Philippians 4:5
Christian Gentleness
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5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Php 4:5.
Transcript
Welcome to God's Word For You, a Ministry of Sharon RP Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today, and we pray that you'll be blessed by both hearing God's word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart.
Now you can open your Bibles with me to the Philippians chapter four, verse five. Philippians chapter four can be found on page 1044 of your Pew Bibles. And we'll be reading this morning verses four through seven, but we're gonna focus specifically on verse five in the sermon. Philippians chapter four, beginning at verse four. This is God's word. It's worth your attention. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Well, we live in a pretty heated climate, not weather-wise, but culturally. We live in a culture where people seem to constantly be attacking each other. We live in a culture where you flip on the TV or you go on social media and someone's got beef against someone else. Somebody's got a worldview that they're going to fight tooth and nail over this other person. And they're gonna let you know about it. But one of the problems that happens in our culture is Christian sometimes get wrapped into this fighting, and they forget the command of Philippians chapter four, verse five. Let your gentleness be known among all men.
So this morning, we have to ask ourselves, “How do we live, both standing for what we believe and yet being gentle?” And just so you know, this wasn't written in a vacuum. Again, remember, Paul is writing this in the context of conflict. There's persecution in the Philippian church. People are actively fighting against the Philippian people. People are being put in jail. The church is suffering. Paul himself is writing from prison. And he says, “Let your gentleness be known among all men. The Lord is at hand.”
So your call this morning is to live a life of gentleness. Live a life of gentleness. Well, how do we live a life of gentleness, or what is the model that we have for gentleness? Well, it's Jesus Christ Himself. So your first point is to be like Christ. Be like Christ. Philippians 4:5 just gives us one word, “let your gentleness be known” among all men. But in this one word for “let your gentleness be known,” it's kind of hard to know what a virtue is without seeing it played out in someone's life. If somebody told you, you need to be loving, how would you know what being loving looks like? You would need to see it displayed for you. Well, Jesus displays for us what gentleness is.
And in Second Corinthians, chapter 10 verse one, the idea of gentleness is tied into another characteristic of Jesus. Second Corinthians, chapter 10 verse one. “Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” Sometimes words define other words. And here, Paul purposely puts meekness and gentleness next to each other to help us understand, “Okay, what does gentleness look like?” It looks like meekness. What does meekness look like? It looks like gentleness. And some definitions of what this gentleness might be, one scholar wrote, “Gentleness, Biblically, here is a humble, patient, steadfastness, which is able to submit to injustice, disgrace, and maltreatment without hatred or malice, trusting in God in spite of everything.” That's quite a comprehensive definition of gentleness. Another commentator defined it this way: “Gentleness here, is a frame of mind that doesn't put priorities on one's own personal rights.” Not putting priority on our own rights, but thinking about others.
This idea of meekness that's tied to it is the idea of a quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one's own self-importance. That's what it means to be meek and gentle. You're not thinking, “Me, me, me. Look how big and important I am.” But it's, “How are others doing?” Caring for others, loving others, being empathetic, having empathy, feeling for others.
We see this strongly in the life of Jesus. Jesus Himself says this, “Come to me.” Do you remember this? Matthew chapter 11, “Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Come, take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of Spirit.” Or “gentle and meek.” Jesus calls us to come and to take His yoke, because He is gentle towards us. He is humble towards us. He's meek towards us.
And this is exactly what the Beatitudes tells us in Matthew chapter five, verse five, “Blessed are the meek.” “Blessed are the,” if you use a synonym, “gentle, but they will inherit the Kingdom of God.” Blessed are the gentle. Blessed are the meek. And we think that way in our Christian lives. Jesus demonstrated this humbleness, this gentleness, this meekness in every way of His life. Even in His background, Jesus in His humility, Jesus in His gentleness, think about the people in His background. You have Rahab the harlot. We have Ruth the Moabitess. We have Bathsheba, the adulteress. Jesus comes from a humble background. Outsiders brought into the covenant so He could sympathize with you.
Jesus, when he was born, think of His meekness, His gentleness, His humbleness. When He was born, Jesus is born and He's put into a feeding trough. Jesus, when He is presented as the firstborn son of Joseph and Mary, we find out an important fact about His life: They are dirt poor. See, the firstborn son was the Lords, and you had to take that first born son up to the temple and you had to bring a sacrifice to redeem that firstborn son back. And there were stages to see. You know, if you were really wealthy, you had to sacrifice a ram. But if you were a little less off, maybe if you were middle class, you would just sacrifice a lamb. But if you were poor, you just had to sacrifice two birds. You could just buy two doves in the marketplace, bring those, and that was worth the life of your firstborn son. That's all Jesus’s life was worth to the world around Him.
Jesus came to be poor, that He could be empathetic towards us, that He could know what it's like to be poor and to suffer. Jesus demonstrated His gentleness with the interactions that He had with the people around Him. Think about when Jesus is walking in the crowd and there's people pushing in on Him, and there's a woman who has an issue of blood. And this is a woman who would have been an outcast among all the people. Anybody who touched her would have been unclean. And yet, when she touches the hem of His garment that she might be healed, He doesn't just keep going and ignore her because He's worried about being unclean. He's gentle with her. “Who touched me? I know it. I know it.” It's like he's asking her, “Come on, come on, I want to see you. I wanna talk with you.” Even in His dying breaths, when Jesus has blood dripping down His face from the crown of thorns that was pressed into his skull, He's gentle with the thief at His right hand. And He offers him hope. “You're gonna be with me today in Paradise.”
Jesus is gentle. He sees His mother, Mary, sitting at the feet of the cross as He's being executed, and He's not thinking about His own pain. He looks at His mother and He's gentle, even with her. He sees John and He says, “Take her into your house. Care for her.” Even in His dying breath, He's gentle with His mother.
You see Jesus gentle with Peter. Peter sins, he denies his Lord three times. And yet Jesus is gentle with him. “Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me?” “Lord, you know I love you.” “Feed my sheep.” Jesus is gentle with Thomas who doubts His very resurrection. And He's gentle with him and He says, “Come, put your hands here, Thomas. Believe. Put your hand in my side. Believe.” He's gentle with him. Jesus is gentle. As the Scriptures talk about it, He's like a lamb. And as He's being executed, He is like a lamb being led to the slaughter. He's not a raging bull. He's not fighting for all of His rights. He's thinking about you. He is mindful of us. Jesus is gentle. Jesus is meek. Jesus’s gentleness is apparent towards everyone. Everyone can see it. Everyone can see how Jesus interacts with those who are in need.
How are we acting towards people? We're called to be like Christ. Are we gentle with the people around us? Are we thoughtful of their hurts? Are we thoughtful of their pains? Are we empathetic? Do we feel when people hurt? Are we rejoicing when people rejoice? Or do we care about my rights? The Christian way is a way of gentleness. The way of love, principled standing, by all means, go read the gospel accounts. Jesus stands for principle. Jesus has to tell some people, “Get out of here. You're not gonna make my Father's House into a den of robbers. This is a House of Prayer. Get out!” Sometimes that stand needs to be taken. But Jesus is gentle, overwhelmingly again and again towards those who He loves.
How do we show this love? Where does this come from in the Christian life? Just telling you, “Be like Jesus,” doesn't do any good. How do you do it? You have the model set before you, Jesus. You have the humiliated Savior, Jesus Christ Himself, but how do you be gentle? Well, this is where we need to pull back to last week. This is where we need to look at the affections of our own hearts. Do you remember all last week's sermon? Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice! When we love God, when we are seeking after the Lord, it is a well spring up of joy into our lives. And it doesn't just stop in our own lives. But our joy in the Lord overflows in gentleness towards others.
I should have said it. The second point is joy, the source of your gentleness. Joy is the source of your gentleness. If you're not finding satisfaction in the Lord, but your satisfaction is in what I want, what my rights are, the things that I deserve, you're not going to have joy in the Lord because joy in the Lord is not in what we have, but in who He is. And when we're more concerned about who He is and delighted and satisfied in Him, what's it matter if someone takes away the things of this world? What's it matter if there's injustice? You have the Lord, you've been given everything. See, when we're satisfied in Him, we can show gentleness to others.
There's a man in the Soviet Union, his name was Dmitri. And Dimitri and his family found themselves in a hard spot. As the Communist rule came in, all the churches in town were shut down, shut down, shut down, shut down, shut down. And the nearest church to them was a three days journey away. And so they couldn't go to church. And so they found themselves not practicing their faith. And it concerned Dmitri after a while, and he realized, “My sons aren't going to know the joy of salvation. My sons aren't going to know the Scriptures. My sons aren't going to know the heart songs of Christianity.” And so he asked his wife, he said, “Can I start just reading the Bible with the boys?” And his wife, he said it was gonna to be a crazy idea, she had been praying that he would do this for years. And so he started doing it.
And pretty soon the boys wanted to hear more and more about these stories, and eventually, in a small town where houses are close, people started to hear their songs and wanted to come and hear their story. Just hear the stories of the Bible. And as more and more people come, the communists came in and they said, “You're running a church. It's an illegal church. This isn't allowed.” He said, “Hold on. I don't have religious training. All we're doing is we're reading God's word and we're singing. How's that church? This is my house.” But see, the Communists understood something that he didn't. That was the power of the Spirit and that church isn't a building, but church is a community of believers worshipping. And so eventually when he wouldn't stop, and there got to be 150 people standing in this man's house, they ripped him out of it and they took him to jail and they put him in a cell out in Siberia in the cold and they beat him. And they starved him until he would make a confession that he was a Western spy trying to bring in Western ideas into his community.
But one of the things that Dimitri did is he, every morning would get up when the sun rose and he would stand in front of his window and he would raise up his arms and he would sing with joy in his heart to the Lord. And the prisoners around him would be furious. They would yell at him. They would taunt him. Some of them would throw things at him, but every morning he would get up and he would sing his joy filled song. Every morning for 17 years, this went on for Dimitri. 17 years. Eventually the Communists came and they told him that his family was all dead. That everyone was dead and Dimitri lost hope. And he said, “Okay, I'll sign whatever confession you have.” And by some miracle in the night he realized that those guards were lying to him and that his family was alive. And that next morning, when he refused to sign that statement saying that he didn't believe in Jesus and he was just a Western spy, the guards got so furious that they began to take him out into the field to execute him. And as he was walking down the aisles of that prison, all the guards stopped because the prisoners in their cells started singing this man's joyful song. And they realized they could try to strip the man of his joy, but it was an impossible feat. And he was able to look in the guards’ eyes and not say, “You violated my rights.” But he was able to share with them the Gospel.
Our joy in the Lord is a fountainhead of gentleness towards even those who are doing injustice towards us. But just in case you think, “Well, these are nice stories, Bryan. That's wonderful.” This isn't just a suggestion. The language here in Philippians chapter four, verse five is a command. It's an imperative. God commands you to be gentle. This isn't an option. This is the reality of the Christian life. We are a gentle people.
And that's your third point: You're commanded to be gentle. And it's not just here and in Philippians chapter four, verse five where we’re commanded to be gentle, but Jesus commands us to be gentle and spells it out for us. In the Sermon on the Mount do you remember when Jesus is talking about if a man comes and he slaps you in the face, what are you supposed to do? Turn your cheek. If a man comes to you and he says, “Come and walk with me one mile.” So this is a Roman centurion and he says, “You're gonna carry all my stuff and we're gonna walk a mile.” You walk with him two. You’re gentle even with those who are persecuting you. When somebody comes and they say, “Give me your cloak.” You say, “You can have my tunic also.” When somebody comes to you and they ask, we’re to give freely. That's what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five.
And just after that in Matthew chapter five verse 43, God tells us that He is the one who brings the sunshine on the just and on the unjust. He's the one who brings the rain on the fields of the righteous and on the unrighteous. And we're to be like Him. That's what gentleness looks like. It looks like empathy. It looks like kindness. It looks like meekness. It looks like caring for people. It looks like not caring about our own rights, but being more concerned about others.
And where this gets really hard, is what gentleness looks like in the face of forgiveness. What gentleness looks like as forgiveness is a really tough one. See, Peter got why this was hard. This is why Peter asked Jesus, he said, “How many times am I supposed to forgive my brother? How many times am I supposed to be gentle with the person who sinned against me? Seven times?!” Jesus says “No, no, no, no, no. 70 times, seven times. You're to be gentle. You’re to forgive. You’re to love. You’re to put aside your own rights. You’re to not focus on your own hurts, but you're to focus on me.”
Isn't that what we find in the Lord's Prayer? We ask, “Father, forgive us our transgressions and forgive those who have transgressed against us. Forgive us of our debtors as we forgive those who have debt against us.” We need to be those who are forgiving. That's part of gentleness.
And this gentleness is specifically applied to elders. In First Timothy 3:3, this is specifically said that the elders are to be those who are gentle and meek. Both those words at the same time. The elders are called out again in Titus chapter 3 verses two through three in the same way that the elders are to be meek. This is why when Paul is talking to young Timothy, the pastor, he says, “Timothy, you need to preach the word in season and out of season. You need to be ready to rebuke and to teach and to exhort with great kindness and patience. The elders of the church are to be those who are gentle. To be those who are loving.
But this isn't just the quality that men struggle with. Peter is clear in this too. First Peter chapter three verse four, “The Lord says that women are to be adorned with quiet and gentle spirits.” It's the whole Christian community. Do you see it from the elders, to the men, to the women, to the little children? This is why gentleness is listed in Galatians chapter five as a Fruit of the Spirit. We’re to let our gentleness be known in front of all men.
In the 1990s, there was a genocide that happened in Rwanda. Many of you know about this genocide where an entire people group, the Hutu people group rose up against the Tutsi people group and slaughtered them. A bloodbath massacre. You could read the stories. There's plenty of memoirs. Disgusting. Recently I was reading again a story of one woman. I'm going to read you her words of meeting the man who murdered her family. I want you to hear the gentleness that she had towards this man. When she sees this man brought in front of her, she goes back to her hometown, years later. And the man is thrown in front of her. She says, “I wept at the sight of his suffering. He was now a victim of his victims, destined to live in torment and regret. I was overwhelmed with pity for the man.” She was overwhelmed with pity for the man who had murdered her mother and her brother. A man who had chased her down for three months to try to murder her. The guard told her, “He looted your parents’ home and robbed your family's farm. Immaculee, we found your dad's farm machinery at his house, didn't we?” He yelled at the man and he flinched. “After he killed your mother and brother, he kept looking for you. He wanted you dead so he could take over your property. Didn't you, you pig?!” These are her words here. Remember, this is the murderer of her family. “I flinched, letting out an involuntary gasp. The murderer looked at me stunned by my reaction and confused by the tears streaming down my face. The guard grabbed the man by the shirt collar and hauled him to his feet. ‘What do you have to say to her? What do you have to say to Immaculee?’ The murder was sobbing. I could feel his shame. He looked up at me only for a moment, but her eyes met. I reached out, touched his hands lightly and quietly said what I had come to say. ‘I forgive you.’ “
Jesus Christ is the one who reaches out His hand to us and says, “I forgive you.” Jesus Christ in His dying, gasping, breath, suffocating looked out at His guards, lifted up His voice to Heaven and said, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. It is Jesus’s gentleness that we’re to follow. And this is not something we can humanly do. It is not something the world will understand, but it is Spirit wrought in your life, in your soul. Be gentle, Christian, for the Lord is near.
That’s your last point: Be gentle, for the Lord is near. There's two senses in which this can be taken that the Lord is at hand. The first is the Old Testament way, where again and again and again the Lord is near is put together with the day of the Lord is near, or the day of the Lord is at hand. And we know that we can have hope. We know that we can be gentle, because when the Lord comes, we know how it's gonna work out. We know what the end story is going to be. We can be gentle in this life, because we know that Jesus is going to come back as King and we're going to be in the Kingdom.
But there's a different way in which commentators go back and forth between which way this is. But when it says, “the Lord is at hand or the Lord is near,” I think it's more likely talking to us about the way Psalm 145 says. Psalm 145:18. “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.” The Lord is near. Nearer than your very breath to you. The Lord is near to your soul. When we are walking with Lord, when we are near to Him, when we're loving Him, when we are in Him and He is in us, when we are calling upon Him, the Lord sticks closer to us than any brother or any friend ever could. It is the Lord that gives us this motivation and model for gentleness. How are we interacting with our neighbors? How are we being gentle with those around us?
I'm going to leave you with one last story. Again in Russia, there was a man, we'll call his name Petrov. And Petrov also was arrested by the gulag and put into prison up in Siberia. And he had a specifically harsh guard to him who would beat him constantly. And this guard would ration out his food, just barely enough to survive. And when he would ration out his food, randomly, he would also mix in his own feces with the food, just to torture the man. And when this man's wife and husband came to finally see him in prison, he had to be carried in because he didn't have the muscle structure any longer to be able to walk. Well, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the man became a pastor. After the collapse of the Soviet Union he regained his strength. And in this town where he was ministering in, one of the women in the town who is a Christian, came to him and said, “My son is sick and he's dying in bed. Will you come and talk with him and pray for him?” And as Petrov walked into that woman's house, she opened the door to the bedroom. And there, laying in the bed was the guard who had starved him for a decade and a half. And Petrov could look at him and do something the world never understood. He got down on his knees and he prayed for the man, and he forgave him. He saw his needs, and he prayed for his soul. And that very night, that man understood the love of Jesus Christ. And confessed him as his savior.
Are we a gentle people? These heroic stories that we read in the face of persecution are real because the life of Jesus Christ was real, is real, and you are living in Him and He is living in you. Be gentle, Christian. Let your gentleness be seen among all men. The Lord is at hand.
Let's pray. “Father, we pray that you would work your Spirit in our hearts. Lord, that these just wouldn't be lofty ideals, but they would be true realities in our souls. Father, we pray that we would love you. And your Spirit would well up in us, a Spirit of joy. Lord, and that we would be rich in the fruit of gentleness and of kindness, of love and of mercy. Lord we pray that you would teach us to be those who would be like you. Lord, knit us closer and closer to you. We pray in Jesus’s name. Amen.
Thank you for listening to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His word, as well as your love for His people. Until next week, God bless you.