Philippians 4

Philippians 4:1-23

Division 4. (Philippians 4:1-23.)The experience of Christ through all the way. The doctrine, if we may call it so, (though it is doctrine very different plainly from that which we have had in the other epistles,) is now complete. Nevertheless, one thing remains, without which the epistle, as a whole, could not be complete. He who has been running this path with Christ, who has been thus before him, -he is to give us his experience now; and manifestly it is the experience of one who on both sides can speak with decision. He knows what Christ is. He knows the various difficulties and exigencies of the way itself. What is needed now, is to put the two together as he does here, and to show that for all these things Christ has been found competent, absolutely so.

1. There are exhortations to others which naturally come in here. His brethren are, as he has shown us, in his heart. He longs after them. They are his joy, and to be his crown. He would have them stand fast in the Lord.

That is a standing fast which means, of necessity, the fullest progress. He exhorts Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. It is the common purpose of heart, the common thought of the One they serve that is to bring them right. And he presses upon one who is not named, but whom he calls his yoke-fellow, (perhaps the Epaphroditus who seems to be carrying the letter, and whom he is sending to them,) urging him to assist these who have contended along with him in the gospel, with Clement and other fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of life. And again he urges upon them this joy in the Lord that he can never forget. They are to “rejoice in the Lord always,” and he will still repeat it, he will say “rejoice.” 2. In this way, they will indeed be competent to let their moderation be known to all men. They can be moderate enough as to all the things of life, as men say, when the Lord is thus their joy, and when the Lord is near also: near, I suppose, as one who never leaves his people, not perhaps in the sense that He is coming, (although He is coming,) but whether He comes or not, He is always with His people. They need be anxious, therefore, about nothing. Prayer became them, the confession of dependence, which, in a creature, is always becoming. Prayer and supplication, then, they could use with regard to everything, but with thanksgiving, which delivers the prayer itself from being the expression of any unbelief or murmuring, and also increases confidence in the prayer itself to One whose answers have been already manifest. Thus, spreading out before the omniscient eye of God who loves us, all their need, the peace of God, the peace in which He abides Himself, the peace which is the consciousness of perfect command of everything, so that nothing, after all, can disturb the serenity of perfect confidence, this peace of God, he says, “Shall guard your hearts and thoughts by Christ Jesus.” The heart kept from wandering, the thoughts will be formed aright. Then he would have them occupied, not with the evil around, of which there was so much, as we have learned, but with the very opposite. The heart can only find blessing in the contemplation of that which is true, noble, just, pure, amiable and of good report. These are the things to be thought about, so that the power of evil itself may not disturb us, not weigh us down, not provoke in us a spirit of mere judgment, such as evil may naturally arouse. Again he can speak of what they had seen in him as an example, -what they had learned and received and heard from him also. They were to do these things, and the God of peace, not merely peace, but the God of peace, would be with them. 3. He now turns to speak of that which might at first sight seem personal to himself. Personal it is, but experience is personal, and here it is that we are to have the joy of learning what was his personal experience in the things through which he passed. It is suited to this that he has to speak of, or at least to intimate, a real necessity in which he has been, so that he can rejoice about their thinking of him again; that is, as far as their present ministry might indicate that, but he can credit his Philippians with having thought of him indeed when they had lacked opportunity to carry out what was in their hearts. It was not his privation, whatever that might have been, that he would speak of. He had found with regard to that, in whatever circumstances he was, a perfect content.

He knew how to be abased on the one hand. He knew (what is more difficult, no doubt,) how to abound on the other. He knew what it was to be in prosperity, as men speak, as well as in adversity, -how to be master of himself in both. He had learned as a disciple, had been initiated into the secret of how to be full and to be hungry, how to abound and to suffer need, everywhere and in all things. Here is a blessed experience indeed. He does not stop here without showing to us the source of this contentment and this peace which were always his.

It was Christ who gave him the strength. No wonder, then, that it was ability for all things. This is, in fact, the jubilant summing up from the side of experience. How good it is to have it from one so well able to give it! It is plain that, personal as the need and the trial have been, what he seeks here is to give Christ the glory of that perfect competence which he had found in Him. 4. He will not, on this account, make light of that which ministered to his need, and was the manifestation of the Philippians, love and care for himself. He recognizes how well they have done, not simply at the present time, but from the beginning. At the beginning of the gospel, they were, in fact, alone in their communication with him then. They had sent and sent again for his need in Thessalonica. His heart rejoices, not in his having received such things as he plainly says, but to have such fruit in them, abounding to that account which, by and by, is to be fully given.

He was now fully supplied. He was now, as he says, “abounding.” A very little would, in fact, make one like this abound as to his temporal needs. He had received the things sent from them through Epaphroditus, “an odor,” as he says, “of a sweet savor, an acceptable sacrifice, agreeable to God.” No doubt it was that; not merely a little out of abundance, but a ministry which cost them something; and which yet, after all, in itself, one may surely say, repaid them abundantly above all costs. So it is ever, and must be, with the gracious God we have. If there is an odor of a sweet savor to God in that which is done, there will be something corresponding to it in the souls of those who have in this way offered what is agreeable to Him. He could speak himself, therefore, for God with regard to them. His God, the God he knew so well, would abundantly supply all their need. How far? “According to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” We must take that into account if we are to realize the character of this abundant supply. We may make great mistakes otherwise, and plainly there is no straitness with Him at any time. If we speak of straitness, after all, God is abundant in His love, as He is abundant in the riches that He delights to minister. “To Him,” he says, our God and Father, “be glory through the ages of ages.” He closes with brief salutations, mentioning, amid the general salutation of the saints at Rome, those specially of Caesar’s household, manifestly in a difficult place these for disciples of Christ, and beautiful it is to see that they can be prominent in this way in their salutations of Christ’s people elsewhere. The apostle closes with what is in one way or other the close in all of them: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”