Finally, Philippians, 3:1
Philippians 3:1 · Vern Peterman · Aug 17, 2003
Philippians (2003), No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262258186740

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

continually rejoicing. And right now, not later. Not dependent upon some external circumstance. Alright, one of the things we pointed out in the past, here's this, this word is part of the Keres family of words, and we've made note of it before. One of the things that stands out, look how long the list is here in chapter 1, and then in chapter 2, and then how brief it is in chapter 3, and we'll see in a minute why. And then he continues on with these charis family of words with a longer list as in the first and second chapter. He carries that on in the fourth chapter. But it's so short here, just this one place, and we'll see why in just a minute.

As Paul is beginning the second half, what's he doing? He is warning them about some things that they've got to be careful of. And as he's doing that, he prefaces that warning with rejoicing. Here's the reason I believe why he does that, and why all of a sudden in chapter 3, the list—let me go back to it real quickly— the list of those Keres family of words is so short.

I believe the reason is this. As he goes into warning, he is indeed focusing on warning, and a warning is a negative exhortation, isn't it? It's about, you know, watch out for this, avoid this, be careful about that, okay? Watch out for that. But the preface that he's going to begin with is rejoice. And that's something for us to take home, to take to heart. And that is that if there is a warning involved, the ultimate prevention is rejoicing in the Lord, and not just not doing and avoiding the negative thing. Be aware of the negative thing, yes, but don't forget at every moment, the most important thing is rejoicing in and beholding the Lord Jesus. any warning that doesn't keep that in that context gets us into trouble.

And so that's why he's prefacing this thing with rejoicing. And when he gets into chapter 4, what's he going to do? He's going to tell it to him again, multiple times over. So that's why we see, we go into this next part, look at his use of the word rejoice or rejoicing throughout this book. He has woven it as a golden thread from the first chapter to the last.

Here is this church that he is writing while he's chained to a Praetorian guard, as we went before, some of the people who have been through that experience. It's like being chained to a wild beast. Here he is, chained to a Praetorian guard, and he's writing to people who are going through a tough time, and he says, Rejoice repeatedly.

And here, it's imperative. It's not just a suggestion. It's not, Boy, it sure would be nice if we could. It is an imperative. It is of logical necessity that you rejoice. It's not optional. Not something you get to choose, should I or shouldn't I, okay? It is absolutely based on the logical proceeding from our position in Christ. Okay, now, let's look at this.

We've got this word rejoice, but notice he doesn't just say, hey, rejoice! You know, just some sort of generic statement. Rejoice. How does he say it? Rejoice in the Lord. So as we look at that here, what do we have? The rejoicing is not empty or of itself. It's rejoicing in the Lord. It isn't just something where the Lord says, okay, you're having a tough time, so throw a party. Okay? He doesn't just do that. What does He do?

Instead, He says, your rejoicing is in the Lord. Because you can rejoice in the Lord not only can, but you must, you can rejoice in the Lord not just because your circumstances are better or they'll be better soon, but you can rejoice in the Lord right in the midst of the very circumstances that you're in. It does not depend on all the external things that people tend to look at that they rejoice over. It is based upon having every spiritual blessing, everything that we have that is of our position in Christ.

Paul writes to the church at Ephesus there in 1.3 and he says an absolutely shocking statement that thereafter, the rest of the chapter, just sends his pen flying. You've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. Every. Every. Every. what he's underscoring with the church here at Philippi.

Rejoice in the Lord. Now, this gets back to this use of this little short Greek word, en. En is the way we would carry it over in a transliteration. And the idea is our rejoicing is entirely in the Lord. Notice it's not straddling the line. He doesn't say, Rejoice in the Lord and for a few other things. He's rejoicing the Lord entirely. The rejoicing is entirely in him. Notice that he uses it here. He's going to use it again in 4.4. He, in this short book, repeats it and puts it either side of his warning. That must be important, huh? Puts it either side of the warning, like bookends.

Why rejoice in the Lord? If we look at it, we rejoice because of who He is. One of the things that we thank the Lord for and we rejoice in is who the Lord is. It is His very character that we can rejoice in. One thing, the Lord is unchangeable. The Lord is a God of grace. The Lord is a God of love. The Lord is a God of justice.

The Lord has character that we rejoice in, that is unchanging. It is that unchanging character that we can rejoice in because we can rejoice now and five minutes from now and five days from now and on into eternity because the Lord's character is consistent. We rejoice in who the Lord is. We rejoice because of what He has done, what He has accomplished for us. The Lord is the one who has indeed has taken us and given us our position in Christ.

When Paul wrote and said, we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, it's God that did the blessing. We frequently will speak to one another, and it's understandable, but we'll say, will the Lord bless you? Or we'll call this or that a blessing. And I don't mean to discount those. But by no means should we lose sight of the fact that the Lord has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. He has accomplished what He has accomplished. and it is His doing, and we can rejoice in that. It's irreversible.

Ephesians 2.6 says we've been seated in the heavenly places. I have yet to find a verse that reverses that. You've been seated in the heavenlies with Christ. There is no verse that says, oh, by the way, here's the exit seat. There isn't any such thing.

So now, then, who we are in Him. We have an identity because of Him. One of the things Paul talked about is my brethren. He would use that with them because of the Lord's having made him of the same family, Paul, of the same family with the saints at Philippi. So it's who he is, what he's done, and who we are in him. There's some scripture passages there, and I put et al. after them, and that's Latin for and the others. And others, because the list would be so long it would fill pages and pages.

It's just a start. It's just a start. One of the things in the Revelation passages that I've listed up there, if you look through them, and we did when we were studying through Revelation, is the believers in heaven will continually, continually be praising the Lord for who He is and what He's done. These very things. But we don't have to wait till then. We don't have to wait till then. As a matter of fact, he's saying now. Rejoice in who he is.

The last part of Philippians 3.1, Paul says something very curious. I hope it's curious enough for us to take a look at it. You want to? Let's do that. To write the same things again is no trouble for me, and it's a safeguard for you. For some of your translations, you'll just simply say, it's safe. Let's take a look at what he's talking about when he writes that. No trouble to me, okay?

Here's in the King James's Grievous, okay? Ochneros. And the idea is it has the idea of being irksome or bothersome or disturbingly tedious. Have you ever had something like that? Oh, no, I've got to do this again? Okay? That's what this is. It's not like that. It's not the sort of thing where he goes, oh, no, I've got to say it again. I told you before, okay? He's not doing that.

He says it's no trouble at all. Paul wasn't bothered in the least by bringing this rejoicing in the Lord to the forefront again. He says, this is a good thing for me to tell you. He, of course, has used the word rejoice before in this. He may well have written other things that told him to rejoice. And most certainly, when he was face to face with them, he most certainly would have told them to rejoice as well. He's saying, I've told it to you before and I have no problem writing it again.

It doesn't disturb me in the least. It's not tedious or bothersome. I love it. So this word is no trouble for me. It doesn't bug me in the least. It's not irksome. It's not tedious. It's not a problem. Then this word safeguard, or the King James simply has safe. The Greek word asphalos, and that's not where we get our word asphalt. Asphalo, it means not fail. It doesn't fail. It means something that is secure and certain and safe and sure.

That's the idea that's being put across here. This rejoicing in the Lord isn't something we do up until the time the Lord takes us home. It isn't just something to do to fill the time. What he's getting across here It's fool-proof, goof-proof spiritual safety in our present condition. Fool-proof, goof-proof. If you want to be fool-proof and goof-proof spiritually, rejoice in the Lord. That's his point. It's a safeguard.

He says, I'm going to give you some warnings, but let me tell you, just avoiding the warnings is not going to do it. or my warnings won't have any value. They won't be of any good. And one of the examples we've used, the law can be like that. Don't do this, right? It's as if, in the example I've given before, as I come to you and I say, absolutely, positively, do not think of a pink hippopotamus.

Okay, what have you just done? The minute I tell you don't do it, that's exactly what you think of. And so Paul is prefacing, and he comes back at the end of it again, and he says, it's a safeguard to you. This is what you really need to focus on. I'm going to give you a warning, but don't get so zeroed in on the warning that you lose sight of what's really important.

Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in who He is. Rejoice in what He has done. And rejoice in who you are in Him. Rejoice in those things. And now my warning will be in good context. He's setting that up and he's saying, I have no problem writing you because it is so valuable and important for me to write this.

Now, you see this here? This guy here has a problem with this helmet. Look carefully. Cracked helmet. Very bad. This is a safeguard. This safeguard works until it doesn't. And the problem is, once it's cracked, it's no longer any good, is it? You don't want to wear that again and depend on it. It's going to come apart.

What's different about the safeguard he just gave them? It's always good. Okay? It's always good. So it's not like this helmet, which can fail you and at some point you say, okay, that's gone. No. This is one he says, I can write this to you and it's always good. It's always effective. And it applies to every single one. No exceptions.

You don't have to toss it like the helmet, okay? Not that helmet. Different helmet. Okay. Alright. So now, let's get to the last part. This is expanded and explained. By the way, this is the verse I'm expanding and explaining. I do not want to expand, and I'm inexplicable. So, it's just the verse. Okay.

As for the rest of what I have to say to you who share a birthing into the family of God with me, His brethren, right? Let me preface it with this pivotal and essential truth. You must, of logical necessity, express that grace-given joy which springs from and has its basis in the Lord, who He is, what He has done, and who we are in Him. To write the same things again as I had before is no bother to me, even by repetition, and it is a foolproof spiritual safeguard for every single one of you and the church body as a whole. How about that?

Every single one in the church body as a whole He he is he is making I mean, this is a simple statement, isn't it? But he is making a statement that is going to be so profound that that he's going to Preface the warning and end the warning with the statement rejoice in the Lord And that's something I think for us as we look at this real simple statement, but to ponder what that means As I am a believer, is it not true that the temptation is for me to depend upon the things around me, depend upon physical things that are going on around me, my circumstances, how I feel at the moment, what I've had to eat last, or how long it's been? There is a tendency as human beings for us to make our joy depend upon those external circumstances.

He is making every appeal to them, in the midst of the circumstances that they're in, and that he's in, which are not good, to rejoice in the Lord. That rejoicing is in the middle of what is admittedly, and very honestly, a tough time on the outside. Tough time. Real difficult. And yet he makes this appeal. And he's not telling them who are having a tough time, rejoice in the Lord, while he's having a good time. Okay? He's not.

In the midst of this, what he is telling them is something that he applies and fits to himself as well. And he knows full well that it is more important, even than the warnings he's about to give, that they need to keep it in mind. And that's why he's going to repeat it front and back.

That rejoicing in the Lord It means that we're not just rejoicing in what we know about Him. It doesn't mean that we just get together here for a couple of hours and turn the amperage up. It means that that rejoicing in the Lord, remember it was a present, active, it means continuing right now. And five minutes from now, continuing right now. And five days from now, continuing right now.

It is a pivotal truth, and that's what he underscores here. It is absolutely essential for the believer. That's why he doesn't make it as a suggestion. It's an imperative. You must, of logical necessity, rejoice in the Lord. And it fits and applies to every believer here. So Paul starts off here, and says, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. to write the same things to you again is no trouble for me, it's a safeguard to you. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this simple verse, nothing terribly complicated about it, its grammar is all straightforward, syntax, everything comes right out. It is very clear what it's telling us. And Lord, Where we wrestle with this is not in its clarity, but we are ever drawn to and tempted to depend upon outward circumstances for our rejoicing. And in fact, Lord, those circumstances and even our feelings at a particular moment may not be cause for rejoicing. But Lord, we know that you have eternally and irreversibly given us ultimate cause for rejoicing from now until the next minute and into eternity. And we rejoice, Lord, this morning in who you are and what you've done and what you've made us. We just thank you for it all. We pray this in the name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen.