Rejoice and Be Not Anxious

The Call to Rejoice in the Lord and Be Anxious for Nothing

Hey everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel. What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you. If you would open your Bibles to Philippians 4. Philippians 4. We're in the final portion of this letter of the Apostle Paul to the church while in chains.

And as you all get there, I'll remind you that we took a step off of the gospel according to Matthew after the great tribulation passage, Matthew 24. Because we specifically as elders wanted to focus in upon a study through the word of God that would transform us, that would grow us.

And in particular, getting into Philippians would get us to a place where we are changed and made to be and look like Jesus in the area of authentic joy. Authentic joy. And as, again, you get there, I want to encourage you to consider even at this moment before you even begin opening this text, you may have been in Christ for 40 years or 100 years like Pastor James.

Just kidding.

I've got the mic.

No, just kidding.

I'm teasing. You may have been in Christ for a year, six months, 30 years. There's something that we have to embrace when you come to a passage like this. And that's that you may know this passage is in the Bible.

You may be able to have it in your heart and mind. You might have it committed to memory, truly. But it's a portion of Scripture that all of us need to daily be transformed in. Rejoice in the Lord always.

Be anxious for nothing.

Those are tall orders.

I think if we're all honest, those are areas where we struggle. We have struggles, daily struggles in this area. So I want to encourage you as you come to this text today, let the Word of God cut you where you need to be cut, challenge you, and change you.

So we're in Philippians 4, starting in verse 4. Hear now the words of the living and the true God. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness, gentleness be known to everyone.

The Lord is at hand. 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.

Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired Word. Let's pray together as His people. Father, we come into Your presence grateful for this gift of Your Word.

This is Your revelation.

It's You speaking.

We pray that You would allow those in this room that do not have living faith and do not truly trust in Jesus. Lord, I pray that You'd open the eyes of the blind today, give soft hearts, grant repentance and faith.

Lord, it's a gift from Your hand, and we ask for that. And for those of us, Lord, who do know You are in Christ, we pray that You would allow Your Word to penetrate today. Our hearts and our minds bring healing.

So many of us need to be healed in this area of anxiousness and to have peace. Help us, Lord, to learn what it means to rejoice in You always. I pray that You get me out of the way. Let everyone be changed by Your Word and not mine.

I pray that You would guide by Your Spirit today the teaching of Your Word and the proclamation of it in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're in this, again, it's a short, short letter. And you can't really get far into the letter without seeing the theme, right?

Joy, joy, it's everywhere. It's on every page as you're moving through it. It's joy, joy, joy, rejoice, and it's total confidence in God and what God is doing in the world, in the life of Paul and other believers.

It is just this very short letter that Paul writes while in chains. Now, you've got to emphasize that because today we're going to be talking about anxiousness and rejoicing in the Lord. And you might immediately start sort of in the back of your mind resisting the idea of rejoicing in the Lord always and be anxious about nothing.

Because you may think, well, you don't know my plight. You don't know what I'm struggling with. You don't know what I'm facing on a daily basis. You don't know what I have around me. I think it's a glorious thing and a reminder about the power of God and our need to depend on His grace.

That God gives us this inspired revelation from the Apostle Paul, a person that had endured much more than you or I ever have and probably ever will. He's a person who says what? He says that he's in danger constantly.

He's been beaten times without number. This is a man who's starting riots because he preaches the gospel. He has people taking oaths not to eat food until he's dead. He has to be lowered out of windows.

He's in danger constantly, he says. And he has his own countrymen are after him. He's got false brethren. And he considers it all a light momentary affliction. Is the situation with Paul that Paul is really like a first century Joel Osteen, sort of the eternal optimist?

Is that really what it is? Is he a life coach?

Is he an inspirational speaker?

No.

The proof of it is just where he's coming from. I mean, the man is in chains. He's talking to Christians about joy and rejoicing. And he has this depth of peace within him in the midst of very difficult trials.

From a human perspective, he did not choose his best life now. He's got one of the worst lives from a human perspective that anybody could ever ask to adopt. It really is pretty awful. You know, he was martyred for his faith in Jesus.

He's killed for believing in Jesus and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. So keep that in mind as you look at these words. Let it penetrate that the call to rejoice in the Lord always and to be anxious for nothing is something that all of us have to recognize is a command of God.

It's not a request. It's not a motivational speech. It's not good tips from the apostle Paul. This is the word of the living God. These words come from the spirit of God. This is God speaking. And if you're in Christ, it is God speaking to you.

You might say, Pastor Jeff, you don't know about my health issues. You don't know about my financial issues, my rent, my mortgage. You don't know about my family issues right now. I understand this is the word of God and this is sort of where we want to get to.

But I can't at this moment rejoice in the Lord. And I can't at this moment not be anxious about these things. I want to encourage you to humble yourself and to repent of that haughtiness. It's pride that elevates your position and your plight to a place where you say, God can't heal me or transform me in this area.

He can, and he does. It's what God does. So we're in the last portion here, Philippians 4. We just heard this glorious truth last week. We unpacked it, that there is this thing called the Book of Life.

The Book of Life and the encouragement of the Apostle Paul is that these fellow workers, including these two women who are in a tift with each other, their names are in that book. He says to keep the emphasis on the gospel, we've fought together side by side with the gospel.

Agree in the Lord. Your names are in the Book of Life. Remember that Book of Life discussion? Isn't that incredible? Believers who know Jesus have their names written in the Lamb's, what's called the Lamb's Book of Life.

Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Our names are written in heaven, Jesus says. There is a Book of Life we saw from Revelation that has names in it. That's the emphasis. Names are in that book.

And then there are, in the last day, books, plural, that are opened. And those books have deeds. And people are judged according to what they did. So if your name is not in the Book of Life, the Lamb's Book of Life, there are these other books which are a record of your deeds, your life, your sin.

It's a terrifying thing for those who don't find themselves in Jesus, but it's a glorious, hopeful, rejoicing truth for those, like these two women that are in a tift, that need to agree in the Lord, and like these fellow workers.

It's a beautiful, glorious, amazing thing. There is a Book of Life. If you're in Christ, your name's in that book. You will not be blotted out. So rejoice, always, in the Lord. Be anxious for nothing.

Paul says in Philippians 1, I'll just go back just for a moment to talk about context.

What's his worldview?

What's his theology? He says in Philippians 1, as the letter starts, he says that God is going to finish what he started in you. He that began a good work in you will complete it. There's his confidence.

He even talks about his chains in chapter 1, that what's happened to him has actually now extended the gospel. He's actually rejoicing in the fact that he's in chains.

Why?

Because now everybody's hearing about Jesus. Paul's in the same chapter 1 saying that there are gifts of God, gifts of faith, Philippians 129, and gifts of suffering, that these come from the very hand of God.

So you say, is he just the optimist? Is he just the glass, you know, half-full sort of guy?

Or does he have a theology,.

An understanding of truth underneath all of this? Yes, to the degree that when he moves on in this letter, he actually says, to live is Christ and to die is gain. To live is Christ, to die is gain. And he says he's hard-pressed between two things.

He doesn't know whether he wants to stay on to be with them, it's fruitful labor, it's all glory to Jesus, or to go home, depart, and be with Christ. And in Philippians 3, he talks about this amazing, glorious truth of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, a righteousness that comes from God through faith, not through works of law.

He talks about his life and his resume, all that he built up, all that he did in Judaism. Eighth day, circumcised, of the tribe of Benjamin.

He says that he was a Pharisee.

As to the law, blameless! Tongue-in-cheek, of course, because there's none righteous, not even one. But he talks about all of this. He says, I counted all as loss.

Skubala!

It is refuse, it is nothing to me, he says, compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.

That's the key.

And so the Apostle Paul moves through this letter in such a way as to give us an understanding of how he can say such a thing like, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. And to say things like, be anxious about nothing.

But let's get to the text. So Philippians 4, verse 4, he says, rejoice in the Lord always. Rejoice in the Lord always. Now, a key thing here is rejoice, right? Whatever does that mean? What's it mean?

Did you think about that? It says rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. So what's it mean to rejoice? Well, key thing here, this word is in the plural, and so it's now speaking to everybody.

He has not just to individual fellow workers, but rejoice. Now we're moving to everybody. Listen, rejoice. And what's that mean? It means to be glad. To be conscious. Glad for God's grace. To experience God's favor.

Rejoice.

But the key thing here is this. Here's the words. In the Lord. Rejoice. Be glad in God's grace. Be glad in God. In the Lord is the key thing. Because as you think about this, there's a way this can be misconstrued, right?

You could do the sort of plastic smile, right? Christians are sort of a culture of rejoicers. So, like, you could be in the car all the way over, yelling at the guy next to you who almost killed you. By the way, I -17, they're crazy on that road.

Is it me, or is it deadly? It is, right? You go from the East Valley, where it's Mormons, Catholics, and Protestants, sort of just, hey, all right, you can move on over. And the I -17's a bunch of madmen.

What is going on? I almost died 16 times on the way here. But, listen, there's a way you can really misunderstand rejoice to something like, well, it's just sort of a culture where, you know, no matter what's going on outside there, when you're in front of other people, you put on this happy Christian face, right?

It's the plastic smile. It's not authentic joy. It's that Christians are supposed to have this culture of big teeth, big smiles, sort of like this outward plastic, you know, we're always happy, we're always joyful, like Christians are, like, running along, and they stub their foot on something, and you're like, oh, praise God, praise the Lord, right?

That is a weird way to think about rejoicing. Like, you don't, we don't, that's not what this means. It's not rejoicing over circumstances, right? Like, we contend with a lot of things in this fallen world.

Some of us have cancer. Some of us have heart problems. Some of us have tumors in our brains. Some of us get the word from the doctor that we don't have that much longer. Some of us have lost loved ones.

This is not saying that Christians ought to, in the midst of every circumstance, rejoice and pretend to be joyful. There are circumstances where Scripture tells us to grieve. There's a time to grieve.

Jesus wept. Jesus grieved. But the key issue here, read it so we can be changed by it. Here's the answer. It's not rejoice, put on a plastic smile, create a culture where we have teeth always showing, and lips moving across our face, all pretending under every circumstance.

The key thing for Paul here is this. Rejoice in the Lord. In the Lord. Be glad in the Lord always. And then he says, again, I will say rejoice. I believe that is actually the Apostle Paul not simply repeating himself.

He's letting us know about the future, what he's going to do in the future. What's he going to say to you in the future? I'll say rejoice. Be glad in God. So he says rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice.

In the future, I'm going to tell you to rejoice. These are tall orders, and there seems to be a difficulty in understanding it when you think about the context of the world that we live in.

Let's just go to Paul's letter.

Let's just kind of stay here for a second and think about how does this work out in a fallen world? Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. If you think about just what happened above it, right?

Is that a good thing? Is that something to praise God about, that two women are in a fight, and Paul has to say, have them agree in the Lord. Please help me. Help them. Tell them to agree in the Lord.

Is that a good thing, that there is a internal conflict within a local church congregation? Is that something to rejoice over, those circumstances? Or how about the fact that in Philippians 1, verse 28, the apostle Paul says this, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.

This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God. So you have opposition to the gospel, to the church. You've got internal struggle and strife within a local body, and then you've also got opposition, Philippians 1, 28.

Are we supposed to rejoice over opposition? Oh, it's so wonderful. Everyone's smearing us on Facebook and on Twitter, which is about all people do on Twitter, I think.

Right?

Are we rejoicing that people are slandering and gossiping? Like, you just rejoice over those circumstances. Put a happy face on and pretend. That's what we're being told. Christians have a culture of rejoicing, and so we're going to rejoice in all those circumstances, even those things.

I don't believe that's the case. Or how about the fact that in Philippians 1, verses 12 through 13, the apostle Paul is dealing with a difficult situation.

What is it?

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so it's become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

Rejoice over imprisonment. Now, I think I was... I experienced being behind bars for about 15 minutes in Tombstone when my family paid for it. Tombstone experience, you know? They pull you off the street and put you behind the bars.

I think when I was 11 years old, about that age, I had shoplifted from the military base BX. I stole some pocket knives, put them in my trench coats, and I was caught. And they took me to the base jail.

And, you know, I'm a small kid in the back of a police car in a military base. Military bases are funny things because everybody knows everybody. And if you get in trouble on a military base, your dad can get in trouble, lose rank, lose money.

It's a very big deal. And so my dad said, well, why don't you go ahead and put him in jail? And so it's a good move because I was terrified to be behind bars like that. But that's really my only experience, right?

It was just short-lived. But imprisonment cannot be something in terms of circumstance where you say, this is a joyful thing. I'm loving every minute of it. It's not. Be honest. So what's the point?

Or how about this?

Philippians 3, verse 21. Same book, same letter. Philippians 3 .21, Paul says about Jesus, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to even subject all things to himself.

So what do we have in this creation? Paul's saying to rejoice in the Lord always, but it's in the midst of, of course, internal conflict, opposition from the outside, imprisonments, and now, of course, a reminder of our lowly bodies.

We're in a fallen world. We have bodies that fall apart. We get cancer. We get sick. COVID -19 is a good example of the reminder of our own mortality, and that's what we have. We have these lowly bodies.

And so Paul says that, even there, rejoice over that. Yeah, rejoice over the imprisonment. Rejoice over the internal conflict. Rejoice over the opposition. Rejoice over the lowly body, but it's always attached to something, and that's this, in the Lord.

The rejoicing isn't over the horrible circumstance, like banging the toe against somebody, something. Or somebody. It's in the Lord. The rejoicing, the being glad is in God. Just consider for a moment how that works, and the last thing I pointed you to.

Think about it. Think about it. He reminds us of the lowly body. Who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself? How do you rejoice in the Lord over a lowly body, over a broken human condition?

You rejoice because Jesus, if you're in him, he saved you, and he is one day going to raise up and transform this lowly body to be like his. That's how you rejoice in the Lord in the death room at the hospital.

You rejoice in the Lord at the grave site because not the situation causes me to rejoice. Death is an awful thing you should always mourn over, but the rejoicing is in the Lord that I know what his promises are.

I know what his character is. It's unchanging, so I can rejoice always. Not necessarily over the circumstance and its pain, but what God is in the midst of that circumstance. He's unchanging. Even in the midst of internal conflict, opposition, imprisonments, and lowly bodies.

Always in the Lord, he says. And a reminder, it's not the circumstance that we're being told to rejoice in, but the Lord and what he is and what he's accomplishing. There is a time to grieve. We're going to talk about that.

There's an appropriate time to grieve. That's why I've tried to actually emphasize as your brother and pastor that we're not aiming, as you read Philippians, to see rejoicing in joy, rejoicing in joy, rejoicing in joy, and to come in here putting on a plastic smile.

We want to be truly transformed by the truth of God so we can see our circumstances the way that God tells us that they actually are. We're looking at things that are unseen, not the things that are seen.

And if you want to know how the apostle Paul can endure all these hardships and still tell Christians in the midst of hostility all around him, rejoice in the Lord always, it's because of what he knows about Jesus.

It's because of what he knows about God's promises and God's character. So just backing up, I want you to consider what's going on here in the text. I'm going to hang in the text a little bit, then we'll expand from there.

He had just said, he just said, before saying rejoice in the Lord always again, I will say rejoice. I'm going to keep on saying it to you in the future. Rejoice in the Lord always. He just said that there is a book of life.

A book of life. So that should give them cause for rejoicing, even in the midst of that internal conflict. I reminded you last week of Luke 10. Let's go there quickly. Luke chapter 10, Gospel according to Luke.

I want you to see this book of life promise on the lips of the Lord Jesus. In Luke 10, he actually, the Lord has something to say about this rejoicing as well. And look what he says. This is, I think it's powerful.

Luke 10, 19 through 20, he says this, behold, I've given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice. Do not rejoice in this.

What? All this ministry success, all the power over the forces of darkness and spiritual hosts of wickedness. Just admit it. That's pretty. That's pretty to use modern vernacular. That's banging, right?

We've got as believers, the spirit of God and dwelling within us. You have power over the enemy, over all of this. That's a powerful thing from God. But Jesus actually says you are not to rejoice in all the ministry successes and this authority and this power.

That's not where you're being glad in God should be. Jesus actually says it's here. Nevertheless, verse 20, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

And there it is. There's the rejoicing in God. In what? In what God has done. Who put your name there? You? Did you do that? Were you there before the Lord laid the foundation of the earth where the Bible says this all began?

God predestining a people to adoption as sons. God choosing us in Jesus Christ. The Father giving to Jesus a mission to lose none of all that the Father had given to him. Nothing. These sheep that Jesus has that he says he lays his life down for and he'll never lose them.

He'll never forsake them. This is a glorious mission. And your name is written in heaven. Rejoice in that. Not the ministry successes, not that power, not that authority. But look what Paul does. This is actually interesting.

If you go to Philippians, beyond the book of life discussion, look at Philippians 1, 18 through 20. Philippians 1, 18 through 20. He says this. Here it is. He says, yes, and I will rejoice. Even over these people that are preaching Christ over selfish ambition.

He says, yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. This will turn out for my deliverance as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

For he says, of course, to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. There's the rejoicing always. But he says it in the midst of needing to be delivered. His rejoicing is in Jesus. It's in the Lord. He will rejoice that Christ will be honored by his life or his death.

Do you consider that? Here it is. That Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or death. So whether I live or whether I die, I rejoice because Christ will be honored, glorified. He will receive the praise ultimately, even in death.

Are you fearful of death? Does it keep you up at night? Do you feel like a little pain in your side? You start running to like WebMD trying to self-diagnose? Moms, right? Do you do that? You're constantly in this complicated, difficult mindset where you're always fearful of death.

And when am I going to die? And am I going to die soon? Am I going to die on the way home? Am I going to die tomorrow, next week? And just fear of death. Paul actually says this in terms of, yes, I will rejoice.

He talks about life or death. Christ is going to be honored. And that's why I rejoice because I know who Jesus is. I know what he's accomplishing. And that's why I rejoice because Jesus is going to be glorified, whether by life or death.

That's a hard thing to embrace, isn't it? Think about it for a second. Do you think about your death in that way? Yes, I will rejoice because I know that Christ will be glorified, honored, whether I live or whether I die.

I rejoice in the Lord. Look again, another example, Philippians 2. Just running through these examples of how Paul sees these things. Philippians 2, verses 17 through 18. This is powerful. He says this.

He says, even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

For what?

Even if I'm poured out as a sacrificial offering? A drink offering? He says this, I'll rejoice and you should rejoice with me. Do we think about persecution and suffering and death like that? You see, you wonder, like, Pastor Jeff, I really want to be a Christian who has that authentic joy.

I really want to be a Christian who's not anxious. Well, I promise you this. You don't want Jeff Durbin's tips to success. You don't. What you want is the transformed heart the Apostle Paul had and the way that he saw the world in light of the way that God tells us about it.

And he actually tells Christians, whatever happens to me, no matter how brutal it is, no matter how awful it is, because believe me, it would have been awful. Having your head cut off, being crucified, carrying a cross, doing the death march, all those things, those weren't pleasant things.

And so when Paul talks about rejoicing even over this situation, where I'm being poured out, I will rejoice in that. He says, and you should rejoice with me. What's that mean? Does that mean that when we have somebody we love who is persecuted and maybe even slaughtered for the name of Jesus, that we're not supposed to grieve?

No.

Definitely grieve. But your rejoicing is in the Lord because of what it's accomplishing, that Christ will be glorified. Christ will be honored. It's a powerful thing, and that's the perspective that changes us.

In Philippians 3, verse 8, the apostle Paul has another example. Philippians 3, 8.

He says,.

He says everything as its loss, all of it, compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus. So how do you rejoice in the Lord always? Rejoice in the Lord always. Well, here's ultimately how. Seeing everything else as insignificant and throwaway compared to knowing Jesus.

You want to know why our lives are complicated and they fall apart and we fall into anxiousness and bitterness and fights with one another. We fall into jealousy and pride and all the rest. We're complicated.

We get angry at our plight. We're anxious all the time. All those things are indications that deep down, our greatest satisfaction and source of joy is not Jesus and knowing him. You see, he is the supreme goal of life.

We say it in the beginning of our catechism, right? What is man's primary purpose? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever. We're talking about our purpose. That's a biblical truth, by the way. That's not just a sweet little catechism question and answer.

That's a biblical story. God creates people to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And so the source of Paul's gladness in God and his rejoicing in the Lord always is that he sees the ultimate thing is knowing Jesus.

It's not your car. It's not your house. It's not your device. It's not your goals and plans and career. That's not the ultimate thing. God can bless you in those things. Those things can ultimately in some way bring glory to God.

But for me, the ability to be glad in God is not in the stuff, my accomplishments, all these things. It's knowing Jesus. So when Paul says to rejoice in the Lord always, how do you do it? Because it's in the Lord that your gladness is supposed to be.

And so Paul's telling us in this very short letter, this is who Jesus is. These are his promises. This is who he is to me. Final word on this. Go back to Philippians 1 .25. I believe that this is the source.

There's a ground here to sort of leap off of, and it's this. Philippians 1 .25.

He says this,.

As convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith. For your progress and joy in the faith. Faith, true faith, trusting in Jesus results in joy.