Philippians 4:1-9 My Joy and Crown

Jimmy begins discussing the fourth chapter of Philippians and highlights the special relationship Paul has with the Philippian church. He praises their love and desire to be with them. He explains the significance of calling them his joy and crown. He mentions the issue of disunity in the church and urges them to reconcile. He emphasizes the accountability of pastors and the importance of their work. Well, good morning. I believe they spread us out a little bit more today. Well, good to see you. My dad said he heard the preacher dream he was preaching, woke up and he was. I can identify with that. Before I found out, I had sleep apnea. I was coming home from office in Nashville and rolled into the car next to me, in front of me. It was traffic light just before I got home, went to sleep. So, I know what it's like to go to sleep. By the way, it's okay if you sleep when I'm speaking, because that tells me that you believe I'll never say things that aren't right. So, it's okay. So, if you need to take a nap, just go ahead and get it. But anyway, thank you for allowing us to teach you. We're going to finish up Philippians next week. We'll do the first nine verses today, and chapter four, and then the next verses will be the following week, and then Brother Jack will start Colossians. So, that'll be on the 14th, which is, by the way, the day that John will come back to preach. He had set up for Randy to preach this Sunday and next Sunday, and I asked him, I said, when are you going to preach again? He said, two Sundays from now. I said, I think the doctors will help him make the decision. He has a voice now, but it's just not strong. It doesn't last very long. So, we'll be praying for him. We've got another couple weeks before he comes back. Well, thank you for praying for us last week, if you thought to do that. We were in Nashville. Mike and Paul Arrington, we told you, were former members here. When we went to Nashville, he went to be one of my vice presidents. So, we served together, not only here in Ulis, but also for 15 years at the Lifeway, and they had a little celebration of the college there in Nashville. He was naming the Mike and Paul Arrington School of Christian Ministry after them. So, we wanted to be there. And then on Monday, we had a serendipity. We had lunch at Lifeway, and the president invited all the employees that were still there, that were there when we were there. Now, that's been 20 years. And, by the way, most of the people are working at home. We had nearly 2,000 working downtown. When I was there, they had about 750 now. The rest of them are working at home, and that's a whole other story, but it's great. We saw their new building that they renovated, a lot of open space and offices that people at home can reserve for a day to come in and work. Anyway, it's good. We had about 50 employees that had been there 20 years ago. One of the employees is coming up on his 50th anniversary at Lifeway, and two of the ladies are coming up on 45 years. So, people come to Lifeway and usually stay a long time. We always won the award every year for the best place to work in Tennessee, and that's still true. So, anyway, we had a good time. But, you know, it wore us out. I know you can't understand this, but we don't have the resilience we used to have, and we get tired easy. I can get tired sitting in my computer. I don't know how that works, but it surely does. But we had a good week and had a safe return and excited to be back with you. Now, we're going to start with the fourth chapter of the book of Philippians. Let me just read those verses and then we'll go through them. So then, he's been talking to them about knowing Christ and reaching forward to the goal that's set before him and so on. He says, so then. Now, I want you to notice how he addresses this church. We know that this church is his favorite church. Now, we know it for many reasons, but this verse, he mentions six things about him in the first verse. He says, so then, my dearly loved and my dearly longed for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown in this manner stand firm in the Lord, dear friends. He kind of switches. He was a little more looking at the things, facing the challenges, facing the church in chapter three. Now, in chapter four, there's a warp that just oozes out. You're my dear friends, my dearly loved, you're my joy, you're my crown. It shows the incredible relationship that he has. And so, now he's speaking just a very warm, friendly message to the friends and partners in ministry in Philippi. Now, let me remind you again, because we'll notice a couple things as we go through this. Jack told us several weeks ago that when Philippi was founded, veteran soldiers who had been through the wars with Caesar gave land to all those who retired in Philippi. So, basically, you had a village like, what would it be like? What's the place out in Arizona? Yeah, out in the Scottsdale area and out in that area, Webb City or whatever it is. Anyway, it was a retirement city and they were all retired soldiers. And so, that's why we've seen so many military ideas and words used in this Philippians. And so, we'll look at it. But the first thing is his unique relationship with the Philippian church. He begins by, by the way, this also, remember, this is the, when Jesus gave the letters to the seven churches, this was the only church he didn't have a complaint about. I mean, this is a good church. I mean, they'd be a number 10. Good, solid church, partners with Paul. And he, so he begins by praising the church for their great and love and desire to be with them in person. He sincerely loved and longed for brothers and sisters. This is a deep love for the Philippian church that is evidenced by the fact that there was a deep pain of separation from them. He wasn't with them and he longed to be with them. He calls them his joy and his crown. Now the word crown there is not what you would normally expect. It's the laurel wreath of someone who won a competition. And remember the ancient world had the Olympics in Rome, but there are also Olympics in other parts of the Roman empire. So athletics was a big thing. You think that we invented athletics here in America, but this is way, way back and the Olympics were very big. And so he calls them, his crown is the laurel wreath of a victor of an athlete in a contest or of a person who's being honored because of their accomplishments. And he describes that. Well, let me, let me pause. Wait a minute, just a second. Let me just read you something and then you'll understand better what he's just, what he's just about to say. In Hebrews 13, when he's talking about the pastors, talking about the leaders, he says in verse 17, obey your leaders and submit to them since they keep watch over your souls as though who will give an account so that they can do this with joy and not with grief. For that would be unprofitable for you. So he says, you're my joy, your crown. In other words, I have, I have developed a really great church here for me to present to Jesus. He's going to be held accountable for it. It'll help you. Maybe if there's no way to describe what it means to be a pastor, if you've not been one, but the pastor is accountable for how he leads the church. I mean, it says that he's going to receive a more strict accounting. He's got to give an account to God by how he did, how he led the church. And it's a reminder to us that we don't hire a pastor. We call a pastor. If we hired him, then he worked for us. We call him because he works for God and he's going to give an account to God. It doesn't matter how much we may grumble about him or complain about him or praise him or whatever. He's going to give an account to God. So every pastor has two extremes he lives with every day. The first one is that there are a hundred things he should have done. He didn't get done. Now you've got to get used to that. Especially if you're a perfectionist and have a lot of lists of things you do, you got to get used to things that you can't get done. Pastor does that every night when he goes to bed. You wonder why they have insomnia sometimes, occasionally, because they remember what they didn't get done. And that is important. The other is we remember that God's going to hold us accountable for what we do, how we do it. We've had a lot of well-known pastors who have failed in the last few months. And part of the reason, no reason to get into it, they're good men. Most of them I know well. And I've told you that your strengths are your weaknesses. Their strength in areas made them careless about it. Your strengths become your weaknesses because you take your strengths for granted and you assume you can do them. And they got lost out of the fact that they were not working as a hired hand, but working to give an account to God. And that's what the description of a minister pastor is. So he calls them his joy and his crown. And he uses that as proof that he'd been successful. Now, why did he want to be successful? Well, because he's going to have to give an account to God. He's going to have to answer for it. So he wants the church to do good. And he urges them to stand firm in the Lord and again calls them dear friends and dearly beloved. But he quickly comes to the problem of disunity in the church. He comes pretty quickly to the names of Euodia and Syntyche, who've had a break in fellowship. They were friends and they had a falling out. And they led two opposing factions in the church. And it was creating chaos and dissension. And so he urges the church to work with them to be restored to friendship. I went through a seminary with a young man that grew up in Grapevine. If I called his name, you'd know him. We were dear friends and we refereed basketball together when we were in seminary. So we got five dollars for one game, seven and a half for one game, ten dollars for two and six cents a mile. And we operated all over counties and places. I think I told you I preached at Lingleville here a while back, Stephenville over in that area. And the very best ladies basketball player I ever saw was from Lingleville. Anyway, he and I refereed together. We were a team. We did that for a couple of years. When the conservative resurgence came along, now he's more conservative than I am, if that's possible. Had he been in the same situation I was in when that happened, he'd have done the same thing I did. But he wasn't in it. And he ended up on the other side. Not that he's a liberal. He's not a liberal. Not that he doesn't love souls. He's a great soul winner. But it broke our friendship. Now that's been 1979. We swapped emails yesterday. And I mailed him a letter, or will mail it, tomorrow. Because God has brought us back together. And we're looking forward to the time when we'll be able to have lunch or something with our wives. This was happening in the church. And it just wasn't good. These two ladies, bosom buddies, fell out with each other. Well, if that happens in a church, you've got to choose sides. Well, I'll go for Syntyche. I'll go for Euodia. And so it was the beginning of disunity. And I'm going to show you why that's so important here pretty quick, I think. Let me see. Yes. In fact, in the second verse, he says, I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Now, listen. Yes, I also ask you, true partner. Now, who is he talking about? It is a mystery. It is such a mystery that many, if not most, New Testament scholars would say that true partner is not a good translation. It is actually their name of one person because it's singular, true partner. But I don't agree with that. He has emphasized throughout his epistles and throughout Philippians, the importance of unity and harmony. And now he's looking at the church and treating the church as one person. It's singular, but it involves the whole church. In other words, the church ought to speak with one voice. The church ought not to be divided, not ought to be full of factions. We are in Christ. We're in Christ together. We have partnership in ministry and we ought to speak as one. And I think that's what he's doing here. Now, I can say, Brother Jack, as a Muslim scholar that I am, but many of the scholars and maybe most of them would say that the word true partner is actually a name and not a translation of true partner. Now, I've read the words. They don't sound like names to me, but nevertheless, I think he was talking to the church again about he had a unique relationship with his church. And he's saying, now then you, in the church, true partner. There's an interesting study in Philippians of the tenses of the verbs and of the, sometimes you have a, or a mood, what is a plural and a singular? That's not a tense, is it? Is that a mood, whatever they call it? Anyway, he uses brothers and sisters, that's plural. He uses you in the plural and in the singular. And so it's interesting throughout this, he's using them. And I think when he says true partner, he's actually looking at the church that he's been pushing and preaching to and demanding that they get harmonious and not let chaos reign. He's looking at the church and saying, now you are my true partner. And again, he is, he's emphasizing unity, which he has all through the book and all through his epistles. And he is looking for the church, apparently the church had failed to deal with this. Apparently the leaders in the church had not dealt with the problem between euodia and syntyche. And two stellar ladies in the church, they were devoted and sincere women who had been very involved in the ministry with Paul. He brags on them. He says they had contended for the gospel at my side. He said, they got down in the trenches with me. They'd been with, the Greek word contended there is a word which describes two oxen pulling away, pulling a load with a yoke. What a yoke is, that's not one, that's plural. Two, pulling a load. And that's what they had proven their value and their devotion, both to the Lord and to Paul. And Paul says, y'all have ignored this. It is not to be done. And he urges that the church get with it and help them be resolved. Or he says, help these women who have contended for the gospel at my side, along with Clement. Who is Clement? Nobody knows. And not only Clement, but the rest of my coworkers whose names are written in the book, the book of life. I love that verse because it's one of my favorite things. Nobody is nobody in the kingdom. Everybody is somebody. We don't know who Clement is. Nobody knows who Clement is. There is no historical record of who Clement is. He was just an ordinary guy that God used. And who are these true partners in ministry talked about? We have no idea. They don't have a name. They have lived for thousands of years in obscurity. We don't know who they are. That's just the way God does things. When I was a boy, I was very shy. I was mischievous. And I won't get into that. But I will tell you that at the end of my freshman year in Baylor, I was on probation for what I did. Which I really didn't do what he thought I did. But I was a shy kid. And I couldn't even get up in training and give a part without my stomach just churning. When I made my profession of faith, my dad was the pastor. And he was standing down front and I wouldn't even go talk to him. I went and just sat down on the front pew. I was just such a shy kid. Now imagine, president of the convention, president of Lifeway, pastor of Hewlett's, could hardly speak when he was a kid. God has a real sense of humor. We think, Carolyn and I talk about this, we were talking about this yesterday, if we had known when we married what God was going to do with us, it would have scared us to death. Number one, we wouldn't have believed it. But it just was overwhelming. You know, we ought to be glad that God doesn't tell us in advance what he's up to. It's just not a good prayer to say, Lord, help me know what I'm going to be in a year. No, don't do that. He wants you to be what you are today and just wait for next year. It'll be okay. Don't worry about it. So anyway, here he names Clement, who we don't know anything about, rest of my co-workers, we don't know who they are, unnamed believers, believers whose identities scarcely known. These are just ordinary people, just like you and just like me. We're just common folks. And that's the kind of people God always uses. Now we're confronted here in verse three with the book of life. Now, I think I put this in the notes, but I won't talk to you a minute about the book of life. There are scores of books that are listed in the Bible. You probably didn't realize that there's the book of the law. There's the book of the Lord's wars. There's an angel's book in Revelation 10. In Malachi 3, there's a book of remembrance that Malachi spoke about. In Revelation 5, there's a seven seal scroll or book that's opened by the Lord himself. There are a lot of books that are mentioned in the Bible, but the most fascinating one is the book of life. What is the book of life? Well, one thing we know is it's God's book. It's not ours. It's a book that God's going to get. And the names, it says that some names are written in this book and some are erased. How in the world, what in the world does that mean? In one place, it appears to be a list of all the people who've ever lived, which I think is the case because the only way that a book of life could erase someone out of the book of life is if they weren't involved in it. So it would list everybody that's ever been born and then the ones that reject Christ, he erases them out of there. So we use whatever others think that it is a book of believers. And we do know that when the books are open, it's going to reveal what your eternal destiny is. So we know that it is a book that is going to confirm the faith of the faithful and confirm the rebellion of those who received Christ. So all of these books are very important, but you'll be happy to know that we do not have the time to dive into what all that might mean. But I do have a good suggestion for you. I think I wrote it down over here. I'll jump ahead to that. When I was at LifeWay, we hired a young man to come in and be our communications director who had been serving as communications director for Wal-Mart. And a great young man and a reporter, he came in to take care of, help us do things we need to do in branding and communication and everything. And he has just, just last week, his latest book came to my desk. There's been, when I say last week, this is Sunday, so maybe a little before, maybe Friday of the week before, but it's been the last 10 days. And it's called The Book of Life. Now he is a remarkable writer. He has written a number of books like whatever Christians should know about the second coming, whatever Christians should know about the Trinity, about salvation, about the pre-incarnational appearances of Jesus in the Old Testament as the angel of the Lord. I don't know how he does it. He is the communications director for the Missouri Baptist Convention right now, puts out a weekly paper and writes incredible books. And I would recommend that to you. His name is Rob Phillips, two L's and two P's in Phillips. And you can go to Amazon, pull it up, just type in Rob Phillips. And if you want to be really sure it pops up, just put Jefferson City, Missouri. He's with the Missouri Baptist Convention, but I looked at it yesterday. You can get any of his books there. They're excellent books. I have all of them, but he wrote this book and I haven't had a chance to read it yet, so I can plead ignorance and not try to get into that today. But he wrote this book about the book of life. And so I would encourage you to go online and ask Walmart to bring up Rob Phillips. But all of these books that are in the Bible are important, but this may be the most important book in the Bible. It raises a lot of questions. We could spend our time just talking about the questions. For instance, where did it come from? Where was it written? Where did it originate? When was it written? Who's the author? Who received it? What's the purpose of it? Is there a connection between the book of life and God's foreknowledge and election and predestination? Is there a connection to that? Why does God open the book of life on judgment day? How can one know if his or her name is in the book of life? I mean, a lot of questions we could ask. And I promise you that if you get Rob Phillips' book, he will deal with these questions. But these questions are important, but they can't be answered in one lesson. So this is one of those things where we're going to have to take a deep breath and think about the book of life and say, I'll check it out later. But it is a book that God has recorded. I think that it's a book originally of all those who have ever lived. But if they're going to erase some names out of it, the only way you could do that justifiably would be those who rejected Christ. Now, Dudley Hall used to say that's my humble but accurate opinion. That's my opinion. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it's worth studying. The prophet Daniel saw a future time when the book of life was opened in the New Testament. And it was understood as including those receiving rewards and punishments in the life to come. In fact, Daniel gives a startling prophecy of the Lord himself in a judgmental role in which the book of life has a key role. Listen to this, Daniel 12, 1-3. At this time, Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people, will rise up. There will be a time of distress since nations came into being until that time. But at that time, all your people who are found written in the book will escape. Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, some to disgrace and eternal contempt. Those who have insight will shine like the bright expanse of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. That last verse is an evangelism verse. You may feel, you know, the day that wins souls, says one truth, maybe the King James uses that. Some would say, the day that wins souls shall be like this. But it's talking about time when the book of life will be opened, the Lord himself will open it. The results of that opening will be some will be assigned to heaven and others will be assigned to the lake of fire, as it's recorded. Now we have to move on because we can't get bogged down there, but I would invite you to go on Amazon and look for Rob Phillips. He's an amazing writer, dear friend, and I really appreciate the opportunity I had to work with him. There are three phrases in verses one through four that are key to understanding this passage. Number one, in verse one, he says, stand firm in the Lord. Now this is an imperative word. This is not a suggestion. This is a command. He is commanding them. He is saying, you have to stand firm in the Lord. It's an imperative word. It has a military ring to it. The retired soldiers who lived in Philippi would surely understand that command. And like soldiers on the front line, they're commanded to hold their positions and never collapse in the face of battle. Stand firm. Don't give in. The Roman army was famous for its discipline, organization, and innovation in both weapons and tactics. And they were so effective that it enabled Rome to build and defend a huge empire for hundreds of years and dominate the Mediterranean world and beyond. It was an outstanding army. And Philippi was composed of men who had been, they would understand this command. He said, you've got to stand tight. Number two, the other key, help these women who have contended for the gospel at my side to agree in the Lord. Another word to, that would be, you could say, who would be harmonious, have harmony together. God desires harmony and unity in the church and the leaders in Philippi had failed to address that. I tell young preachers, which when I'm talking to them, get a chance to do that often, that things never get better if you leave them alone. They'd call and say, I've got this problem. I said, you need to deal with it now. Don't kick the can down the road. Don't wait for the next pastor. You need to deal with it. It's just any problem we have in our lives. I mean, I had just retired and my doctor said, you have diabetes. Well, I didn't want diabetes. Didn't feel I needed diabetes. Didn't know I had it. I didn't like it. You've heard me tell before, I said, well, what causes it? He said, bread, potatoes, and desserts. I never did diet. I just didn't eat bread, potatoes, and desserts. And this morning I weighed 68 pounds less than I did when I retired from not eating bread, potato, and desserts. Now I've reached a place. I've been where I am now for some time and I can fudge a little bit. And I know how much, but you know what happens? Part of gaining weight is we don't know when to stop eating. Listen, I was raised, my mother said, eat everything on your plate. They're starving children in China and you're not eating everything on your plate. So I grew up eating everything on my plate. Sometimes my plate was a whole lot bigger than it should be. So what has happened? I have learned that I can eat some bread and potato desserts, but I have to know when to quit. So I don't eat near as much as I used to. I even leave food on the plate. My mother's spinning in her grave. She told me, don't do that. Well, this is a problem in the church that has to be dealt with. I had not preached my first sermon as pastor at this church when Harold Samuels, who was the mayor, and Bob Eden, who was chairman of the pulpit committee, summoned me to their house, to Harold's house. A problem had come up in the church. Nobody knew about it. It had to be dealt with. I'll say no more about it, but say we dealt with it. Most people, 99% of the people, never knew about it. Thankfully, it wasn't like Euodia and Seneca who had their teams that were working against each other. But when problems come up, you have to deal with them. So he's saying stand firm in the Lord and, by the way, help these women be restored to their friendship. And then the last thing, the third thing is in the fourth verse, rejoice in the Lord. Everything in this passage is determined by the phrase, in the Lord, in the Lord. That's what Randy was talking about in his sermon. There are a lot of days that I'm not real happy. I'm not sure I want to say this is the day the Lord is made. It's just not a good day. God says rejoice anyway. That's what you're to do. Rejoice in everything. Everything is determined by the phrase, in the Lord, or its equivalent. The only way that we are ever going to properly stand for what is right is to stand in the Lord. The only way we can properly aggrieve and live in harmony is in the Lord. The only way we can truly rejoice is in the Lord. So we're to rejoice. We have a dear friend that died last October. He had cancer. It's a long story, but he went through nine months of all kinds of treatments, a great deal of pain and everything. On Friday, his record doctor said, everything's great. Everything's normal in your blood work. On Monday, it was back nine days later, he died. It was a sad thing for us, but I don't know where I was headed with that. Oh yeah, he joyed. This is what he said through the whole thing. I'll never forget. He would get all these bad reports, all the chemo, the radiation, and he would say, I choose joy. He'd tell every nurse, I choose joy. Tell his doctors, I choose joy. He died, but he chose joy all the way home. That's the best way to do it. Do you know that nobody can make you happy? You just can't do it. You're the only one that can make you happy. So get over yourself. You're the problem. Be joyful. If you could raise the voice of praise to the Lord, it would absolutely change every day for you. Now, when we were at First Southern Baptist in Bell City, which I think was certainly one of the greatest churches I've ever seen, I'd love to just sit down and talk to you about the church. If I chase a rabbit here, I'm not going to get back. I'm not going to do that. Okay. Years ago, we pastored in Tyler, Texas, and I joined a little service club in Tyler called the Optimist Club. There were the Lions, and the Kiwanis, and the Rotarians. We didn't have it, about 15 or 20 of us. But we decided to have a contest. They put me in charge of contests to have junior high students at this time of the year write an essay on freedom, what it means to be free. We had a great, fantastic reply from one junior high school student. So I called Paul Harvey. Do you all remember Paul Harvey? Those of you who can't, you missed it. Every day at noon, he had a broadcast, incredible broadcaster, great Christian. But I got in touch with Paul Harvey, and I sent that essay to Paul Harvey. He made a program out of it and talked about this girl and read her little essay and everything. That was my connection to Paul Harvey back in the early 60s. So I'm now in Dale City about 10 years later, and I called Paul Harvey and I said, look, I want you to come and speak to our church on Easter Sunday. He said, okay. So it was thunderstorms and all kinds of things on Saturday. He flew in, and on Sunday morning, we had moved our Easter service. We didn't have an auditorium big enough, so we moved to the high school gymnasium. We had a platform in there and jammed 3,000 or 4,000 people in it, or maybe more than that. He asked me when we got there, where do you want me to wait until it's my time to speak? I said, I want you to sit right by me on the platform. I said, I want you to be a worshiper. Now, you have to understand, there was one thing that was unique about First Southern. Every time we welcomed visitors, we asked the visitors to remain seated, and all the people would stand. They knew that while we were welcoming the visitors, they found the people sitting down and they'd shake hands with them. Also, what we did, there is a song, I think it's simply entitled, Coming Again. The chorus says, maybe morning, maybe noon, maybe evening, and maybe soon. Well, we changed it just a little bit, and we sang it, maybe morning, maybe noon, and maybe evening, and we'll be soon. Our people would sing that to the, I mean, it'd make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. I mean, it was a rousing thing. Now, we're in a high school gymnasium whose acoustics are pretty wild anyway, and Paul Harvey said, we're singing Coming Again. He used his radio program the next day to talk about our church, and he talked about flying through thunderclouds into Dell City, and Oklahoma City, and Dell City, and he talked about the people, and their singing, and singing Coming Again. You don't hear many sermons on the second coming, but what Paul is saying is, look, the reason you ought to rejoice is the coming of the Lord is near. That's what he says. The Lord is near. The Bible closes in Revelation, but even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. I mean, the early church swept through a hostile, vicious, Roman world, and captured the world in less than 400 years because they knew the Savior was coming soon. We've gotten away from that. I miss that. It's wonderful. You never experience it. You never get over it because we need to live every day in the conscious awareness he is near. Now, the word near there could be nearby time or nearby space. I think here, Paul probably is indicating that it is nearby space. He's going to be here, and we ought to live every day in light of the fact that he's on his way. He knows what we do. We're going to have to give it an account. James 3 says, don't everybody try to be a teacher because they're going to have a greater judgment, a greater condemnation. In other words, those who lead the Christian movement, however it is, whether preacher, teacher, whatever, are going to be carefully judged by God for how they did that. So we'll do better if we realize he's coming soon, and that's what he's reminding them here. The Lord is near. Psalm 119, 151 reminds us, you are near, Lord, and all your commands are true. And the New Testament church captured the Roman Empire in large part because of the unbridled belief in the soon return of the Lord. And that's a wonderful thing for us to be reminded of, and it's a shame when we take it for granted or ignore it altogether. The church of Philippi was a strong church, faithful church. According to Philippians 4:15, it was the only church that continued to support Paul when he was ministering in Macedonia. And the two threats that faced the church were lack of unity and heresy. The elders and deacons had not properly dealt with the dispute between Juodia and Syndice, and the factions were there. The prospect created a great anxiety. The heresy that was coming in would cut the heart out of the church. And these are the two strong concerns of this fourth chapter, unity and heresy. Now, throughout this chapter, as I said earlier, there have been a strong contrast between the singular and the plural. And he refers to the church sometime as brethren, or brothers and sister, or you plural, or you singular. That's important because I think he's talked so much about unity. He's now saying to the church, you're united now. Now you're responsible as a church. And you're my true partner, that singular, but he's referring to the whole church. And I just say again, the thing the Lord really cherishes is our unity. Okay, quickly, we'll have to just go quickly in the next five minutes. Believers are to be known for their kindness and graciousness. He used the word gracious or gentle there in verses 5 through 7. That's a huge word. It's an incredible word. It speaks of reasonableness, kindness to others, submitting our rights to others because of our love for them. It refers to humility. It's recognized by generosity toward others, kindness toward all. It refers to mercy or leniency toward the sinfulness of others. Historians still marvel. A little book I did on this, I read a lot of history about the early church. And one of the things that even secular historians noted was that the Christians never retaliated against those who persecuted them. They never retaliated. They never condemned them. They met what they faced, and they understood that God was allowing it to come, and they never tried to attack anyone who attacked them. That's what this word, gentleness, graciousness, means. We don't try to retaliate. We don't try to strike back. Two little boys fighting now in the church. Well, he hit me first. Well, we don't do that. Now, we won't get into the theology of all that, or the practicality of it might be better, but this word gracious, gentle, they said this is how the church is to be known. Kindness, gentleness, freedom from anxiety, focusing on joy. That's the very opposite of worldly culture, which is arrogant and hostile and unkind. Jesus had that attitude, had the attitude to deal with it. When Paul mentions it in Philippians 2, he didn't take advantage of his deity in order to attack or lord it over anybody else. He willingly gave up all of his deity when he was born so that he could be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. That's why Paul says in verse 5 here, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ. That simply means, let your gracious gentleness, your sweet reasonableness, your yielding spirit be known to all men. How are Christians known today? You won't hardly find a kind word about Christians in our culture today. We are living in a post-Christian age. Why? Because the world does not see the gentleness and graciousness and love of God in us. Randy mentioned Mahatma Gandhi in his message. Gandhi was trained in New York City. He went through his undergraduate and graduate degrees in this country. He was exposed to every kind of Christian gospel preaching in church during the years he was here. He did say, I didn't find it on Google, but he did say, I would be a Christian today if it were not for Christians. We are known for a lot, mostly our fighting and our quarreling and our chaos. Thank God you all hopefully don't know anything about that here, because one thing I love about our church is it's a happy church. But not all churches are that way. Not all Christians give a good testimony. You are going to give a witness. It's just a question of what kind of witness you're going to give. So he's urging them here to let you be known by your gracious, kind spirit, your gentleness, and nothing else. Oh, secondly, he says supplication. By the way, this is a description, these words are a subscription of prayer. The first word is a general prayer to God, and all prayer needs to be addressed to God. Supplication means to express your needs to God, tell God what you need him to do. And then lastly, he says thanksgiving. Do all of this and thank God for it. I'm just telling you the way I try to do it. There are some things I pray for every night. One of them is I pray that Carol Ann can sleep good, because she often doesn't sleep good. But I always begin by saying, thank you, Lord, that she slept good last night. Do it again, please. Let her sleep tonight. Thanksgiving is a great attitude. It pleases God. It honors God. And so he says, when you have addressed God and when you've told him all your needs, then thank him for it. And that would be a good policy for all of us. I love the Negro spiritual. Well, it may be not a Negro spiritual, but I think it may be to take your burdens to the Lord and leave it there. That's what we do when we pray. We address God as the great I am. We tell him what we need and we thank him when he provides it for us. So that's what Paul is actually saying. That's how he ends up these verses. I'm not going to try to go a little bit further, except just to say that verse 12 is a verse that we all ought to ask God to let us be able to pray. I know both how to make do with a little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances, I've learned the secret of being content. Whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need, I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me. Thanksgiving. None of us wants justice. We all want mercy. Justice means we get what we deserve. We don't want what we deserve. And God, being a God of grace, gives us what we don't deserve. So thank him for it. So he concludes Philippians. Here's a man who is in prison. By the way, they didn't go to prison to live there, though very few people ever stayed long in a prison. They were either released or killed. And he's awaiting the verdict on his life by Nero, the most cruel Caesar that ever existed. He knows that he's probably not going to make it out alive, and yet over 20 times in this short epistle he says, rejoice, rejoice, whatever, just keep on rejoicing. That's just a good thing. Don't ask God why. Don't say, why me? Just say, Lord, why not me? Thank you. This is what I need. I'm asking you to supply. I trust you. Not everything's good, but everything works together for good in the Lord. We will go through the valley, but we won't stay there. We will get through it. So praise God. Rejoice. Great book and great lessons for us all. Father, thank you for your love and grace. Thank you for loving us when we were unlovable, and thank you for saving us, giving us something we could never deserve. We're grateful, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.