rejoice, be reasonable, make requests to God in prayer.

Now that's simple, isn't it? Doesn't that not sound simple? What we'll see as we go through this. The Philippians needed this because of the pressures they were under from without and how the pressures without were causing pressures within.

Pressures without were causing rifts within. All focused on these two women, Eudia and Syntyche. They needed this, church, we need this. We need this today. We have COVID -19 ravaging the world, that's from without, and it's brought extra hardships to the church.

Some side with Eudia, they want the doors open and the pews filled. That's not necessarily at this church, it's happening in the church at large. They side with one and say the doors need to be opened, the pews are filled.

There's a church in South San Jose that is today opening fully, as I understand it, as it was announced, and some are with Syntyche, if you will, and they want even more safety precautions, they must be even more careful.

And in the midst of all this, George Foster's murder lit a match to a powder keg of pent-up frustration. So we today, even in this church this morning, even amongst this one fellowship, we're under pressures not so much different than or less intense than what the Philippians were under, and Paul's answer to us is what it was to them, rejoice, be reasonable, and make your requests be made known to God, and then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts in Christ Jesus.

So again, a two-part series on these four verses. This morning, four and five, verses four and five, keeping in mind one through three, and the immediate context that led Paul to this. Our answer is to rejoice, to be reasonable, to make requests to God.

Rejoicing in the Lord as a Whole-Life Command

Now isn't that simple? Well, we'll see how simple it is. The first part of the answer is simply to rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord again, excuse me, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice.

See the Lord Jesus Christ is the source, he is the cause of unending rejoicing, constant rejoicing. Rejoice in the Lord always, he says, and again, he repeats it. Two things are key here, one is that Jesus is the reason, he is the cause, he is the center of unending joy amongst his people, and the second is that Paul sees the need to repeat this direction in the voice of command.

You are actually commanded to rejoice. You're commanded to rejoice. It sounds odd, does it not? Like a parent who walks into a room and there's a child who's unhappy for no good reason and causing a fuss, and the father says something like, well, I'm going to take the trash out, I'm going to bring the trash can back in and put the new liner in and put it under the sink.

By the time I get back here and look in this room, you better be happy. I order you to be happy. Get that smile going on your face. Is it like that? No, it's not quite like that as we'll see. It is the voice of command.

But here, it is descriptive more than it is the actual imperative. It's an imperative in the sense that it's a necessity of the Christian life to be one of rejoicing. It's an imperative in that the apostle is commanding it, but not with that sternness that we often think of command.

I want to ask you for a moment, can you picture rejoicing? When I ask that question, I think of my theology professor in seminary, who once, I don't remember what passage he was in or what concept he was trying to get across to us.

He spoke of how hard it is to describe the smell of coffee brewing. I don't remember what that point was. It made a good point in the class that day. But I ask along those lines, how would you picture rejoicing?

How do you picture rejoicing? Someone said, I know what it is to rejoice. It's standing there with a look on my face that's rather stone set, it's stoic, I've got my arms folded, and I'm singing. And I'm rejoicing as I sing, praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation, I am rejoicing.

It looks different for everybody. Some people can't keep their hands down, it makes that other one uncomfortable. Those are extremes. Neither one is a perfect picture. But I ask you, how do you picture rejoicing?

When I first say to you, rejoice in the Lord, always, again I will say rejoice, do you get a picture in your mind about that? Let me tell you, and I should say, let me confess to you, what I think of when I try to picture rejoicing, you know what I think of?

I think of Snoopy in the Peanuts cartoons. And you see him with his hands extended, or excuse me, his paws extended, and his head's tilted back, and he's got this grin from ear to ear, and he's flapping his feet so hard that he's levitating.

Now, that's rejoicing, if anything is, and I don't know what he's rejoicing over, I don't recall that, but that's the picture of it, and I ask you, is that what God expects of us? You know, there's a greeting card with that same picture of Snoopy, and it says, God commands us to rejoice, it's not a suggestion.

Is that what we're supposed to do? Now I can't dance. As all of you know, I have multiple sclerosis, I can barely walk anymore, so I'm certainly not going to dance, and if you can dance, you're not going to flap your feet hard enough to levitate.

But is that what God expects of us, is that what rejoicing really is? What are we supposed to do? Well, first thing to do here is to notice the reason and the basis for rejoicing. Not necessarily just exuberant, happy feelings bursting out of us, there's three words that help us understand what this rejoicing is about, this whole-life command, this description of the Christian, to rejoice, three little words, in the Lord.

Rejoice in the Lord, always. Again I will say, rejoice in Jesus Christ by faith, in Him, as He by His Spirit is in you. It's in the Lord that we're to rejoice, and this gives us great direction, this gives us a better idea of what's really being expected of us.

Now some 16 years ago, when I first started preaching at this church, I preached the Ephesians, and one of my earliest sermons, going through chapter 1, to give an overall picture of it, that sermon I titled, Little Big Word.

Little Big Word. And the Little Big Word was the Greek word en, epsilon, new word, en if you will, which translates very nicely into the English word in, I-N, two little letters, one little word, but it's the little big word, little word, but oh so big and so important.

Paul tells us, rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord, and I want to go through a very fast thumbnail sketch of in the Lord by going back to Ephesians chapter 1, if you have your smart phone going, or however you're following along in the scripture, I want you to look at Ephesians chapter 1, open up to Ephesians chapter 1 for me, and follow these verses, I'm going to read them, I'm going to make very few comments, the Lord willing I'll be able to restrain myself and make very few comments, I want you to understand what it means to be in the Lord, what it means to be in the Lord, in terms of Paul saying, rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord always, are you there in Ephesians chapter 1, look at verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ, or in Him, with every spiritual blessing, in Him brethren, can you rejoice knowing that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed you in Christ with every spiritual blessing, and did you get the in, Paul has to repeat himself, in Him, blessed in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in Him, does that not cause for rejoicing, that God the Father, because He the Father, by His Spirit has placed you in Christ, has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Him, rejoice in the Lord, again I will say rejoice, does that not cause for rejoicing, look at verse 4, even as He, that's the Father, even as He chose us in Him, in Him, our little big word, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love, I'm sorry in love is not there, I added it because that's the way I memorized it many years ago, God the Father chose us to be in Him, in Christ, that little big word, before the foundation of the world, before your parents met each other, before your parents were born, before the earth on which your parents would eventually meet, existed, before all time, God chose you to be in Him, rejoice in Him, rejoice in the Lord, always, again I will say rejoice, rejoice because He chose you in Him, our little big word, before the foundation of the world, look at verse 6 please, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the beloved, in Him, God's glorious grace showered down upon you because you are in Christ, by grace you've been saved, by the Spirit of God opening your eyes and giving you a heart to believe, you are in Christ and being in Christ, you are to the praise of His glorious grace, a refuge from this world, a hell bound sinner brought to heavenward, the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the beloved, rejoice in the Lord, always, again I will say rejoice, this is what the Apostle is getting at, but we're not done in Ephesians yet, look at verse 7, in Him, rejoice in the Lord, in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, brethren, this is salvation, rejoice in the Lord, always, again I say rejoice, you've been saved, you have redemption through His blood shed on the cross for you, the forgiveness of your trespasses, look at verse 9 please, making known to us, that's God the Father, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ, in Christ, brethren, Christian, do you know the Lord Jesus Christ, have you repented of your sins, was His blood shed for you, has the Spirit come upon you and opened your eyes to this by giving you a new heart to believe, is there an amen to this, how do we do this now, a little tooth, thank you, what do I have to say, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ, rejoice in the Lord, what does this verse tell us, the mystery of God the Father's will for all creation, for all history is known to you in Christ, in Him, in Jesus, in the Lord, what more cause to rejoice do we have, verse 11, in Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him, that's God the Father who works all things according to the counsel of His will, brethren, you have that inheritance, Jesus Christ now, this day, watching over that inheritance for you, our citizenship is there, it is in heaven and from it we await a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ who will transform us, He's our inheritance, He is there and in Him we have an inheritance, all things are ours through Him, in Him, we have this inheritance, in Him, we must rejoice, one more verse 13, in Him you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in Him, were sealed with the Holy, with the promised Holy Spirit, it was the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquired possession of it to the praise of His glory, Father, Son, Spirit, Father, God the Father choosing you before the foundation of the world to be in Him, His Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit coming upon you and sealing you and being in you, that's just a few of the verses, dear ones, that's just a few verses, we could go through the Psalms and we would never get done with them, I don't believe, we could go week after week after week on this same idea, rejoicing in what the Lord God has done for you in Christ Jesus to have any greater cause to rejoice than what we have here, rejoicing is more than the snoopy happy dance as much as I love that picture, it's more than levitating because you're flapping your feet so hard because you're so joyful, it's a life, it's an always, an always of settled deep-seated reverence for Christ's person and gratitude for what He has done for you, it's a response to God's grace in something better than exuberance and it's okay to be exuberant, it's okay to have your hands up, it's okay to weep just out of joy of knowing Christ, those are all fine but it's something that's more lasting, more enduring in our life, more consistent, more day to night, home to work and back again than such an enthusiastic and exhausting for some of us outflow of emotion, no, it's a settled disposition of reverence for Him and a daily, a constant, a moment by moment remembrance that the Son of God who loved me gave Himself up for me, a devotion to Him, it's devotion to Him and as the context of Philippians shows, that means devotion to His people, our unity, our mutual growth, to see His Word dwell richly among us, that's Colossians 3 16.

All these are what it means to rejoice in the Lord, moment by day, by week, by month and most especially with God's people, is that not reason to rejoice? Can we not together rejoice in the Lord always again?

I will say rejoice, I need to ask you, seeing how good a Savior Jesus is, seeing what a wonderful God the Father is to have sent His Son to accomplish our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins and then to send His Holy Spirit to those whom He predestined to be in Christ to open our eyes to this wonder, why does the Apostle Paul have to tell the Philippians twice?

Well really three times when we go back to the first ending of the letter, the finally brethren, rejoice in the Lord, that's chapter 3 verse 1, now we're chapter 4 verse 4, again we have the same thing, rejoice in the Lord always again, I will say rejoice.

Why does he have to repeat himself? Why did they have to hear it twice in the same verse, brothers and sisters? Why do you have to hear it twice? Why do I? Why do we together have to hear this these couple of times in one verse when the whole book has this idea of rejoicing going all through it and the whole Bible and especially the Psalms have rejoicing after rejoicing after rejoicing, why does he tell us twice in one verse?

I think it's because we are by nature ungrateful people. We by nature want to deserve what we have. I think it's because of some of us are self-conscious and we're afraid to show our enthusiasm so Paul has to draw it out of us.

Rejoice again, I will say rejoice and there's one more which I think is really hardest to admit. Sometimes it's a dangerous thing for us to admit that we have something to rejoice over. It's a little bit dangerous to put out the notice and say you know what, I have cause to rejoice.

I have a reason to be, can I say happy? To be every moment glad because every moment the Lord is with me because every moment he is now interceding for me. That's a dangerous thing to admit that you have such cause for joy, such cause to be satisfied in life.

What does this look like? Why is it so hard to draw true rejoicing and again I don't mean the snoopy happy dance so if anybody could do it for me I'd love to see it but that's not what I mean. I'm talking about a lifelong settled disposition of gratitude to God for what he's done for you in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It's hard to admit sometimes I have something before me that I need to be grateful for, that I have cause to rejoice over. I'm going to picture this for you with a 1987 movie called Babette's Feast which was based on a book.

I'll give you a very quick cliff notes version of it but there are these two sisters, I can't remember their names, this is in 19th century Holland and they live close to Jutland where that great naval battle was fought in World War I.

Well their father had passed away, he had been pastor of this village and now they took over caring for these people, most of them very elderly, some of them infirm and they served them day by day by day as their father had and what they served them to eat was this gruel that would make oatmeal that had no butter or salt or sugar or anything on it look like a gourmet feast.

It was just plain gruel and they'd learn that you eat the gruel because gruel satisfies your body and anything more than this plain gruel is sinful sensuality. Along comes Babette, she's a refuge from the French Revolution, she is a world-famous chef, she's like the chef of Paris for the upper crust people.

She finds out after she comes to this village and she attaches and she grows to love them that she had won the French lottery, she gets 10 ,000 francs, I don't know what that means in today's money, it's a lot of money, she spends every cent of it to make a feast for these people, Babette's feast and when the people sit down and they see it, they're afraid to touch it because they had learned that gruel is holy and any seasoning much less this feast was sinful sensuality and the first man takes some and sees how good it is and how not gruel-like it is and he can't admit to the others how good it is.

He couldn't tell them that they had cause to rejoice, he couldn't tell them that this is really okay, that this feast has been set before you without condition. They all are terrified until they finally start and realize that it was just the goodness of Babette in our heart that laid this feast before them.

I wonder are we that way with Christ and his goodness? Why does the apostle have to tell us twice rejoice again? I will say rejoice, why do we have to be told when we serve a God like our God to rejoice twice?

Are we that way? Are we sometimes afraid to admit that we have joy to show? This command to rejoice as I said, it is a command, there's no getting around that but it's really a description of us in this context.

Not so much I better find some rejoicing here or there's going to be trouble as it is that Christ the Lord is so proudly worthy of your rejoicing therefore rejoice and he set this wonderful bounty before you.

He's taken away the rule and set a holy feast that's unbelievable. What is the feast? It is him, it is him, is our joy in him. Rejoice in the Lord always because Christ is worthy of it. Rejoice in the Lord always because it's good for your soul.

Rejoice in the Lord always because it's good for me to see you rejoice and for you to see me rejoice and on and on go those connections throughout the whole church. Rejoice in the Lord always because he is profoundly worthy of rejoicing and because the apostle Paul says to rejoice because rejoicing is good for you, it's good for me, it's good for you to see me rejoice, good for me to see you rejoice, it's good for the church brethren for us all to be rejoicing in the Lord.

Rejoicing in the Lord is a reasonable response for the grace of God. Is it not? Would you not say well if God is that good and he is and he did this wonderful thing for us in Christ and he did, is he not profoundly worthy of it?

Is that not a reasonable response? Look at verse five again please in Philippians. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Some of you bibles may say Lord is at hand. Don't worry about that.

Near or at hand are both good translations of the original as rejoicing is because of our proximity to Jesus. So reasonableness here in this verse is because of his proximity to us. He is near. It could mean he is near in his coming and he could come at any moment.

I think the nearness here is proximity to them. By his spirit he was with them. So he says let your reasonableness be known to everyone. It's very odd if you look at your bibles there's a period there.

Then we have the Lord is near semicolon and then verse six if you look ahead begins with a small d. Do not be anxious and so forth. Where does the Lord is near fit? What does it mean? I take it actually two ways.

I want you to know this because I'm going to pick it up again next week. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone because the Lord is near and next week the Lord is near. Therefore do not be anxious.

I think it works as a janice kind of looking both ways. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone the Lord is near. Are you reasonable? Are you a reasonable person? The greek word behind reasonable is not used very often but it means to do what is fitting, to do what is right, to do what is equitable.

That describes a few of us. This word also means not insisting on the letter of the law in a given case. Not insisting on the letter of the law in a given case. This word's used in psalm 86 verse 5 of God where the psalmist says for you O Lord are good and forgiving.

You O Lord are good and reasonable is used in 2nd Kings chapter 6 verse 3 of Elisha the prophet. Early in his ministry after Elijah was taken away in the chariot of fire the prophets come to him. The young prophets and they ask him to stay and be their master.

They will be his disciples and they want to build that that seminary house if you will. And in chapter 6 verse 3 of 2nd Kings the prophets ask Elisha be pleased, be reasonable, be pleased to go with us.

So Elisha agrees. He is reasonable because he agrees to do something that's not really incumbent upon him in the context of flickens. Coming as it does so soon after the iodia and syntyche controversy it means this.

It means to treat each other the way God has treated you. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. Who is everyone? I would suggest everyone is those who can appreciate it, that is fellow believers.

I would say everyone is really more particularly those in the particular fellowship to which you have committed yourself. Treat each other the way God has treated you. Treat each other in the law, the way the Lord has treated you, the way God in the Lord has treated you.

Paul told the squabblers iodia and syntyche to agree just like that in the Lord. There are many verses that relate to this. The main verses that relate to how we relate to each other because of how God relates to us or related with a d in past tense if you will.

Many verses we can go to and I'm just going to do one. I'm just going to give you one. Ephesians 4 .32. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Let that be known to everyone.

Too often we extract the full measure of the law from the offending brother or sister. We become the church of the great rebukers because we can see what you did wrong. And now I'm going to give you a verse about it.

Sometimes I sort of shudder at that term. I gave you a verse. I'm going to give you a verse because usually or too often I should say it becomes a sledgehammer with which I'm going to get bludgeoned. And too often we extract the full measure of the law.

And when we do that, we're just upholding God's law, right? We are showing how God in Christ has treated me, right? But imagine what if God treated us the way we treat each other? I want to think of forgiveness here.

I want to think of the controversies that come up in the church between people. We're all sinners. We all sin. We all tick each other off. Can we agree to that? We all stumble in each other's faces. And so there's always need for being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.

There's always need to be reasonable and let our reasonableness be known to everyone. Imagine if God treated me the way I treat you or vice versa. Imagine you're standing there 2 ,000 years ago and you hear Jesus Christ say, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

And you fall down on your knees before him. You spread your hands vulnerably. You say, Lord, I repent. Take me to your kingdom. He says, you repent of what? I said, well, my sins. Which sin? I can't remember.

You sinned an hour ago, didn't you? Yeah. What was it? I forgot. What did you do yesterday? No, I can't remember, Lord. Please forgive me. I will forgive you. I want a list. I want a list going back to every sin that I can remember.

And I want them systematized. I want them categorized. I want them date ordered. And within those dates, I want them priority ordered. And off to the side of your spreadsheet that you're going to give me before I forgive them, you're going to tell me every person who was affected by that sin and go back and sackcloth the ashes.

That's what it means to repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That's what the way God treated you, right? The way God treated me. When I come and I insist that you cover this verse and repent and this related verse, repent.

I'm going to give you another verse and you're going to repent. Then we're going to catch all the people and we're going to make it so hard that if Christ had made it that hard, none of us would be here now.

We would be suffering torment forever. Because he didn't do that, did he? What does Paul mean when he says be reasonable? Let your reasonableness be known. It means to treat each other as God treated you in Christ.

God would be justified if he sent us to hell right now, would he not? If he extracted from you or me what we owe him for the wages of sin is death. And all sin and fall short of the glory of God. That's Romans 6.

That's Romans 3. Solomon said there's no one who does not sin. We owe him the payment for our sins. We owe him the payment for every one of our sins. And even if you could remember them all, even if you could date order them all.

Sorry, this fell off in commission. One second. Even if we could do all that and go to the Lord with every one of them, he would be justified in punishing every one of them with eternal torment in hell.

Is that what he did? No. And he'd have the right to do that. He would still be good and just and holy and righteous had he done that. He has the right to carry out that sentence in each of us forever and ever and ever.

And it would be fair and right and just. How did God treat us in Christ? With reasonableness, I would argue. He treated you reasonably. Did not extract from you every jot and tittle of the law, his good and just and holy law, which tells what you owe him.

Why? Because you can't pay it. I can't pay it. Eternal suffering in hell forever and ever and ever could not pay for the slightest of our insults against him. With reasonableness, he did not demand what I could never pay.

What did he do instead? He laid my sins on his son. He treated Jesus Christ how? Unreasonably. Tempted in all ways as we are yet without sin. He who knew no sin became sin for us. He was treated, the only man who never sinned, the only man who never deserved to be punished for sin, as though he had committed all of our sins.

He was treated unreasonably. And so God treated you and me reasonably. That's what Paul demands of us. Do you see how important this is? Ephesians 4 .32 is just one example. Ephesians 4 .5, let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

The Lord is at hand. That's for our interactions with each other. This is for us today. This is for this church in this very place today, as much as it was for the Philippians then. These days of pandemic, these days of social upheaval, we need to be reasonable with each other.

We need to be reasonable accepting one another's fears and accepting one another's outrage at some of the things that have happened. The Lord is near. He's with us even now. Consider our times. Some churches are literally coming unglued over these things.

The pandemic and the social upheavals that are happening now. I want to talk about being reasonable. Now I'm not going to sort out for you which side is right and which side is wrong. And I can do that.

Because the Philippians, Paul never tells us what Euodia and Saint Pete were arguing about and who was on which side. And we know the church was splitting up over this. Some look at the protest marches that are going on now and they're totally against it and say, well, that's Marxism.

Others look and say, no, that's the gospel. We need to be concerned about racism and social injustice. I'm not sorting out for you which one is right and where the church should go on this and who needs to carry a sign.

I am telling you to be reasonable. I am telling you that if I don't kneel, I shouldn't be called a racist. And if you do kneel to show your support for some of these right issues behind all this and the desire for things to be right in this country in terms of social injustice, things that the gospel would speak to, we need to be just as reasonable about that.