Alright, Philippians is where we are at for this morning. Philippians chapter 4, beginning in verse 1. Philippians chapter 4, beginning in verse 1. And therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. I entreat Jodea and I entreat Suntuhi 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. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness 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." Finally, brothers, Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. Let's pray. Father, as always, we come to You for help. You speak to us through Your Word, but we also know that You use Your Spirit to speak to us through Your Word. And so we pray that You would send Him now in this moment, that You would show us new and wonderful things in Your Word, that as we meditate on it in the days and the weeks ahead, that we would be changed. We pray that You would conform us more and more into the image of Christ, that we may be salt and light in the world, that they would see our good deeds and give glory to You, in heaven. I pray for your help in this, that you would help me to say what you had said to your people this morning. In all this we ask, in the precious name of Christ, Amen. So I don't know about you, we're coming to the closing of Paul's letter, and I have had a tremendous time in this letter, I hope that you have as well, especially over the previous weeks. We've been, really since the beginning of chapter three, we've been in the theme of pressing on. At the beginning of chapter three, Paul gives his most detailed personal testimony, and most intimate personal testimony that we find in any of his letters. The capstone of that was his desire, his resolve to consider all of the things that he had once counted as gain as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ. For the sake of knowing Christ, he was willing to give up everything that he once considered as worth something in this world. He considered it all rubbish. You remember he had said back in chapter 3. And this is the bottom line call of the Gospel itself. Jesus had said in Luke 9.23, if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me. That is the call of the Gospel. It is the call of Christ. And it is the call of anyone who wishes to proclaim the Gospel. Deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow Christ. He says it in even more stern terms later Luke 14, 26, "...if anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and yes, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." Hatred of the things of this world is what the call of the Gospel is. I was interacting with someone once who tried to make the claim that Jesus' message was one of self-approval. One of self-love. And they were, to be completely honest, disgusted that they saw many of today's Christians who seem to think that they should hate themselves for who they are. They were disgusted at this entire notion. You hear that a lot in our culture. We are a culture of self-love, self-gratification, self-acceptance, self-tolerance. I presented that person that verse from Luke 14, 26. If anyone comes to me and does not hate even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. And to be completely honest, they were stunned that that was there. Now you understand, this is a comparative love-hate. This is not a literal, necessarily, hatred. He's not calling us to hate the people in our lives. He's not calling us to hate our parents or to hate our children or to hate our brothers and sisters. The point that Jesus is making is that if you would come after Him, your love for Him must dwarf your love for the things of this world, even perhaps your very own family. You remember He had said that He did not come to bring peace but a sword. A mother would rise up against children, and children would rise up against their parents for the sake of Christ. That's the point that Jesus is making. This may cause you to have to cut yourself off from your family. It's called to be His disciples. So it's not necessarily a call to hate. It's a comparative love of Christ versus our love of the things of this world. But it is that Paul had come to this same conclusion. Everything in this world, good or bad, is rubbish compared to knowing Christ. In the same way he calls us as Christians to press on, imitate him, he had said, and press on toward that goal of the upward call of God in Christ. And then last week we saw how to press on, imitating godly leaders, evaluating ungodly enemies, and fixating on our heavenly citizenship. So this morning we delve even deeper into pressing on. Not only does He give them His testimony for what pressing on in Christ looks like, not only does He command them to press on into Christ, and not only last week does He help them know how to press on in Christ, but now we see Him give them some real life examples of the fruit. of pressing on into Christ, which is the title of our message, the title of this entire passage from verses 1 to 9, and we won't, as you can see in your bulletin, this is part 1, we won't get to all of it today, but this is the fruit of pressing on. The connection here is found in verse 1. It connects this next part with the previous. He's still building on what he said before. He says, therefore, on the basis of what I have just said about pressing on and focusing on your reward and focusing upon Christ, therefore, my brothers whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown. I wanted to pause there for a moment And consider just how much Paul loved the church when he writes his letters to them. He loved the church. He gave up everything in his life for the sake of Christ, and he gave up everything in his life after that. to seeing the message of the Gospel advance, and to seeing the church of Christ grow, both spiritually and numerically as He moved on in His missionary journeys and planted new churches and built up the new churches. He brought the message of the Gospel all across Asia Minor, creating new churches. He loved the church. Perhaps His love was grounded in... or part of it was grounded, and you remember at his conversion experience, when he was on the road to Damascus, and you remember what Christ said, why are you, Paul, persecuting who? Me. Right from the very beginning, Paul is introduced to this concept of the unity and the union between his Savior and the church. Between the bride and the bridegroom. The body of Christ. and the head, which is Christ. Right from His conversion, He is introduced to this necessary, consequential union between the church and Christ, and the beauty of that union. And so over and over again, we're reminded of how much Paul loved the Bride of Christ, loved the Church of Christ. He not only loved, obviously, the individuals in the church, but he loved the church. One of the most amazing verses to me has always been 2 Corinthians 11. You know, this is where Paul is outlining and boasting about his sufferings for the sake of the Gospel, and he's comparing himself to the quote-unquote super-apostles, and he's boasting about all of his sufferings, and he's been shipwrecked, and he's in danger at sea, in danger on the land, and in the wilderness, and in town, and by Jews, and by Gentiles, Yada, yada, yada, and he can't go anywhere, basically, is what his point is, without constantly being in fear of his own life. But what's always struck me about that list is the way that he concludes it, 2 Corinthians 11, 28, and, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety. For who? All the churches. Everything that Paul has gone through, And he says, even more than that, even more than what I have personally endured for the sake of the gospel, I'm under daily pressure and constant anxiety for all the churches. He loves the church. He goes on, who is weak and I am not weak? Who is made to fall and I am not indignant? Do any of us have that kind of care and resolve for one another? Paul does, and that leads him right into the first fruit of pressing on into Christ. Notice that he says, "...stand firm thus in the Lord." Stand firm, maybe your translation says, in this way. Stand firm in this way in the Lord. In what way? It's the way he's about to outline. Stand firm thusly in the Lord. of these fruits that He gives is brotherly love. Stand firm as you press on in brotherly love. Now, Paul's already started that. We just kind of went into that a little bit back in verse 1. My beloved, that's what he calls them. I love you. I long for you. You're my joy. You're my crown. You're my beloved. But then he continues. I entreat you, Odea, and I entreat Suntuhay, to agree in the Lord. Now we don't know specifics about these women, and we don't know specifics about what their quarrel is, but we do have some clues as to just how deep this quarrel had gotten, and just how widespread this quarrel had gotten, and just how serious this quarrel, this disagreement between these two women had gotten. Clue number one has to do with the entire book of Philippians. and the fact that he mentions unity over and over in this letter that he writes to them. This situation that he mentions here between these two women really gives new meaning to what we've studied about unity in the previous chapters, doesn't it? Philippians 1.27, "...let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel." That's exactly what he says about these women in verse 3 of chapter 4, "...help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel." In chapter 2, verse 1, there's any encouragement in Christ, comfort from love, participation in the Spirit, affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of what? The same mind. Having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. this disagreement between these two women give a new dimension to why it is that Paul would be so stalwart in his call for unity in the Philippian church. Whatever is going on between these two women has become a cause of division in the church. It's become a cause of strife within the church. And this flies directly in the face of the unity that the Bride of Christ is to have within the body, and we are to have in the church. Jesus' command to His disciples before He was crucified, a new commandment I give to you, that you do what? Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Later in John 17 when He would pray, For all of us, He would pray that we would be one even as He and the Father are one. The unity of the people of God under the blood of Christ and through the righteousness of Christ. This is the call of the Gospel and this is the expectation of the people of God. And yet whatever it is that's going on between these two women, it is threatening this unity, it is threatening this harmony, it is threatening this charity, it is threatening their witness of brotherly love. Paul says, I entreat you, I implore you, I plead with you, agree in the Lord. The single nine in this when the church is being threatened, the single-mindedness, the one-mindedness. Literally, when he says, agree in the Lord, he's telling them to think in the same way. to be of one mind. It's the exact same construction from Philippians 2.2 that I just read. Being of one mind. Of the same mind. So that's clue number one. The constant refrain of unity in the letter really builds to this final confrontation, if you will, between the Apostle Paul and these two women as he calls them out by name. He says, you two need to agree in the Lord. Which is clue number two. to just how deep and just how wide this gulf had become between these two women, he feels he needs to call them out by name. Now Paul doesn't do this much. He has a lot of stern things to say, for example, to the Corinthians. He has a lot of stern things to say to the Galatians. And yet he holds back from a lot of name-calling a lot of the time. So when Paul mentions someone's name, you know that it's gotten really, really rough with that person. He calls them out directly in verse 2, Yodiah and Sentuhi. In verse 3, he calls out the rest of the church to be a part of this call to unity. In our culture, this isn't a very loving thing to do. You know, Paul, you're not supposed to embarrass people like this in front of their families, in front of their friends. I mean, the expectation is that they would get this letter and it would be read publicly. It would be read to the church. It would be read with everybody in attendance. Nobody's going to get copies of this thing and go home and get in their closet and read it and nobody knows it. You shouldn't embarrass them like this, Paul, but he does, and he does so because of the seriousness of this situation. Apparently this is no small dispute. This is no petty grievance between friends that will die quickly. You know, we all have that moment when we might have a little tiff with somebody, and before you know it, the dust settles, and everybody's fine, and somebody got their feelings hurt over nothing, and everybody's okay. This is not that. This is a deep dispute. So much so that he has to call them out by name because of the threat to the harmony of the church. This is the type of thing that threatens to tear up the church if it's allowed to fester, to grow, and so Paul tackles it head on. So the first clue is that we see it over and over again, the call of unity in the book of Philippians. The second clue, He calls them out by name. The third clue as to just how serious this rift was between these two women is that He actually calls out the leaders of the church. He tells them to help with this in order to maintain the unity of the church. He says in verse 3, I ask you also true companion. This is probably a reference to the elders of the church that's mentioned back in chapter 1 verse 1. The leadership of the church. The ones who should be doing something and apparently at this point are not. They're allowing the strife to continue. They're allowing the disunity to grow. They're allowing the disharmony to fester. And so he says, you, true companion, help these women also who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow co-workers whose names are in the book of life. This is so important. We have often talked about the necessity of the church in the life of the believer, the necessity of the church in the sanctification of the believer. And this verse holds that out crystal clear. Paul not only tells them to agree in the Lord, but he turns to the church through the leadership of the church and says, and you help them as they strive to do this. Don't just sit back and idly wait for something to happen. Don't just sit back and do nothing. and do like we know some people do many times, hide behind pious sounding platitudes like, we're praying for you, or we're thinking about you. Help them. Aid them. Get involved. Call them to repentance and to unity. Don't be idle. Wait for something to happen. In 1 Corinthians 1.10, Paul told the Corinthians, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree that there be no divisions among you, that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. All of you agree. Remember, that's where some say, I'm of Apollos and some say, I'm of Paul. And he said, no. I planted a pollised water, but God gives the growth. Be united in Christ. Agree in the Lord. 1 Peter 3.8 Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. This is how we are to conduct ourselves within the church. In humility, in love, in unity, in harmony, in charity, in forgiveness, in forbearance. And, not only is this how we are to conduct ourselves in the church, this is how we are to help each other conduct ourselves in the church. If the local church body is inconsequential to our lives as believers, then all of the one-anothers of Scripture do not make any sense. bear with one another, love one another, forgive one another. Jesus taught this type of unity between His people, and Paul is now applying that teaching to this church. There are many things that can hurt the witness of a church in this world. The spiritual health of a church is threatened by many things. One of those is disunity. Disharmony. Failure to be of one mind. That is spiritual disaster for a church. It is spiritual suicide for the church. Does that mean then that we never disagree? No, that's not necessarily what it means. We are together. We are one-mindedness. But you remember from our study in that passage in chapter 2, what are we together in? What are we united in? We are united in the truth of the Gospel. We are unified in something. We're not just simply unified. We are one in the truth of God as He has revealed it in His Word. There are some room for disagreements of secondary points or tertiary points. And in those types of elements, those types of non-essentials, there is charity, there is love, there is understanding. But the truth of God, the truth of the Gospel, the truth of who God is and who Christ is and what He has done for us is absolutely essential. And it is in that that we are unified. There are a lot of years in this church. Some of you have a lot of years in this church. You've been here, some of you, your whole life. So are there any points of resentment? Any points of animosity that have never been fully resolved? Is there anything that lays unresolved in your own heart, in your own mind, in your own soul? must be resolved for the sake of the church, for the sake of the gospel, for the renown of Christ and for the glory of God. We must truly be one mind, one heart, one love, one spirit, one goal. This isn't a call to simply play the unity game on the outside, while inside we harbor resentment and hatred and frustration. and discontent and disharmony. This isn't a call to be whitewashed tombs. Pretty on the outside, dead on the inside. This isn't a call to be the cup that's clean on the outside and dirty on the inside. There's nothing like opening the dishwasher and thinking the dishes are clean and you pull a cup out of that thing and it's got the little dried up bits of Kool-Aid in it. It's nasty. Nobody wants to drink out of that cup. We're not playing unity games here. We're not playing harmony games here. This isn't a call to pretend to be united. This is a call to be united. To be of one heart and of one mind. That's His first call. Fruit of pressing on into Christ, His brotherly love with other believers. For they are united with Christ, even as you are united with Christ. And we all together make up the Bride of Christ, holy, chaste, and ultimately beloved by Him. So He calls them to brotherly love. Secondly, He calls them to heavenly joy. Verse 4, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. You know, back when we were introducing this epistle, we said that the nickname of this epistle by commentators is the Epistle of Joy, because it's just talked about over and over and over again. It's talked about in chapter 1, verse 18, chapter 1, verse 25, chapter 2, verse 2, chapter 2, verse 18, verse 19, verse 28, chapter 3, verse 1, and really all the way down through that entire section about the superiority and the surpassing value of Christ. And now here it is again in chapter 4, verse 4. It was the eighth time that he's mentioned rejoicing in the Lord, which is quite a lot considering the length of his letter. Which, by the way, I made a quick note here, that might be another clue as to just how deep this disharmony was getting. He's constantly calling them to rejoice in the Lord, to be joyful. Maybe they were even beginning to lose their joy because of this disharmony. What does it mean? What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? This is not a call to emotionalism. This is not a call to emotionalism. Biblical joy is not an emotion. Emotions are reactions to something. They can be a reaction to a type of person. They can be a reaction to something in nature. Emotional responses can happen in reaction to things that aren't even in Scripture. that aren't even the truth of Scripture. Joy is not an emotion, biblical joy, is not an emotion as much as it is a resolution. It's a resolved mind. It's a resolution in your mind. It's a deep confidence in God as the One in control of all things and as the One who can satisfy our soul's deepest desires and longings. That is biblical joy. It is what we know about God that grounds our joy in God. I know it's been a while since I've been able to be back, but I know it comes up almost every Wednesday night. You know, we're all spouting off our numbers, and everybody's got their favorites. I don't know about tomorrow. I just live from day to day. Over and over again in that song, what it said in the verses, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But, of course, I know. What do you know? Who holds tomorrow? And I know who holds my hand." That's a great hymn. And it's real because it is what we know about God through His Word that grounds our joy in Him and in Him alone. Listen to this from A.W. Pink's Attributes of God. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion. and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason, the gravest question before the church is always God Himself. and the most pretentious fact about any man is not what he, at any given time, may say or do, but what he, in his deep heart, conceives God to be like. We tend, by a secret law of the soul, to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of individual Christians, but of the company of Christians that composes the church. Always the most revealing thing about the church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God. Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, what comes into your mind when you think about God? We might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. He's saying that what we know about God, what we think about God, fuels our worship of Him, fuels our adoration of Him. When He says that worship is pure or base, as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God, He is saying that it is what you think and what you know about God that drives you into true worship or false worship. A high view of God leads to deep worship. And a low view of God leads to shallow worship. If we don't know anything about God, what good is it to rejoice in Him? If we don't know anything about God, He's just this disconnected pie-in-the-sky deity. with no connection to what we're doing. He's unconcerned with this world, and He's unconcerned with my life. Sure, perhaps He created everything, but then He set the cosmic clock to going and stepped back and said, let's see what happens. He's perhaps transcendent, but He's not imminent. And yet we know from Scripture that God is both transcendent and imminent. He created all things. He doesn't reside in temples made with human hands. He is above all things. He is transcendent. And yet, at the same time, He is near to us. He is not far from our reach. He is within our grasp because He is imminent. That is why what we know about Him fuels our joy and fuels our worship. We know Him through His Word, Psalm 1, verse 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night." That's a blessed man, the psalmist says. Psalm 1611, you make known to me the path of life, in your presence there is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. This is the way that true worship and true joy work. So when you think about God, what is it? What is it that you think? What is it that you know? Do you know Him deeply? Do you know Him intimately? Do you know Him truly? So that when you sing these wonderful songs about Him and His control, and when you sing these wonderful songs about Jesus and filling up my cup, when you sing it, do you believe it? And does what you know about God through His Word create within you a worshipful heart as you sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to Him? Here are some things for us to know in rejoicing the Lord over this week. Number one, He does good for His people. Exodus 18 and 9, Jethro rejoiced. for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, and that He delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. Number two, He has redeemed us. Psalm 13 5, I have trusted in your steadfast love, and my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. Psalm 40, 16, but may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say continually, great is the Lord. Psalm 71, 23, my lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you, my soul also which you have redeemed. Number three, He provides for His people. Philippians. down in verse 19 of chapter 4. My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Romans 8, the promise. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him give us all things? Jesus taught that right in the Sermon on the Mount? Seek first the Kingdom of God, His righteousness. Don't be anxious about tomorrow, saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink? But seek first His Kingdom, His righteousness, and all these will be added to you. He has created all things and holds it in His hands. Psalm 118, 24. This is the day. that the Lord has made. And so what? I will rejoice and be glad in it. He has given us His Word that we might know Him. Psalm 119, 162. I rejoice at Your Word like one who finds great spoil. That's just a small sampling, but you get the point. Rejoice in the Lord, Paul says, in light of who He is, which Paul's just gone through with his personal testimony, the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, in light of who He is because of what we know that He is, in light of the reality that He is the source of true joy. Paul says it twice. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I'll say, rejoice. So we have the first two fruits of pressing on into Christ, brotherly love and heavenly joy. Is that helpful? Is that practical? Imagine what our lives would be like if we just exhibited these two fruits. But there's more, and we'll pick up with verse 5 next time. Let's pray. Father, what a joy it is to be in Your Word together. Give us a renewed passion and a renewed thinking about Your Word, about You. Some here perhaps have hit a dry spell spiritually. Some of us think about reading the Bible and think of better things to do. We ask that You would give us a renewed life, a renewed spiritual life for the things of Christ, for the things of God and for Your Word. We pray that You would help us in this call for unity, this call for harmony and brotherly love. Help us to come to terms if there is anything in our own hearts that causes anger or wrath, malice or slander. Help us to kill it at the root and truly be one, even as you and Christ are one. And help us to know better and deeper what it means to rejoice in the Lord. For today and for the days ahead, we ask in His precious name, amen.