Philippians 2;18
"For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me." Now
come on over to verse 28, and let's look at another one, and here Paul
is speaking of Epaphroditus, his brother in the Lord..
Philippians 2:28
"I sent him therefore the more carefully, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful." Well then come down into chapter 3.
Philippians 3:1-3
"Finally,
my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to
me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, (those that would attack them) beware
of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have
no confidence in the flesh."
Did you
notice the sequence of the Lord's names? It is now Christ Jesus,
distinguishing Him as LORD where as to say simply Jesus or Jesus Christ
relegates Him to His earthly ministry as the Son of man. For as we've
revealed some time ago He's no longer in His earthy roll, but since His
ascension is NOW both Christ and LORD of spirits. To keep Him in His
earthy ministry name is to malign or make light of and even to use His
name in vain. And is the position that Enoch knew Him as and showed
great respect for. Now come on over to chapter 4, and we can see this
joy and peace again.They just jump off the page, we can't miss them.
Philippians 4:1
"Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy (now
we've maintained that Paul had a special feeling for the Philippian
believers. Remember it was in Philippi that he was sick in bed, almost
unto death. And the Philippian believers nourished him and brought him
through, so we think he always had a real tender spot in his heart for
them) and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved."
Now
another point as we stated, it was the Philippians who nursed Paul back
to health. If many preach a healing gospel such as the Son of man
healed,that healing is for our time, what was wrong with Paul? We know
that the Lord confirmed His message by signs and wonders, through Paul's
hand on more than one occasion. Why not heal Paul? Do you see our point
and get the drift of our thought? Times and things change as God
chooses, not us. Now come on down to verse 4 for another one.
Philippians 4:4
"Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice."
See
Paul repeats rejoice again, and we've said that repetition in Scripture
is for emphasis. The whole emphasis in this entire Book of Philippians
is that in spite of their trials and their sufferings they would still
have joy. Well now verse 10.
Philippians 4:10
"But
I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me
hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked
opportunity."
There may be others in
Philippians as we have just grabbed them as they jumped off the page at
us. But this joy is one of the fruits we saw in Galatians chapter 5. Now
coming back to the Book of Galatians 5:22. First we have love for all
that we come into contact with, and especially believers. Love remember is that which seeks the other person's highest good. Then we can have joy in spite of adversity, or persecution. and the third one is "peace." Now in order to understand the word "peace"
we've got to come back to Romans chapter 5. Remember it's why peace
isn't listed in the activities of the unbeliever. The unbeliever has
never experienced this, and he can have no peace. The Scripture speaks
of them like the waves roaring, their lives are filled with turmoil, but
look what verse 1 says.
Romans 5:1
"Therefore being justified by faith,
(that puts us back like Adam was before the fall. When we become
believers, God reckons the old sin nature, the old Adam-Satan nature
dead and gone, and God looks at us as if we have never sinned, as a
God-child. We must understand the significance of the Lord's Last Supper
and our consummation of the New Covenant in and through it, and even to
our ascension with and in Him. By this then therefore since we've been
declared as if we've never sinned, and the slate has been wiped clean) we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:"
Did
you know that Israel never did consummated its covenant with God?
Instead it turned from Him and sought other gods and goddesses. By that
they said no to God [Psalm 14:1 and 53:1, Matthew 22:5 and of course
these tie to Romans 3:12]. Now the unbeliever can never experience that
peace, in fact Romans 8:7 tells us that the unbeliever of this Gospel is an enemy of God. You see that we don't have to be in a constant turmoil, and wonder, "Oh, is God going to zap me? Is God all of a sudden going to disown me? Is He going to cast me out?" No!
Because we have that abiding peace with God. Let's go to Philippians
chapter 4 and look at the peace of God. Now justification brings about
the peace with God, then we are no longer an enemy. We are now His, and
we can enjoy His fellowship moment by moment, regardless of what else
goes on in our lives. We still have that constant fellowship because of
our justification which gave us the peace with God and more. Here we
have the other peace that is spoken of and that is in verses 6 and 7.
When someone calls with an urgent prayer request these are the two
verses we should give them. These are the best two verses in all of
Scripture for someone in need, and look what it says.
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