Sharing Troubles | Philippians 4:14-23

Philippians 4:14-23  |  Cody Hale

Transcript

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Amen. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn with me to Philippians chapter 4. We're just going to finish our journey through the book of Philippians this morning. Next Sunday, we're going to kick off a journey through the first six chapters of the book of Daniel, which I'm uh I'm really excited about. It's going to be a lot of fun. Philippians chapter 4, we'll pick up in verse 14 and read to the end of the book. God's word says, Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. Even in Thessalonica, you sent help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father, be glory forever and ever. Amen. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Let's pray to the Lord together this morning. Heavenly Father, we come today, Lord, and we're all just kind of a mess. And so, Lord, we know that you call us to be a part of each other's lives and to share life and to bear burdens. But sometimes, Lord, we just wonder, quite frankly, if we have the capacity to do it. And so, Lord, I pray this morning that you would do the work in our hearts by your spirit and through your word to lift up our eyes from our own lives to see the people around you that we would recognize that we share in the grace of your work when we share in the problems of one another's lives. God, give us a vision not just for ourselves, but for each other. Give us a heart, not just for our family, but for our partners in the gospel. And God, use it to build us more into the image of Jesus and into the strong church that you intended for us to be. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. You know, I imagine that most of us are not waking up every morning and thinking, you know what would make my life better? More people's problems. Right? The first prayer that you pray every morning is probably not, Lord, my calendar's pretty wide open. Could you send some drama my way? No, for most of us, we're already kind of at wit's end, aren't we? We're already exhausted, and we're thinking about all of the pressure and all the tension that we have from our own lives. I mean, we have family pressure and we have marriage pressure and we have financial pressure and we have career pressure and we have health pressure, we have cultural pressure, we have emotional pressure. Like, we can keep going, right? Like there's a lot. And so when we think about the troubles of others or when we observe the troubles of others, we're kind of tempted to look the other way, aren't we? It's not because we're bad people, it's it's not because you you don't care about what happens to them, it's not because you're you're cold-hearted or hard-hearted. It's because you just don't know if you have the bandwidth. Like you flat out aren't sure that you can add anybody else's stuff to your stuff because you've got so much stuff. But throughout the book of Philippians, Paul's been teaching us that we are to make someone else's problems into our problems. Because making someone else's problems into our problems is actually the essence and the impulse of the gospel. And so it makes sense that Paul concludes his letter to the church at Philippi by saying, You shared my trouble. He's talking about the gift that they have given to him. And what he wants them to recognize is that they haven't just sent him a picnic basket to help him get through. What they've actually done is they've shared his trouble, they've stepped into his burden, they've stepped into his drama, they've stepped into his difficulty. And they've done that from Paul's perspective because this is what grace does. This is the impulse and essence of the gospel. It is to move me towards someone else's problems so that the gospel and the grace of Jesus actually begins to be permeating not just in me, but in all of the people around me. And so the main idea that I want us to see this morning is that we share in the grace of God's work when we share in the problems of God's people. We share in the grace of God's work when we share in the troubles of God's people. We'll see this in three movements. The first movement that we'll see is that we share trouble because we because grace has made us partners. I think one of the most honest verses in the whole Bible is 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 28. It says this, yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. Like, amen, Paul, right? Amen. Marriage does that, doesn't it? It brings in trouble. As a matter of fact, the word from 1 Corinthians chapter 7 is the same word that we that Paul uses for trouble here in verse 14 of chapter 4. When we get married, we start having some problems that we didn't know we were gonna have at first. But what's interesting is that though marriage does introduce some difficulty in our lives, maybe even great difficulty into our lives, in a healthy circumstance, what it also does is it gives us a partner with which we get to experience those things. That it's getting married brings hardship, and that's normal and typical and expected, but it's in those hardships that we actually start learning whether or not we have a roommate or a partner, isn't it? That in a healthy marriage, in the ideal situation, what hardship actually does is it forms a stronger bond and a deeper marriage and greater trust between each other. And so I think that brings us back to the original question, and we could reframe it. Why would we go looking for someone else's trouble? Well, why would we go looking to get married? It's a similar answer, isn't it? The impulse that we have to avoid marriage, uh avoid other people's burdens is actually the same impulse that's behind the decline of marriage. We don't want uh more burden, we don't want more problems, we don't want more issues, we don't want more drama in our lives, and so we're actually so allergic to the drama and the difficulty and the pressure of other people's lives that we will embrace a less satisfying life if it means for us a lower maintenance life. And this cultural phenomenon that we see around us regarding marriage is actually making its way into the church among God's people. But most of us, most of us end up getting married, most of us end up experiencing the troubles that it brings about. And the answer to why we do that helps us to understand why it is that we might move toward one another and the troubles and the drama and the hardship and the frustrations that that can bring about. If I were to go around to all the married people in the room this morning and I was to ask you, and I were to ask you, did marriage make your life more complicated? You're either gonna lie or say yes, right? That's the only solution. You're either gonna lie or say yes. But if I were to ask you, why is it that you were married and why is it that you stayed married, I bet if I go down, we would have some version of the same answer over and over again. Love brought us together, and love has kept us together. Love has brought us together, and love has kept us together. This is the same thing that Paul is sharing with us about the nature of our relationships with each other. That as the church of Jesus Christ, grace has brought us together, and now grace holds us together. That grace has come into our lives, and yeah, has it brought made some complications? Has it added some drama? Has it added some troubles? Yeah, like you're either gonna lie or you're gonna say yes, right? It's the same in the relationships with the church. But the reality is, the reality is, is that it's brought us together, and it's brought us together so that we can have partnership in grace with one another. You'll notice the word share there in verse 14. Then you'll notice at the end of verse, in the middle of verse 15, there's the word partnership. These actually share the same root word. It's the word we get our English word fellowship from. And if I can go back, we can change the colors you can see this clearer. It actually goes all the way back to chapter 1. He says in chapter 5, we were partnership, we had a partnership in the gospel. In chapter 7, he says that we were partakers with him of grace. These all have the same root word. What he's talking about here is he's talking about that grace has brought us together so that we are sharing, we are fellowshipping with one another in the gospel. We are fellowshipping with one another in the grace that we have received. And because we are fellowshipping in the gospel and we are fellowshipping in grace now, now we are actually fellowshipping in our troubles with each other. So the point that he's making is that our connection with one another is through grace that Jesus has given us. And because it is through grace, then the depth, the strength, and the resolve of our connections with one another is meant to put on display the depth, the strength, and the resolve of Jesus' grace. You see, Jesus didn't just die on the cross so that all of us could become roommates that are sharing bills. Believe it or not, he had a higher vision for the church than us just being a whole bunch of roommates sharing bills, just like you had a higher vision for your marriage than that. That's not a picture of his grace. That Jesus' grace didn't come in and then hold us at arm's length, did it? No, Jesus' grace came in and got in the nitty-gritty of our lives, got down in the muck in the mire, like he left the glory of heaven to come and sweat and get nasty and get tired here among us. No, grace doesn't make us roommates, it makes us dependable partners for life. This is what he's getting at when he talks about in verse 16, he says, even in Thessalonica, you sent my needs once and again. He's saying, You have a resolved, a dependable love for me. Why? Because that's how deep and strong and resolved grace is. So grace makes those partners, and then we should see that partners share trouble. You'll notice the character of the Philippians partnership is that it's one of initiative. He says, and you Philippians, know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me except who? You only. That it's one of initiation. And I think that really helps us to understand what we mean when we're talking about grace. That Jesus' grace, a significant part of it, was that it was by his initiative to share our troubles, wasn't it? That Jesus took our troubles and our burdens and our sin and our drama onto himself, and he did this how? By his choice, according to his own initiative. That's the gospel, isn't it? That's the gospel. That our Savior, by his own initiative, left heaven to empty himself and die for us. That he came at his own initiative, and all we have to do is respond to that initiative by faith and repentance. And when we do, what do we receive? We receive grace and not judgment. That's the gospel. And that initiating, that run toward the fire, grace is what brought us together. And that's what's meant to compel the initiative that we're to show in sharing one another's problems with each other. This is the message of the book of the Philippians. That we are not connected mainly by our hobbies or our personalities or by our proximity or by our comforts or by our life stage. We are connected by something much stronger, much deeper, much more resolved than all of those things, because all of those things will crumble in the last day. We are connected with one another, bound with one another by grace. So, our relationships with each other are intended to emulate Jesus' relationship with us. See, now, because we are connected by Jesus' initiating run toward the fire grace, we don't just see one another's needs. We actually begin running toward them. We don't just hear about one another's burdens. What we do is we actually place ourselves underneath the burden and help them lift it up, too. That we are the people who run at the burning building when everybody else wants to look away and everybody else wants to stand on the sidewalk and gossip. We are the people running at the problem and at the drama and at the discouragement that we can get under the burden and help lift it up. Because this is the impulse of grace. This is the nature of the Savior that all of us are following. So I have a hard question for us to wrestle with this morning. Whose trouble is God calling you to stop treating as someone else's problem? Where is God calling you to share in the troubles of others? Where is the house that's on fire that you're supposed to be running toward? See, I wonder, I wonder if it might be that God is calling you into a deeper fellowship here at the orchard. Can I tell you why we are gonna prioritize church membership more and more and more in the years ahead? It's not because you need more problems in your life and we want to bring more problems in your life. I promise you, I know you got all that you can handle. It's not because we think that you are looking for an opportunity to load up your calendar with some more responsibilities, though. I think membership means that we are gonna be committed to attendance with one another. I recognize, we recognize you got all you can handle, and your calendar is about as full as you can stand already. The reason that we're gonna prioritize it is because we want you to have a deeper experience of grace. We want you to have a deeper experience of grace. You know what happens when you live with a group of people really close? You offend one another. You frustrate one another. I would spare you that because your wedding, your marriage is gonna bring you all kinds of problems, right? I wonder if Paul would look at you and say, Look, if I had my ways, I wouldn't make you join the church, man. It's gonna be all kinds of problems. You know what's gonna happen if you if you come in and you join and you go deep with us here at the orchard? You're gonna get hurt sometimes. You're gonna get offended sometimes. You're gonna get discouraged sometimes. You're gonna be disappointed sometimes. Because that's what happens when sinners coexist under the same roof. That's what happens. And so you know what you're gonna have the opportunity to do? It's so much easier in concept than it is in reality, but you know what you're gonna have the opportunity to do? You're gonna have the opportunity to show grace, to offer grace, but there's a flip side too, right? Guess what? Half the problems in your marriage are on you, man. It's not just the other person. You make their lives more complicated, too. I know it's hard to believe, right? Same is true in the life of the church. Like there are gonna be times in which you hurt people and you wound people and you disappoint people. And you know what you're gonna have the opportunity to receive in a healthy church? You're gonna have the opportunity to receive grace. Grace. That even in the difficulty and the trouble and the drama that all of us encounter in our relationships with one another, what they're actually doing when rightly perceived, is they are inviting us in to a deeper experience of grace. It's literally sharing in the grace of God's work by sharing in the troubles of God's people. Like I am so excited about so many things that God is doing right now in the orchard. But I think chief among the works that God is doing here in the orchard and that he's gonna do in the days ahead, is he is calling us away from being just roommates that gather together and pay some bills to being partners in the gospel so that we can have a deeper experience of grace and so that our neighbors can too. I want to challenge you, and I know this is scary. I want you, I want to challenge you to start thinking seriously about church membership. For some of you, like you're ready, like you were bought in on who we are, you're bought in on the mission that we have, like like you're tracking with us. You should just do it. Like we should just we should just make this thing happen. For others of you, like it's scary and it's concerning, and you've got church hurt in your past. And I understand that. And and you've got you've got deep wounds that go long way back. For some of you, you're still getting to know us. Like you don't really know what we're about or who we are. Here's my invitation to you: just start where you are and start taking steps toward membership. Maybe you get somewhere along the line, you're like, hey, I don't like these people, right? We'll help you find a sister church that loves Jesus and preaches the Bible, right? That's okay. But would you just start the process of discovery, of being able to go deep so it's not one foot in, one foot out, not just not just roommates, but so that you can have partners in the gospel to have a deeper experience of grace. We're actually gonna have an event called Coffee and Connections. It'll be on June the 28th, just during our nine o'clock service. Doesn't add any extra time to your calendar. You can come there, there's no commitment, you're not signing up to be a member of the orchard. It's to learn who we are and what we're about, to be able to share some of our story and where we're headed and some of where we've been, so that you can decide if this might be exactly where the Lord would have you to be. You see, grace makes us partners, and partners share trouble. And when we share our trouble, recognizing this means of us, this means of partaking in God's work, we'll also begin recognizing that we'll share treasure because of who we treasure. We'll share treasure because of who we treasure. You know, if we're honest, we often resist it to partnership because partnership threatens our treasure, right? Go back to the marriage illustration. Why is it that we're becoming so allergic to marriage in our modern culture? Well, one of the primary reasons is we don't want to share our money and we don't want to share our time, right? We would rather have autonomy than love. That we actually prefer financial independence than relational obligation. From the beginning, one of the single most perplexing realities about Christians has been our approach toward generosity. That we are the kinds of people who are literally letting go and giving away all the stuff that everybody else is going to war over. That we're the kind of people that'll work hard and go to work early and stay at work late, just so that we can give away significant portions of what we've worked so hard to earn. And so, Paul, in explaining the Philippians generosity, is that helping us understand why it is that Christians have always lived this way. And fundamentally, it's because our treasure isn't where everybody else's treasure is. Jesus said, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And so part of what Paul is showing is that the Philippians have identified their treasure. You can see that here in verse 20. Why did they give to and share in his troubles? Why are they doing all because it's aimed in a specific direction. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. That all of their generosity has a very specific target and a very specific aim. And it's not just on the horizontal, it's on the vertical. That their desire is to bring glory and honor to the one whom they treasure, to God. And so you'll quickly notice here three reasons why we share in the grace of God's work by sharing in the troubles of God's people, specifically with our resources. And these are the same reasons that Christians have given throughout history. This is the same reason that Christians live so radically generous today. First, you'll see that we give to bear a lasting fruit. Paul says that what he is seeking here, and honestly, I'm worried that we would be so cynical because of all of our experiences with prosperity preachers and all other kinds of other people, we wouldn't even be able to hear what he's saying. But Paul is seeking here not their money, but the fruit that increases to their credit. Can you imagine that if I came and said, hey, we're gonna do a great building campaign, and here's what I want, I'm not actually seeking your money, I'm seeking the fruit that increases to your credit. Most of you would roll your eyes, right? But this is exactly Paul's perspective. He's saying that by denying themselves a few comforts in the here and now, that they are actually storing up for themselves a treasure in a place where the treasure will not rot and will never become obsolete. So their clothes may not be the finest, and their vacations may not be the fanciest, and their cars may not be the most luxurious, but their treasure is secure, and they know where it is, and they know when they're going to receive it. Think about this. This is really a remarkable picture. When the Philippians gave to Paul, they were helping to fund a westward movement of the gospel. So the church at Philippi, Philippi, was the first European European province to receive the gospel and to have a church planted. And so from Philippi, Paul then carries Christ farther into the Gentile world to places like Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, eventually Rome. Then over the centuries, the gospel spread through the Roman world as the Roman Empire proliferated. Then it went through Europe, through the Reformation, through English-speaking Baptists, across the Atlantic, and eventually, eventually, to places like West Tennessee and Collierville and the Orchard Church. That the Philippians gave to meet a need that they could see. Their missionary needed some food. Their missionary needed some funding. They gave to the need that they saw. And God used it to bear fruit that they would have never imagined. One day, many Christians are going to be stunned by the fruit of the gifts that they barely even remember giving. That on the last day there's going to be a parade that the Lord Jesus is going to show you as all of the fruit that is increased on your behalf. And in that parade, there'll be a missionary that'll be there. You don't know their name and you don't recognize their faces and they don't know your name and they don't recognize your face. But you gave to your church, and your church gave the missionary, and the missionary was able to stay on the field and continue to preach the gospel and plant churches. There are going to be kids that are going to come through that came through your nursery and came through your Sunday school class and came through you continuing to teach over in the bridge. And you kept showing up and you had to wake up early and you had to get a little aggravated and you got frustrated because you didn't think they were paying attention, but you kept showing up and you kept going, and here they're going to come and you're going to see them there in glory, in the presence of the Lord Jesus, because you, you sacrificed and gave. There's going to be teenagers that are going to be there. And they're going to be there, and you're not going to know them, and they're not going to know you. But you gave and you supported your church, which was allowed us to be able to have youth workers and to send them on camps, and there they heard the gospel. They were trained up in the way that they ought to go. You're going to see families there that were supported, and they were going through the hardest time in their life, but the church was able to step in and keep them afloat. And keeping them afloat, it kept hope in front of them and allowed them to keep on and keep on. Or you're going to be stunned on the last day. You're going to forgot you ever gave the money. You're going to forgot that you skipped the Starbucks coffee, and you're going to receive a treasure. A treasure that cannot rot. A treasure that does not rust. A treasure that moths cannot destroy. We share in the grace of God's work. When we share in the troubles of God's people, we give not just to bear lasting fruit, though, but to bring God worship. To bring God worship. This is probably even chief in the minds of the Philippines and ought to be chief in the minds of the believers. You'll notice in verse 18 that he starts importing all of this Old Testament sacrificial worship language. He calls their gift a fragrant offering, a sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God. That he wants them to recognize that their generosity is not just a couple of sandwiches and a pickle here, right? Like, like that is not preeminent. It is so much more than all of that. Their generosity is actually worship that they are offering up to their king. Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 25? For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison or visit you? And the king will answer them. Truly I say to you, as you did to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. That is, generosity toward God's people is received by Jesus as an offering of worship toward him. Lottie Moon was one of the very first educated women in the southern United States. Her family was one of affluence and prominence, and they had big dreams for Lottie, and Lottie had big dreams for herself. And that's when God called her to go to an obscure, forgotten, impoverished area in China as a missionary. She ended up serving there for 39 years. And when Lottie was 72 years old, the International Mission Board began to get reports that Lottie was giving away her meager rations and her meager salary as a missionary to help those that she was serving. And she was giving it away at such a rate that she was actually starving herself to death and depleting her own body and becoming very near to death. The International Mission Board decided they would intervene to be able to bring her home and try to nurse her back to health. But on the journey home, Lottie went home. Why did she make her life harder by sharing the troubles of others? Why have so many other Christians throughout history joined with her? Why have so many worked so hard to give it away so generously? There's one answer, Orchard. There's one answer because they wanted to worship Jesus. Because they wanted to bring glory to Jesus, to our God and Father. Be glory forever and ever. Amen. They wanted to bring glory to the name of Jesus, that they would hear the news about Jesus. And we give to bank on God's provision. You understand, Paul is not rotting to a bunch of comfortable Christians who are contemplating whether or not they're gonna upgrade from their starter home. Okay? These are not people meditating on whether or not they're gonna upgrade their lifestyle. This is an impoverished church. This is a church that he actually commends in the book of 2 Corinthians as an example because of their poverty. He writes these words to another church about the Philippians' generosity. He says, For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy, don't miss this, this is all driven by the enjoyment of God. Their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their point, on their part. It's as if their joy was so full of Christ that it overwhelmed their poverty so that they were able to give in a way and at a level and at a scale and at a rate that was completely irrational and beyond what they ought to have been able to give. That they shared their treasure because of the location of their treasure. And so Paul reassures them. What does he say? Let me erase some of this so you'll actually be able to see it. He says, and God will supply every need of yours. These were real and tangible needs. How? According to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Most of us are not in a situation of poverty like that of the Philippians. But every single one of us are in a position where we can take our lower T treasure and use it to declare openly the location of our capital T treasure. Every single one of us. Our giving expresses our faith and it declares the location of our treasure, and that is why Christians have been so generous throughout the generation. That is why Christians have given so openly of what they've worked so hard to be able to obtain. Like, why do we give? We give because it is a declaration of my faith and my security is found in Christ alone. It is a declaration that I am not the source that meets my needs, and I am not the source that meets my family's needs, and my company is not the source that meets my family's needs. No, no, no. It is a declaration that Christ, Christ, from the abundance of his riches, how much do we give? We give enough to do without some temporary treasures in the here and now so that we can make clear that our treasure is not here anyway. Our treasure is in the hereafter. We give enough to empty ourselves like our Savior did in Philippians chapter 2 when he left and emptied himself of the throne and rites of heaven to come and to be a poor servant that would lay down his life for you and me. So why do Christians give? Let's zoom back out to the macro. Why should you give away what you work so hard to obtain? We give to bear lasting fruit. And we give to bring God worship, and we give so that we can bank on God's treasure. We give our treasure because of the location of our treasure. We give because we share in the grace of God's work. And when we share in the grace of God's work, we share in the troubles of God's people. So we share trouble because grace has made us partners. And we share treasure because of the location of our treasure. And then lastly and quickly, we share life because we share grace. We share life because we share grace. You'll notice how Paul bookends the book of Philippians. He started in chapter one by calling them partakers with him of grace. And now in chapter four, at the very last verse of the book, he goes back to the same kind. He says, The grace, you see this word, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace is what brought this church together. And grace is what's going to hold this church together. Not personality, not preference, not convenience, not shared hobbies, not shared interests, not stage of life, not, you know, socioeconomic level. No grace. It's the grace of Jesus Christ that holds the church together. That's the message of the book of Philippians. The grace that came to us when we were dead in our sins. The grace that reconciled all of us to God. The grace in chapter two that calls us to count others more significant than ourselves. The grace in chapter four that calls us not to look on after our own interests, the grace that humbles the proud, the grace that strengthens the weak, the grace that restores the fallen, the grace that reconciles divided friends, the grace that sends hope once and again. This is the grace that makes one family out of a bunch of people who have nothing else in common. So why? Why would we willingly make our lives harder? By sharing in the trouble of others. Why would we add to our already full docket everybody else's drama inside of the church? Why would we get in the middle of two of the conflict of two ladies like Paul calls them to? Why would we receive Epaphroditus back when we sent him out hoping that we could get somebody better in the transfer portal? Why would we not lose heart when our missionary is locked away in prison? Why would we keep standing firm when all of the opponents are always standing against us and making our lives so insufferable? And the answer, the answer is always grace. Grace. The grace of Jesus Christ brought us together, and the grace of Jesus Christ holds us together, and the grace of Jesus Christ sends us to one another. So, Orchard, let's be this kind of church. Let's be the kind of church that the book of Philippians is calling us to be. Let's not be a room of religious roommates, but a family of gospel partners. Let's be the kind of church that brings hope to families and keeps missionaries on the field and adopts the orphan into the fellowship. Because we share in the grace of God's work when we share in the troubles of God's people. Let me pray for us.