Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: It's our attitudes that are robbing us from the peace that God wants to give us and joy is a result of peace. So we're not experiencing peace nor are we experiencing joy. Why? Because we got bad attitudes.

Not to us but to Your name be the glory.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the Senior Pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a Professor in Biblical Studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Joy. Let's listen in as JP gives us part two of Philippians 4:2-9.

JP Jones: Now, when you're reading the Bible and you see a truth, the response is to believe it. You see a promise, the response is to claim it. When you see a command, the response is to obey it. And that's always a choice.

Put you right back in that seat of the pilot, flying the plane, getting the information from the air traffic controller. You got to make these course corrections if you want to land the plane. Are you going to say, "I know how to do it better than the air traffic controller?" Are you going to say, "That's unrealistic. Nice, but just unrealistic." Are you going to say, "Well, give me all the reasons and rationale and let me think about it and consider it before I make that decision." You see, it's a choice.

It takes course corrections to have peace. And these course corrections affect us right at the core of our being, our attitudes. And the first attitude is whether or not we are rejoicing in the Lord, because it says, "Rejoice in the Lord." I'll say it again, "Rejoice." That's a command. And it's command with a context, "Rejoice in the Lord."

My early days as a pastor, I pastored a church up in Thousand Oaks and there was a lot of conflict in transition and we'd leave many of those elder boards just drained because of walking through some of the issues that we were walking through and pastoring the church. And there was a guy that I had become pretty close friends with, who his dad had been a pastor and he grew up in the church his whole life. And he used to tell me after a lot of those elder meetings, he'd pat me on the back and say, "Be encouraged." Now, was it, not be encouraged about the meeting or be encouraged about what's going on in church or be encouraged about answered prayer or be encouraged about what God's going to do. Just be encouraged. And I'd always look at him and go, "About what?"

See, you don't get encouragement in a vacuum. You get encouragement about something that's happening that encourages you. In the same way, in Philippians 4, it doesn't just say, "Rejoice." The idea isn't just, you know, somehow wake up in the morning and go, "I'm happy." "Rejoice in the Lord."

"Rejoice in the Lord." In fact, Paul uses this same command and the same idea seven times. The command to rejoice in the book of Philippians. In Philippians 1:18, he says, "Rejoice that the Gospel of Jesus is being proclaimed to people who need to hear it." In Philippians 1:19, he says, "Rejoice that God's spirit will provide all that you need to live the Christian life." In Philippians 2:17, he says, "Rejoice that even though your life is being poured out, it's being poured out for something eternally significant that is going to matter in heaven."

In Philippians 3:1, he says, "Rejoice that you understand authentic Christianity and that you've been set free from legalism in a pseudo false version of Christianity." In Philippians 4:10, a little further on in the passage in this book, he says, "Rejoice that you partner with other people." You're not living life alone, but you're partnering with other Christians in this spiritual journey.

See, when we rejoice, we're to rejoice in the Lord. So what that means is when we're in the midst of difficulty and frustration and boredom and opposition, and the last thing that we feel is rejoicing, to rejoice in the Lord means we got to get our focus off whatever it is we're looking on. We got to get our focus on God. We got to get our focus on God promises. We got to get our focus on eternity. We got to get our focus on that which really gives us a basis for rejoicing.

It's a choice. It's a course correction. "Rejoice in the Lord." Again, I say, "Rejoice." Here's the second command that he gives as a prerequisite for this peace, which is a course correction. He says, "Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near." Sounds like a simple idea.

The word gentleness is the Greek word epieikeia. It means a reasonableness, a humble patience that submits to injustice and maltreatment. A trust in God in spite of adverse circumstances.

Hmm. A humble patience that submits to injustice and maltreatment. Let me ask myself, how do I respond? I'm I'm having a little self-dialogue, you're just listening in on it. How do I respond when I'm unjustly treated? When I'm disrespected? When people don't respond to me the way I think they should respond to me? When people don't show me just the basic respect or honor that I think I deserve? Do I just respond back with a gentleness and a kindness and a Christlikeness?

No, I don't. I think, "Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am? I'm the head of this household. I'm your father. I'm your husband. I'm the pastor of this church. I'm an adult." These are all the things that go through my mind when people disrespect me, treat me unjustly. You you see what I'm saying? Because all of those responses actually have a certain legitimacy to them, don't they? Because I am an adult. I am a husband. I am a father. I am a pastor. But the passage doesn't qualify whether or not you deserve to be treated that way. It's when you're treated this way, "Let your gentleness be evident to all." "Let your Christlikeness be evident to all." I I got to tell you, I'd get a big F in this one.

It's a course correction. It's a course correction. If I want to have God's peace, if you want to have God's peace, there's certain prerequisites. "Rejoice in the Lord. Again, I say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all." That be evident to all it means it's from the Greek word that's used in Philippians 3, gnosko, which means to know experientially, to know by relationship.

We're to have a gentleness that other people know. In other words, they see it in us. They see we have a certain gentleness when we're being mistreated and unjustly treated. And when circumstances aren't what they should be for us, they're actually able to see in us a gentleness that comes out rather than an entitlement that comes out.

If I'm always acting like I'm entitled, maybe I am. But as a result, I'm not experiencing the peace of God that transcends all human understanding. There's certain prerequisites. I need to let my gentleness be evident to all. I need to rejoice in the Lord. And then verse 6 says, "Be anxious." No, it doesn't say that. It says, "Don't be anxious." Oh, I thought it said, "Be anxious for everything." Because then I thought we'd all be obeying that command. No, it says, "Don't be anxious about anything." Don't be anxious about anything.

Jesus said it this way in Matthew chapter 6, "Don't worry," it's the same Greek word, mérimnáo. "Don't worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans ran after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

It is a command to not be anxious. It's a course correction for many of us, isn't it? Because many of us live our lives in anxiety. We worry about our marriage. We worry about our kids. We worry about our finances. We worry about our jobs. We worry about our spiritual life. We worry about everything. Worry actually is is the ongoing habit. We worry so much, we don't even know that we're worrying. It's just how we think all the time.

And because of that, we're not experiencing the peace of God that transcends all understanding. It's a course correction that we need to make. We need to be able to check, "Whoa, that I am worrying about this."

And actually, this passage is linked to a a positive command, so we're positively to rejoice, we're positively to let our gentle spirits be known to all. We're negatively to stop worrying, but in relation to that, positively, we're to pray about everything because it says that we are to in everything with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving, let our requests be made known to God. So we're to pray about everything and we're to pray about everything in every way because he uses four words for prayer.

So whatever it is that's causing anxiety, we need to immediately respond to that anxiety by praying and praying in any way we can so that prayer gets expressed to God. Pray about everything, pray about everything in every way. And then the result, "And the peace of God that passes all comprehension will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." You see, that's a course correction. That's an attitude correction, because most of us, we've developed certain attitudes that are our own worst enemies.

It's our attitudes that are robbing us from the peace that God wants to give us, and joy is a result of peace. So we're not experiencing peace nor are we experiencing joy. Why? Because we got bad attitudes. And we can be like the pilot who says, "I think I know how to do it better." And we can just say, "No, God, I know how to do it better," and not change our attitudes. Or we can be like the pilot who says, "That's unrealistic," because you're in the tower and I'm actually flying the plane. We can be like the pilot who says, "Yeah, that sounds good in Philippians 4, but it's just, you know, you don't know my marriage, you don't know my kids, you don't know my job, you don't know my circumstances, that's unrealistic to be that way."

And as a result, we're still not going to have peace. Or we can be like the dialoguer questioner, "Well, you know, give me more information, convince me, God, you know, show me why that's and all that. We're not making the course corrections necessary." And if we don't make the course corrections, we're just not going to have peace. And if we're not going to have peace, we're not going to have joy.

We need to be people who have trained themselves to pray about everything, to give everything over to God, to open up every part of our life to the Lordship of Christ, to thank God for all the things that are happening in our lives, the good, the bad and the ugly and to ask God for everything that we want and to give it to Him.

And when we do, the peace of God that passes all comprehension will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. We need to be peacemakers, peace receivers, peace thinkers. The next verse, verse 8. "Finally, brothers, whatever's true, whatever's noble, whatever's right, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever's admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things." Paul lists all of these moral and spiritual qualities. He summarizes them by saying, "Anything that's excellent, anything that's praiseworthy." So in antithesis to whatever it is that's causing us worry and anxiety, we need to fill our minds with the things that are excellent and praiseworthy.

The things that are true, the things that are eternal, the things that are the fruit of the spirit, the things that are associated with God's love, the things that are consistent with God's promises, the things that are true with respect to our identity in Christ. All of the things that are excellent, all the things that are praiseworthy, we're to think about these things. That's the command.

Think about these things. That's the Greek word is logizomai. It means to consider or to reckon or to count upon or to take into account or to think on. You see, the point that Paul's saying is, and that Paul understood because of God's inspiration in this passage, is that there's just a psychological principle at work here.

You're starting to worry about something, and even if you understand this biblical truth and you recognize that anxiety and you recognize that worrying and say, "I I don't want to be controlled by this worry. I want to give this to God." So you talk to God about that and you pray about it. If you just stop there and that's all you do, guess what happens? That worry comes right back. In fact, you know, there's no shame here. We're we're all just folks. How many of you have worried about something in your life, and you've you actually, okay, you recognized it was worrying and you didn't want to feel anxious and so you actually prayed about it, but then five minutes later you were worrying about it all over again. How many of you've done that? Yeah, all of us. And the rest of you guys are liars.

So, I mean, it's it's just what happens. So what Paul says here, in terms of how to experience peace is, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God that passes all comprehension will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." And then he says, "Don't just stop there. Now, instead of having your mind dwelling on the thing that is causing you worry, fill your mind with the things that are excellent and praiseworthy. Look at that situation from God's perspective. Claim God's promise about that situation. Dwell on the things that are going to actually lead you to feeling peace."

Because there's an inseparable relationship between our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. You think about things that cause you to feel anxious, you're going to feel anxiety and then you're going to act out of that anxiety. You think about things that are true and excellent and praiseworthy, it's going to give you the feelings associated with that strong faith and then you're going to act in obedience and boldness and courage.

Isaiah 26, verse 3 says, "God will keep him in perfect peace whose trust is in him, whose thoughts are fixed on him." What a great promise. That's Isaiah 26:3. "God will keep him in perfect peace whose trust is in him, and whose thoughts are fixed on him." You want to have perfect peace? Put your trust in God and fix your thoughts on him.

One last truth here out of Philippians 4. You got to listen real quick on this one. So, we got to be peacemakers, peace receivers, peace thinkers. Lastly, peace practicers. Great thing about this passage, we're promised the peace of God and the God of peace. Verse 9. "Whatever you've learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you."

Wow. Well, isn't the God of peace with me all the time? Well, it depends on what you mean. If we're talking theologically about the omnipresence of God, yeah, God's everywhere at all times in the same way. But that's not what this passage is talking about. This passage is talking about the God of peace being with us in a life-transforming way, giving us His peace. And is the God of peace with us in a life-transforming way, giving us His peace all the time? No.

It's like the bumper sticker. If God seems distant, guess who's moved? We're not leveraging God. We're aligning ourselves back with God. We're making course corrections to be able to land on the runway and experience peace. So what do we need to do? Well, all the things that we've learned, received, heard, and seen, we need to put into practice. Now, as I said here, you know, sometime ago, every one of us is on a spiritual journey. Some of us may be down the path, and some of us may be, you know, somewhere in the middle, and some of us at the very beginning. Some of us don't even know we're on the journey, but guess what? Every person here, wherever you are in your personal spiritual life, there's some things that you've learned. There's some things that you've heard. There's some things that you've received. There's some things that you've seen.

What this passage says is, whatever that is, you're responsible for putting it into practice. The fact that somebody else may have more or less, doesn't matter. Whatever I've heard, whatever I've seen, whatever I've learned, whatever I've received, that's what I need to put into practice. And when I do, the God of peace will be with me.

This word practice here is the Greek word prasso, which means to repeat over and over again. Repeat over and over again. My sophomore year in high school, we're in the locker room after a baseball practice. Everybody's kind of having fun. We start having a towel fight, throwing towels. One of the guys on our team took a towel, tied it in a knot, went over to the shower, got it all just soaking wet, and he let that fly. Only he wasn't our pitcher. Because rather than going across the locker room, it kind of went sideways right where the coach's office was, and that knotted wet towel went right into that big window in the coach's office, and it just splattered the whole thing. The coach was back in the room taking a shower. He comes out of the room, got his towel wrapped around, glass everywhere, and he's yelling at everybody, "What happened?" And, you know, we're just frozen. Nobody says anything. He says, "Who threw the towel?"

And the guy who threw the towel didn't say who threw the towel. He says, "Who threw the towel?" And the rest of us on the team didn't say who threw the towel. He said, "All right, get dressed, we'll see you tomorrow at practice." We're thinking, "Okay, this is pretty good. Nobody got in trouble. This is good." So, the next day, we come out to practice, get our, you know, practice uniform on, got our cleats on, got our glove, we get out to the baseball diamond, we're playing catch, we're hitting pepper. Coach comes out. Looks around, says, "Okay, put all your gloves over there." We put all the gloves over there. He goes, "Okay, line up here at home plate." We all line up at home plate. He goes, "Let me ask you again, who threw the towel?"

Nobody says who threw the towel. "Let me ask you again, who threw the towel?" None of us ratted out on the guy who threw the towel. He says, "Okay, guys, just going to see what you guys are made of. Here's the deal. I want you to run the bases," which in baseball it was a sprint drill that we used to do. Sprint down to first, come back, sprint down to first and second, come back, sprint down to first, second, third, come back, sprint down to first, second, third and home, come back.

Got you run the bases. I'm going to go in, take a shower and go home. When you think you've run enough bases, you can go home too. And we were all standing there and he walked off in the locker room. He was gone. We kind of looked at each other and goes, "All right." You know, started off running the bases. After doing it about three times, the guy who threw the towel, he leaves. Nothing happens. Then they start peeling off one by one. Guys just start leaving.

It got dark. School's out at about 3:00. It got dark. The sun was down. There was me and two other guys sucking wind, but we're running those bases. Just run to first, run to first and second, run to first, second and third, run to first, second, third and home. Doing it over and over again, repeating it. All of a sudden, the coach comes back out. He's all showered, got his clothes on. Looks around. "Where's everybody?" "They left, coach." "You the only guys here?" "We're the only guys here." "All right, you can take it in." We took it in. He never said another word about it.

Now, here's the thing. That was meant to somehow test our character, test our integrity, test how much we really wanted to play baseball. But it was all based on a drill of running the bases over and over and over again. In every sport I've ever played, and if any of you played sports, you know, there're just certain drills, you just do them over and over and over again. You just repeat it over and over and over and over again because every coach I ever played for in every sport I ever played said this at one time. You play like you practice. Same in the Christian life.

You want peace? You want the peace of God that passes all understanding? Practice peace. Practice peace.

Guest (Male): What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just $5. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That's 949-916-0250. For your gift of $25 or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment, but before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. Here in Philippians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul is telling us that joy comes from a lifestyle of peace. We can experience God's peace. Peace with God and the peace of God and we can experience peace with one another. But it is a reflection of our attitude. You see, here in this passage, Paul gives us several commands. They're short, pithy commands that reflect a certain attitude. It's an attitude of humility, it's an attitude of surrender, it's an attitude of faith, it's an attitude of trusting God. He says, "We are to rejoice in the Lord." He says, "We're to demonstrate gentleness." He says, "We are to not be anxious about anything." He says, "We are to pray about everything." He says, "We are to put our minds on the things that are praiseworthy from God, and we are to practice the things that we've learned." Those short little commands, while they might be very difficult to actually apply, are the key to living a peace-filled and joy-filled life. It's a choice.

You see, the Christian life comes down to a choice to surrender to God and obey God or to independently put ourselves at the center of our life and do what we feel like doing. That's what it really comes down to. It's an issue of control. Will we surrender the control of our lives to Christ and do what Christ says and practice Christ's keys to peace and joy, or will we do what we think and follow how we feel life ought to be done? That's what it comes down to every day for me and every day for you. And Philippians says, "Joy and peace is a fruit of obeying God. Joy and peace is a fruit of having an attitude of faith and surrender and humility and trust." And so to experience the peace of Christ and to radiate the joy of the Lord, we're to rejoice in the Lord always. We're to demonstrate Christ's gentleness to others. We're not to be anxious about anything. We're to pray about everything. We're to set our minds on the things that are trustworthy and praiseworthy and excellent, and we're to practice all the things that we've learned from God. When we do these things, the peace of God will be ours and the joy of the Lord will be our strength. God, thank you for your plan for joy-filled living in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.

Cross before me, the world behind. No turning back, raise the banner high. It's not for me, it's all for You.