Philippians 4.2-7
A sermon preached at St Philip’s Cottesloe 12th May 2024
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be made known to all. The Lord is near.
This is a hard call, is it not? Can an emotion like joy be subject to orders?
Come back to me to the Roman colony of Philippi about the year A.D. 50. Paul and Silas are in trouble over a clairvoyant fortune teller. Her owners can’t make money from her anymore, and take them to the magistrates. They are whipped in the Roman way and handed over to the local gaoler to keep safe until the authorities can decide what to do with them. It is midnight. They are in an inner cell with their feet in the stocks. They are keeping their spirits up by singing Christian songs. Certainly, they are not despairing.
If you are ever in a bad place, I hope you know some good Christian songs. Tom was one of the first people we met in South Africa. One day he came home from work, got out of his car to open the gate, and was held up by two gunmen. The bundled him into the back seat and pushed him down onto the floor, and drove off. They headed out of the town. Tom was frightened. He started to sing—Christian songs he had learned as a child. His captors ordered him to stop. He told them he was frightened; he had to sing; he knew how these hijacks ended. They drove out into the country and stopped the car. One of them marched him into the bush and ordered him to kneel down. He knelt and waited for the shot. After a while, when nothing had happened, he looked around. No one was there. This was an unusual outcome in that part of the world. Tom made his way home rejoicing and is still preaching Christ in KwaZulu Natal.
Dick Lucas is the retired Rector of St Helens Bishopsgate in London. He says the most important word in this command to the Philippians is “always.” Most of us rejoice when things go our way, but what about when they don’t? Paul is a prisoner and has much to complain about. But listen to him:
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guardand to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. It is true that some preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will… What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.[1]
A remarkable thing is happening here. Paul’s imprisonment has led to unintended publicity; it is becoming known that his imprisonment is because of Christ. Christianity is becoming known—almost popular. People want to know what it is all about. The accusation against him, brought by the High Priest in Jerusalem is of stirring public discord and causing riots, a serious charge in Roman law. But the real problem for the Jewish leaders is that Paul’s gospel is tearing down the barrier between Jew and Gentile. In Rome this may have aroused some sympathy for his position. Christianity was spreading into the Imperial Guard—this was the military force that protected the safety of the emperor and his family.
You can see where Paul’s joy is coming from. He is not just gritting his teeth and making the best of a bad show, pretending happiness when he is miserable. He realizes God has put him where he is, and that there is purpose in it. He sees it unfolding. This matters more to him than his own comfort. His imprisonment is even encouraging some Christians to greater boldness in witness. Even those who are jealous of him are making the gospel known. It is a great time for the gospel. This is awesome when you think that in two-year’s time all hell will break loose against the Christians in Rome. How did Christianity come to Nero’s attention, anyway? Could it have been its spread amongst his own guard? He may even have presided at Paul’s trial, if there was one. If he did he acquitted him—but came to know enough about Christianity to see it as a good scapegoat for his later troubles. But this lies in the future; for now, Paul rejoices to see God at work, but one wonders how the Christians would have found his command to rejoice when the world had turned against them and many were dying gruesome deaths. And yet they endured. They found that the Lord was near. Their prayers for safety may not have been answered, but their prayers for courage were, and yes, their prayer for joy. For I am sure something like his words to the Philippians must have been heard in Rome, and there would have been those who died with his words on their lips: “Rejoice in the Lord; the Lord is near.”
Nero’s cruelty, and the way the Christians bore it, led to a change in public perceptions, and far from this “foreign superstition” dying, it grew—steadily through the centuries, until the empire adopted it as its faith. Surely the Lord was near, and God was doing his work.
The West has now rejected Christianity as its guide to the best life. Australians are turning in every direction in their quest for happiness than to Jesus. The changes are confusing and demoralizing on top of the normal ups and downs of living in the world. Despondency is a natural result. But Paul’s words ring out: “Rejoice in the Lord always!”
Impossible, you might think. How can anyone rejoice when Ukraine and Palestine are being torn apart, when thousands of defenseless babes are killed in our own country every year, who chaos rules in our universities, and when the rains have still not arrived?
The answer is the all important phrase “in the Lord,” more important even than “always.” Rejoicing always does not mean smiling at everything that happens. Some things cause us grief and should. Paul speaks of “sorrow upon sorrow” that would have been his if Epaphroditus had died. He nearly did, and Paul’s words testify to the anxiety and pain he experienced in that crisis.[2] Christians are neither inhuman nor superhuman. Sorrow and grief are part of human existence. No, our joy consists precisely in the knowledge that God is working to defeat evil in all its forms, that he has all our troubles in hand, that nothing happens outside of his decrees and plan, that Jesus has defeated death, and that he reigns at God’s right hand driving everything in the universe to its appointed end.
There is no greater example of this than the cross. I set an essay topic to my first year students in Africa. I cited Hebrews 12.2:
Let us look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, contemptuous of the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
What was the joy that was set before Jesus? I asked, and why did it make him willing to endure the cross?
One of the students wrote a good essay surveying every meaning of the word joy in the Bible, except for this one, missing the whole point. I called him into my office and said to him: “For the joy that was set before him Nelson Mandela endured twenty years on Robben Island, and is now the President of South Africa. Can you tell me what was the joy that was set before him, and why he was able to endure all those years of imprisonment? Could you write me an essay on that?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “You could write a book,” I said.
It was a lesson to me that most people don’t read the Bible like an ordinary book, so often miss the obvious meaning. Mandela imagined a new racially undivided South Africa. Jesus looked forward to a world without sin and suffering and death, and knew that to achieve it he would need to die for the sins of the world. The joy inspired by what lay in the future nerved him to face unbelievable suffering. It is similar for us, or should be, but Christians in the West have become worldly, by which I mean, they are looking for happiness from what they can get out of this life—which is a sure recipe for unhappiness. As Jesus said, “Those who want to seek their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake and the gospel will gain it.”[3] The truth is, affliction is normal in this life; sure we do all we can to avoid it, but it catches up with us. The Lord came into the world as a man, because human beings are so battered—by sickness, insanity, accident, abuse, criminal action, bad luck, poverty, drought, fire, epidemic, war, natural disaster; I could go on. When Jesus announced the kingdom of God, he declared the end of all of this—death included. He lived and died for it. God raised him to make it clear it was not a wish-dream. He raised him to the highest place of power in the universe, to rule and to drive all things to their destined end. “Rejoice in the Lord,” means factor Jesus at the right hand of God into your experiences in this world.
“Rejoice in the Lord always, and I will say it again, Rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all; the Lord is near.”
Here we need to pause a moment and ask what this letter is all about and why Paul is saying what he is saying. I would judge there is a problem in this church, and part of the answer is a serious loss of what I might call “Christian joy.”
Two women are at loggerheads, and it is affecting the whole church.
I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have laboured 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.
Paul looks back on a time when the church at Philippi was one: “Standing firm in one spirit, with one soul contending for the faith of the gospel.”[4] That is how he wishes the church would be again—every church. This phrase “one soul” was a slogan of friendship. “Friends are one soul,” they used to say. What has become of the friendship they enjoyed when they first believed in Christ and discovered each other as fellow-believers? Euodia and Syntyche were once “one soul” as they worked with Paul for the gospel. But sadly no longer. And others are caught up in it.
So what is the medicine? What is the antidote? What is the healing balm? As you read back over the letter—and I invite you to do this when you have the time—you will see there are many things. You will suspect that much of what Paul says has these two women and the problem they represent in mind. Mark each passage you come to which could be an appeal to two Christians who have fallen out, and to a church that has become worldly in its thinking and feeling: Chapter 2 for example.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus …[5] and so on.
And that Paul says so much of joy in this letter is a hint that a deep unhappiness lies at the root of the problem he is addressing. A misunderstanding that has never been cleared up? A jealousy? A hurt? We are not told, and can more easily apply what Paul says to possible problems in our own churches.
But can problems like this be treated with mere words. Does it help to tell someone to rejoice when they are unhappy. To not be anxious when they are? To be of one mind when you are angry with someone. But Paul has more to say.
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.
Translators struggle with one of the words here. Reasonableness, gentleness, yieldedness? Laid-backness might be a good way to see it. A desire to get on with people, that doesn’t easily take offence, doesn’t keep a score of wrongs, willingness to give the other person the benefit of the doubt, happy to suffer a loss for the sake of peace. This is very different from the combative spirit that rules today. But how can we be like this?
The Lord is near.
This could mean his coming is at hand, but more likely that he himself is ever present and near to his children. “The Lord is at my right hand, therefore I shall not be moved.” “The Lord is my helper, what can humans do to me?” “The Lord watches over me.” Knowing this—feeling it—gives us a security that is not easily rattled by a barb fired at us, real or imaginary.
And there is prayer.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Our minds need to be guarded. Of course we are affected by insults, injustices, untruths, nastiness, not to speak of our own anxieties, jealousies, fears, and resentments. Most of us are pretty thin-skinned. Mental health has become the modern obsession. We need to keep our psyche defended—the castle of our soul. But how?
Tell God your troubles! Prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. If the Lord is near, it makes sense, doesn’t it, to lean our burdens on him. Especially plead with him to not let this unfriendliness you have just encountered turn you against that person—keep you friendly. And the peace of God will guard you. Isn’t this a wonderful promise?
But I am thinking that for this to be any help, it is necessary to be a real Christian. To know that the Lord is near, to believe his gospel of the kingdom, to set your heart on it, to fight your anxieties, to want to bring these things to him in prayer, to be assured of his grace and willingness to help—a form of Christianity is not going to help, only the deep spiritual reality of a friendship with God, a desire for the kingdom he is bringing, a confidence in his promises, and a trust in his very real presence; this is what Jesus gives us in his gospel. What Paul is saying rests on a strong foundation.
“Rejoice in the Lord always.” When things are going well, and when everything turns to worms. “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Make sure the real foundation of your happiness is the Lord Jesus and his promises. “Let your easy-going nature be known to all.” True faith will change you, make you less prickly, make you a person who strives to get on with others. How? Understand that “the Lord is near.” Amen.
[1] Philippians 1.12–18.
[2] Philippians 2.25–30.
[3] Mark 8.35.
[4] Philippians 1.27.
[5] Philippians 2.1ff.