Northside Church - Sydney
DNA of the Christian Life – Week 5: Rejoice?
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, there is a system off the coast of the U.S. that many millions are watching closely this week. Hurricane Sandy has already claimed the lives of 44-something people, and as the S.M.H. reports an emergency response team of frightened families of stocking up on essential supplies, it said that Sandy could affect as much as one third of the country over there. And they've dubbed it "Frankenstorm" because of just the sheer size and the flukish nature of the potential destruction that could be unleashed on that country there. You know, as meteorologist says here, he says, "We know somebody is going to get hit. We just cannot say who that somebody is going to be, James Franklin from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center." You know, there are two types of people in life. There are people who are in the middle of the hurricane, and there are the people who the weather is blue sky, and everything looks fine around them, but somebody's going to get hit. Mark Twain says that there are two types of people in the world that there are the people who are headed for hardship or the people that are in hardship. And so I don't mean to be pessimistic tonight in terms of that, I'm not saying that massive destruction is going to be falling upon your life, but I'm just trying to be realistic. I'm not trying to be depressing. I'm just trying to set the expectation that, look, if most of us above the age of 15 in this place tonight have had storms hit at one point or another in our lives, and we're just trying to be realistic, set the expectations. I call it the TripAdvisor principle. You know, if you've ever read TripAdvisor when you want to go to a particular hotel, I find there's either two types of reviews. This place is absolutely fantastic, or this place is a whole. And you know, imagine you're looking up the honeymoon suite of a gorgeous five-star hotel that you're going to fork out a couple hundred bucks for, and you get in there and you've paid your money upfront on what if, and the reviews said it was fantastic, and if so much as a chocolate is missing off that bed, I'll tell you what, the whole holiday is wrecked. And yet, on the other hand, if you walk into a room and it's a jail cell, and it happens to be a blanket, well, life's looking pretty good. You see, the way that we set our expectations is going to be the difference between utter disaster and rejection and joy. And so in that sense, let's be realistic about the Christian life. The question is, what sort of Christian life are you expecting? And when we read through for the Apostle Paul and all the different ups and downs of his life, what we've been learning in this series, the DNA of the Christian life, is some of the core characteristics of what a mature Christian really is. And so Paul tonight, in this passage that we're going to read from, says that a mature believer is someone who has right expectations, but more importantly is someone who rejoices always. And we're going to have a look at that in a sec. Let's look at Philippians chapter 4, verses 4 through to 9, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, rejoice, let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things, whatever you've learned or received or heard from me or seen in me put into practice, and the God of peace will be with you. Wow, what a passage. One of my favorites. I don't know about you. But without having to read from this thing here to 9, verse 4, "Rejoice in the Lord, and I'll say it again, rejoice." Paul's not a cheerleader. I mean, we don't have cheerleaders much here over in Australia. I'm not like the ones that you see in the great movies, such as Bring It On, or Bring It On All Or Nothing, or Bring It On In It To Win It. I haven't watched them myself, but I hear they're good cheerleading movies nonetheless. And I think they're the quintessential representations of what cheerleading really is, isn't it? It's always spirit fingers. And Paul is not spirit fingering this phrase. He's not saying, "All right, okay. It's going to be okay." I practiced. I practiced. The guy's in jail. The guy's in jail, "Rejoice, I'll say it again, rejoice." Paul's not a cheerleader. And here is the problem with this statement and this phrase that if we don't dig into this passage tonight and pull out a bit of what he was saying, both in the principle and the practices that he gives us tonight, we are in some real danger of going one or two ways with this tonight. We're in danger in the first hand of going with, let me just be real here, moronic Christian clichés in the midst of hardship and suffering people's lives, which do nothing for the person, which do nothing for the sense of how real and how practical this incredible word is. On the other hand, people are saying, "This is impossible. It's impossible." What Paul is saying is just a catchphrase, but look, this Paul is not writing his little script for his latest Anthony Robin Seminar that he's going to deliver to the people at Philippi here. What he's saying is, look, from a worldly perspective, guys, if you lose your job and your job is everything, well, then how do you rejoice in that? Tonight I feel so burdened with this message as I know many of you are as good friends. Know that a number of people in this place tonight that struggle struggling with self-image, struggling with mental health issues, friends that have got friends that are sharing great news of having babies and all that sort of stuff and at the same time they're desperate to conceive themselves. People who have been made redundant in their jobs tonight and a dear brother and a friend like you heard tonight who's laying literally crippled in his bed, been crippled all this year in his bed and I think it's a quintessential example of what Paul is talking about in this place. And one minute he's spewing his guts out next to his office there and leads us in the most miraculous and incredible ways in this place. That's the type of rejoicing and yet at the same time we go, how the heck can we do that in the middle of all this? And it's a valid point. I think from a worldly perspective, part of why it's so difficult is because we've talked about this before, whole sermon's on it, but from outside of the gospel, outside of the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, your joy is always strapped to your circumstances. If your circumstances are bad, there's no joy. If things go wrong for you, there's no joy. If the job doesn't work out for you, there's no joy. But if the job's going, well it's up, it's all good. If life's up, it's all good, there's joy. And yet the Bible is radically different. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 6 onwards says that in this you greatly rejoice even though you may have to suffer grief of all kinds so that your faith, which is worth more than gold and even that perishes in the fire, will be proved genuine. And in the end, result in glory and honor and praise from Jesus Christ. I love about that passage is that it says, in this you rejoice and in this you suffer in the Greek, it's present tense in both. You are rejoicing as you are suffering. And Paul alludes to it a little bit here in this passage. You see, Christian rejoicing is not cheerleading. It's not all yet. It's the verse 4 at the end of it. Let your gentleness be evident to all because the Lord is here, it is here, He's with us. It says, let your gentleness be evident. King James translation translates it as let your moderation, that doesn't mean anything for particularly our generation as far as the translations concerned. It literally means let your stability be evident to all. And so what is getting out there, that the Christians seem to be anchored to something different. Something different, something deeper. I don't know about you. If you guys have ever seen yachts out on a beautiful harbor or down at a kuna bay there and the wind comes along. You notice how yachts all tend to sort of shift in the breeze and then they'll shift backwards again when the wind goes. But there's a big difference between you think, they're not very stable, but the difference is they're not getting blown out to sea. They're anchored. There's something deeper. And it says the Christian is not someone that is stable, that is unchanging and chipper through all sorts of different trials in their life. It's saying that the Christian is someone who does swing through the various ranges of emotion, but they're anchored. There's something deeper underneath. What Paul saying to us tonight, guys, when he says rejoice and I'll say it again, guys, rejoice, he's not cheerleading, he's saying there is a resource whereby your joy need not be tied to your circumstances anymore. So the question is, would you like that tonight? Have you got that tonight? Here's how Paul is saying that you get it, we're going to throw it. You bring the big thing into your circumstances and you're bringing your circumstances into the big things. That's where I'm going tonight. You bring the big thing, God, into your circumstances, first and foremost, let's have a look at verse 6, he says here. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And so what he's saying is you bring the big thing, God, into your circumstances through the discipline and the practice of prayer. So I'm thinking, well, I pray all the time, and it's not doing much for me, how's that supposed to work? And look, there's all sorts of different kinds of prayer. Note here, how does Paul say that we should pray? It says with thanks in everything, let's hold on here, this is the secret, this is what he's getting at, it's a prayer of constant thanks and you're thinking, well, how can I do that if I don't know whether or not he's given me the thing that I want? How can I be thankful? He hasn't given it to me yet. And that's the clue of what he was talking about, the prayer that is in thanks is a thanks in advance to God for what he is doing in your life regardless of the outcome, regardless of what he gives you. Now, you're thinking, sounds cool, but you're just hedging your bets, big fella, you put one on red, one on black, you just go on either way. But it's deeper than that, guys, look, you'll never be rid of the sort of spiritual anxiety in that sense unless you understand the single mindedness of the doctrine of the wisdom of God. I say single mindedness because a biblical word for anxiety actually means to be separated, to be divided, to be scatterbrained, so to speak, you know, where else it's used in the Bible is, you know, the story of Mary and Martha, and Mary's single minded on Jesus, where's Martha? She's all over the shop, she's anxious. And so it's this, this, this single mindedness on the, on the wisdom of God. Flip to Romans 11, 33, if you've got it on your iPhones, could be a bit quicker because there'd be no samsung's in the place tonight, that's all right. I've already preached on that the other week. Listen to what Paul says in Romans about it here, he says, "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out, who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counsellor?" You see, here's what the Bible's telling us, "God knows every fact in the universe, recorded, unrecorded." He already knows it. I mean, I mean, take, take planet Z, which is like to Pluto and then beyond Pluto and sort of undiscurable even to the, to the Hubble telescope and scale up to the very tops of whatever mountain and not that's made out of. And he'll tell you how many grains of sand are at the top of that mountain and what their geological composition is. And then he'll do that for the planet that's on the other side of the universe and you've got to plant at X and you go out and you go out further and you'll tell you exactly what's happening there. At the macro level, he sees it all and then at the micro level, you come down and delve down into every little bit of mitosis and splitting of the cells and every atom and the Bible says every hair on your head and he knows that too. He knows that every star, every planet, every moon, every orbit, every cell, every atom, every split and he doesn't even know like it just at the physical macro level, he knows every event that ever occurred in history, he knows every, every event and how every event before that has been born before that and led to the next one and led to the next one and how three came together to do this and he's known that and he's known that from the beginning of time and he knows it to the end of the time and he's aware of it all without the slightest bit of strain to his brain, he's fine, he's fine, he's fingernails while he's thinking about this sort of stuff, you know what I'm saying? He's playing bejeweled, oh, the depths and the riches of your wisdom Paul says and Paul's not a gushy sort of guy, poetic sort of guy at the best of times. Now here's a question in comparison to that God, could it be possible that God might not actually, that God might actually know what is best for your life and your circumstances no matter how difficult they are at the moment? I mean that promotion that you wanted so badly but then it got whisked from underneath it, could it be that he knows that if you had a guy on this path in that path it just would have pulled you further away from him, that relationship you wanted so desperately and you thought it was the one and the person and it seemed to just vaporize there, could it have been it would pull you further from him, he sees all that and I mean how much time do you and I spend wandering and pondering and deliberating and searching through what the next steps of our plans and our agendas for our lives are going to be? I mean I don't know about you, it's exhausting, it's exhausting, verse 7 says, it says take a look at this and the peace of God which transcends all understanding, that's the whole cosmic universe type thing that Paul's talking about, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, guard your hearts, you know the translation for that means literally the way that a city is garrisoned in the old days, the way an army would circle around outside of a city, can you think of how well people would sleep in the middle of that city at night, so peaceful, what Paul is saying here is when you begin to get that and trust into this God, this cosmic God that we're saying, that we're talking about tonight, you can begin to sleep a little bit better, you can rest a little bit easier, you can stop being so exhausted trying to wonder what your plans might be, look see here's the thing you need to bring the big thing God into your circumstances and you know look, let's pause for a second here, look you're saying what if I don't believe in God, oh this is be real here tonight, what's the alternative, Anthony Robbins type, I mean I don't mean to be rude but like a universe where either you or I know everything and can stitch that up is a pretty scary place to be right, I don't want to be part of a universe that's like that in that sense and look if there is a God of this cosmic magnitude, we'd have no more of an idea of the big picture of our life than a two year old does of their life, I mean it was my little nephew's first birthday about a week and a bit ago and for his first birthday he got a sand pit and I got to say this was the Taj Mahal of sand pits, it had its own sort of solar roof on it and it was just ridiculous but my brother-in-law's a trady so he's just using his gift, it's all good, anyway so there's my little nephew there and he starts eating the sand and he didn't mind chomping on the sand for a little bit, he thought it was pretty cool, good texture in the mouth and it was all good and so Greg races in and rips all the sand out of his hand and dust it off and he was filthy, you know how dare dad do that, you're bursting into tears, how dare we do that, but look a two year old knows nothing of the digestive tract and the impact of sand on such, clean up the system that's for sure but it's got no idea of the nuances that his father knows exactly what's best for him and as much as he could have sworn in his little two year old brain, the dad was wrecking his world, dad new best, friend you and I if we begin to see God in that cosmic sense, the depths, so the depths Paul says in Romans 11, look let's be real here to call ourselves two year olds in comparison to that wisdom, that's talking ourselves up, over the depths of the system, who is it that could be God's counsellor, he's right hand man, he's coach on the voice, oh, how I still put it, look I've shared this with you before but I always find it's the best way to deal with how we view our God in the midst, particularly those who are in the middle of the storm tonight, you know when I was a toddler I thought the fastest way down my driveway was not with my legs but my head, I rolled down our really steep driveway and I rolled and I rolled and I rolled and I rolled until I got to the very end and there was a big rock right at the end there and my head went crack right into the side of the rock for the sound of like when you drop an Easter egg and the red crimson was flowing all through my head and dad picked me up and the tower round the head, took me down to the doctor, I was just a little toddler I don't even really remember the thing but dad tells me the story, he takes me down there, sits me in there, doctor takes one look at this cut the side of my head and he says it's going to need a stitch and some of that says well all right let's get him some anesthetic and the doctor said look it's just one or two, by the time we give him your need it's going to hurt more to have the needle than to just put the needle straight through the eye and so there my poor dad never forget it, had to get up on the rolled out bit of paper on top of the doctor's lounge there and physically hold my little head down on top of the doctor's seat as he began to put this needle through my eye and stitch it back up together, he said never forget the time when the son that he loves so much it was so precious to him and he's holding him down is looking up in such pain and such confusion as if to say dad what are you doing, why are you doing this to me and the whole time he's seeking son if only you had my wisdom, if only you could see the big picture, if only I could tell your little two-year-old brain that it's going to hurt you more to go through this other pain than the pain you're currently going through now, friends I know for sure there are some of you tonight that feel like you're lying down on that doctor's table and you have a faith and you believe in this heavenly father and you tell yourself that he's good and he's right and he's just and he's wise and yet these things keep happening to you and you say dad why are you doing this to me and he says to you tonight if only you knew, if only you knew my precious child can you see friends what Christian rejoicing is it's not a glib line it's not it's not something that resembles you know McDonald's chick when she takes her order it says I'm sad and I'm hurting her dad this thing this relationship this job this situation this is not the big thing in my life this redundancy is not the big thing this heartbreak is not the big thing this disappointment is not the big thing you're the big thing and if you're with me almighty father then I'm okay as much as I feel that you're putting me through this because I trust you and I know that you know what you're doing guys thankful prayer moves to a heart moves your heart to a place where you insist on seeing the world as much as you can through the eyes of the unfathomable mysterious wisdom of the love of God and the result Paul is saying if you can do that and practice that be disciplined in that it's peace because peace in biblical terms is not you know anti-war or something like that it's simply a confidence and trust that God is in wise control of your life so you bring the big thing into your circumstances but then Paul also says you've got to take your circumstances and pull them up into the big things bring into the big things look first eight let's have a look here finally brothers and sisters whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things think this is Paul's almost like being being like like Biff off back to the future think look fly think right he's supposed to think the thing you know what he's saying is when you bring the circuit your circumstances in the big things you're thinking he's saying here you bring God in your your circumstances through the discipline of thinking if it's a discipline of prayer it's a discipline of thinking look I call this the best way I put it is the pyramid principle if someone can think of a better way to describe this then can you tell me after the message because I was racking my brain but I don't know if you've ever done this maybe did this at the Sydney Olympics ever see those goofy photos where people go up to a landmark like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Olympic torch at the Sydney Olympics and you hold out your hand like that and you stand in the foreground of the shot and you see people it takes about five minutes to get the camera shot right now left no right right up up there I got a tip hold it there for it yeah you've all done it haven't you yeah yeah I can tell I can tell I did that with that I did that with the pyramids you know I went out for my camera right there I met the pyramids on the sand dunes good thing there and I was you know that's taking the photo of me like that so I've got this awesome photo of me with my hand above the pyramids and it's really cool I look passive hey it's the pyramid principle what what Paul is saying is that what we are biased in doing as human beings and as citizens of earth in that sense is we're constantly getting in front of God with our problems and our circumstances and we line them up against him and we bring our problems into the foreground and we make him seem much bigger than they really are and so what Paul is saying here is that the way that you can rejoice in all circumstances here is to bring your finite circumstances up into the cosmic proportions of this incredible God I mean that photo didn't last that long when I got to the pyramids where if you've ever seen the size of those steps there like just one of those blocks in the pyramids is like eight foot tall it's huge you can't even scramble over the things and you'd look absolutely ridiculous like no one no one shows off a photo on their desk and doing that in front of the pyramids like a dope you Paul saying think whatever is noble whatever is pure whatever is true he's saying think about these things think about the big things take your circumstance in the big things take them all and put them at the feet of this cosmic immeasurable God and now you'll start to get some real perspective in the situation now look you know speaking of the wisdom of God look I can sort of understand why God never made Paul a dad I guess you can imagine if you were Paul's kids and you come up come up don't you stub my toe this is a well well son you know I consider that the present sufferings of this world are worth nothing compared to the glory that you will receive you know the only two kids are fighting it's dad Julie pulled my hair and he's like kids let me come in come in look Jesus died so he could reconcile all of humanity to God be reconciled to one another now look we laugh and look let's get real God God did give Paul some children they were called his churches the letter we've been reading from tonight is him talking to his kids we're in the Acts 16 at the slave girl Lydia the Philippian jailer this these were his kids and what I love about Paul in his principle is he's always taken the most mundane circumstances and pulling him back up into the big things he's always doing that it's why you know but you know that's why he's saying just in the verses prior Philippians 3 20 he's talking about people of the world their destiny is destruction their God is their stomach their glory is in their shame their mind is on earthly things hey but us Christians our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there the Lord Jesus Christ who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so they will be like his glorious body saying you're dealing with health issues this is this is not how it's meant to be it's just now how it's gonna be forever and think about the big things the big picture stuff you know he's saying that it's not that our problems are too big it's our view of God is too small and I know look some of you might be saying tonight yeah look you know you're not in the middle of my problems and I agree I don't want to trivialize what we're saying here tonight right but look these things are disciplines Paul saying this this rejoicing always is a sign of a mature believer what other alternatives are there other to think about the big picture and let's be real your problems are not going to disappear between tonight and first thing tomorrow morning when you wake up but one thing can change one thing can change it's it's how it's how you perceive them it's whether you're going to bring those circumstances up into the big things you see look rocks that got it wrong they did get it wrong you should not listen to your heart okay stay with me those that understand it's okay if you don't just let's move right forward look what do I do with this Paul saying look you can either listen to your heart or you can talk to your heart you can wake up tomorrow and this is a choice you can make your look you can wake up tomorrow and your heart's going to say oh my goodness oh my goodness look at this and two things you can do you can you can listen to that what are you going to do you're going to follow that or you can talk to your heart talk to your heart the way that David did in Psalm 42 says why are you downcast or my soul why are you so disturbed within me put your hope in God I will get praise him my Savior and my God what what's he doing he's taking his circumstances he's putting him into the big things he's talking to his heart not not the crazy way hey heart how you doing but you got you got what I'm saying either listen to your heart or talk to your heart he's bringing his circumstances into the big thing so look there you go bring the big thing God into your circumstance bring your circumstances into the big things go on do likewise as Jesus says but come on you know what never ends here there's a clever play on words here that I want to touch on before we go verse seven and the peace of God which transcends all understanding verse seven verse nine he says whatever you've learned or received from me put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you the peace of God and the God of peace the peace of God and the God of peace what's Paul getting at look there's a difference between what it means to be a Christian and to not be a Christian you see look what happens to the average person when the hurricane hits I mean even the most irreligious person in the world throws up a flare prayer even the most atheistic person you know on their death bed or in the middle of tragedy I'm sure thinks about the big things so in that sense it's entirely possible to not be a Christian and do the very disciplines of Paul's talking about but it's not the resource that I was telling you about at the beginning of this message this evening you see it's it's it's it's it's it's it's the difference people people of the world they they want they want the peace of God but they don't want the God of peace Christians go for the God of peace and then the peace of God flows on from that friend you can practice to your heart skin tent you will never find the incredible resource that a man in the middle of a jail cell could say rejoice and I'll say it again rejoice until you get this the difference between wanting God just to fix your problems or fixing yourself on God in spite of your problems and so guys look there there was a party once in which you know God's plan interrupted the rejoicing bit of a killjoy the disciples are there in Jerusalem there's a great feast it was about to happen it was called the Passover they did it every year it was their favourite time of year and this JC guy was hanging out with them and they found an upper room in which they could all hang out together and I got all the preparations the unleavened bread the lamb and the lights were glowing there was a clink of glasses as they were choosing each other with the wine and getting ready for all the big celebrations and yet one man didn't seem to be having so much fun I sort of imagine the scene I'm look I'm trying to paint the picture for you but to get the sense everyone's a little bit of a oblivious not so sort of in tune the way they are in Da Vinci's portrait of this incredible scene but I get the sense that everyone's laughing and there's frivolity in the corner sits a Jesus and amongst all the frivolity and the rejoicing I mean he's sad and he's sorrowful and he's swirling the wine in front of him thinking how do I explain this to these guys in the midst of the joy he's not having any of it instead he's sipping a cup full of sorrow and it would only be a matter of time before those same boys didn't get the bigger picture of the manifold wisdom of God he says one of you is going to betray him and he said that's not going to happen Jesus stop trying to be a killjoy and then at the cross in the blink of an eye they see him bleeding and they see him dying and the Bible says they ran away they ran away and I can't have blamed them these ones that would follow and stake their life on this guy look up at this man who was going to overthrow all the powers of Israel and he's there dying and he's crying out to his god in a moment of absolute horror and they're thinking how could any goodness possibly come out of these circumstances and they run the other way and here's the difference because of the great history of God that we see that is the gospel is that they had absolutely no idea and that moment of horror and that moment of sorrow God was unleashing the most incredible act of love and wisdom in universal history and the three days later that same body that was there broken would rise out of the grave and all the big things in life sin and security and death became the small things and so friend what was the resource that Paul had it was a resource that said if we can see God's purpose in those horrible circumstances we can face our own today this evening and face our horrible moments and declare that as horrible as they are we're not going to run because Paul knew and we know a God of peace a God of peace who swapped it for sorrow so we could have a bit of it how could Paul possibly say rejoice always because of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ Paul in a prison could rejoice always because he'd experienced a man who had experienced an infinitely greater prison than he was in what am I getting at guys if you're a meteorologist I know your brother is Mike isn't he so he can back me up on this hurricanes cyclones they don't last forever even the cyclones that have unleashed the most incredible destruction in human history last no more than three to five days and so in the light of eternity friends our lives and more importantly the hard circumstances you might be going through tonight are a mist they're the vapor clouds of this hurricane that's about to hit that close Paul does say I consider that the present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us who are you are you right in the middle of the storm tonight do you have the resources to write it out friend is it blue skies if so maybe it's time to start getting the tape out and batten down the hatches but regardless of what we might face how it might turn out for us we don't know as the meteorologist said who it's going to hit but somebody's going to get hit friend for says the DNA of the the mature Christian is one who rejoices always.