Spiritual Stability, Part 2: Harmony and Joy B

This continual, habitual joy should mark us. Rejoice in the Lord always, and I repeat it, rejoice in the Lord. And it's our knowledge of Him that causes us to rejoice. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

A.W. Tozer once explained that if you have a hundred pianos, and you tune the second piano to the first, and the third to the second, and so on, you will still have disharmony. However, if you tuned each piano to the same tuning fork, you'll have unity and harmony. So it is within the church, as Tozer said, when we tune ourselves to Christ, we will have unity. Well, as John MacArthur continues his study called Seven Steps to Spiritual Stability, he's going to show you practical steps that you can take to tune your life to Christ and experience maximum joy in your relationships with fellow believers.

So follow along now as John begins the lesson. Would you open your Bible now to Philippians chapter 4, this lovely letter from the Apostle Paul to the Christians in the city of Philippi? Let's start with this matter of pursuing or cultivating harmony or peace in the fellowship of love. Verse 2, he uses the word urge here, parakaleo, we'll get the word paraclete from it, which the Holy Spirit is called in John's gospel, one who comes alongside to plead or beg or encourage or help. So Paul is in a pleading, begging, encouraging mode, and he says, I want to plead with these two women, Euodia and Syntyche, to please live in harmony in the Lord. Now will you notice, he says, to live in harmony in the Lord?

That's the sphere. If they'll just get right with the Lord, they'll solve the problem. You understand that? Two people who are right with the Lord are right with each other. Is that not true? If I'm walking in the Spirit and I'm right with the Lord and you're walking in the Spirit and you're right with the Lord, we're going to get along great.

No problem. So he says, get them together to live in harmony or live in peace in the Lord. Now he goes a step further. Verse 3, this is very interesting. He is so concerned about this that he doesn't just say, I urge them to get together. Now can you imagine that the Sunday they read this thing, those two women were there and the elders haven't told them what's in the letter and they're reading and reading and these women are sitting there, yes, yes. And then they come to the last chapter and they read, and I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord. Whoa!

Direct hit. And then the letter says, indeed. True comrade, says the N.A.S., I ask you to help these women. So right in this letter he, while it's being read to the people, he asks this guy to help these women get together in harmony.

This is part of the mutual ministry of the church, the believers. Now notice that term, true comrade. True comrade.

Sounds a bit communist, but it isn't. It's the Greek word, syzygus. It is translated to yoke fellow, somebody who carries a common load, a yoke, you know, two oxen in it, pulling the same load. A yoke fellow is someone who is carrying the same load, my partner in this effort, my partner in this endeavor, my partner in this enterprise, my equal in this operation. So if you translate it, let's say we take the word syzygus and let's translate it and say it means yoke fellow. Then he adds the word true yoke fellow or genuine yoke fellow.

There's several possibilities. One, he's referring to somebody we don't know, somebody that was known as Paul's yoke fellow. Well, we don't know who it is, but it's somebody unnamed. That would seem a little strange to me since he just named the two women so explicitly. Since he names Clement so explicitly in a moment, why would he not name this person? And since he was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and had perfect recall of everything, it wasn't that he forgot the guy's name. So why wouldn't he put his name in here? So it wouldn't seem to me to make any sense that this is the name of somebody whose name isn't here but who knew who he was and would know that this was him. The other option is that he's using this singular term in a collective sense and he refers to the church. Indeed, as a church entity, you are my yoke fellow, so I ask you, it's a singular, but it's a collective noun involving the whole church, I ask all of you to help those women.

That's a possibility, but I think there's a better explanation. Let's say we don't translate the word at all and we just leave it in the Greek. It would say, indeed, genuine syzygus.

I ask you also to help these women. And I prefer that we leave it untranslated and that he's really talking to a guy named Syzygus. You say, who is Syzygus?

We don't know. But it's very likely that he is one of the overseers or elders mentioned in verse 1 of chapter 1. Remember Paul was writing to the Philippians, including the overseers and deacons. Syzygus must have been one of the elders in the church, one of the pastors who hadn't really fulfilled his duty, who hadn't solved this problem.

And so Paul, taking apostolic authority from God, says, I want you, Syzygus, to get on this case and help these women. Now somebody says, well if you take the term Syzygus as a proper name, then why the word true or genuine? Why would he say true Syzygus or genuine Syzygus? It doesn't seem to make any sense, but it does.

But it does, if you understand it this way. Syzygus was named Syzygus and his name meant yoke fellow. When he calls him true Syzygus, he is simply saying, hey, you are a genuine Syzygus in that you are a yoke fellow. It was a way to sort of identify the man as true to his name. Let me ask you a question. What does the name Barnabas mean? Anybody remember? Son of what?

Encouragement. Barnabas was a genuine Barnabas, wasn't he? His name was Barnabas and he was a genuine son of encouragement. Do you remember a man by the name of Onesimus? Paul wrote to Philemon, the slave owner, about his slave Onesimus. Do you remember what Onesimus means?

It means useful. And when Paul wrote to Philemon, he said, he who was useless formerly is now useful. He is an Onesimus Onesimus. He is a genuine Onesimus, just as Barnabas was a genuine Barnabas and Syzygus was a genuine Syzygus.

He was a real yoke fellow. So it's a wonderful commendation of this elder in the church named Syzygus who lived up to his name. So he says, Syzygus, look, I ask you help these women. Now, beloved, that's part of spiritual stability in the church is to help each other, isn't it? He says to the Philippians, stand firm.

How are you going to do that? You've got to help each other. You have to be a conflict resolver, a peacemaker, cultivating harmony all the time, cultivating harmony, harmony, harmony in the fellowship of love which produces an environment of stability, of mutual support. If you don't do that, if you're one who leaves a trail of conflict, you're generating instability in the church. Now, these were significant ladies. Syzygus was going to be a peacemaker. They were significant. Look what he says about them. These women who have shared my struggle in the gospel.

What does that mean? Well, it could mean, as I said, that they were a part of that original Philippian group that went through the difficulty. And I mean, it was a struggle getting that church off the ground in Philippi, wasn't it? Where did Paul end up in Philippi? Where did they put him for preaching?

In jail, not only in jail, but in stocks. And what happened one night when he was in stocks? He was singing in there. You remember Paul and Silas were singing, having a great old time singing hymns to God. And in the middle of the night, an earthquake came and let them loose. And as a result, the jailer and his entire family got saved and a lot of other folks got saved and the church was born. It may well have been that these two dear women were actually there and a part of that early beginning of the tremendous spiritual struggle in Philippi to get that church off the ground. That was not an easy enterprise and there was a great price to pay in the lives of people who were faithful to see that church begun.

So these were unique women. And it points up the fact that sometimes the best people, the good people, the faithful people can become agents of the enemy in inducing conflict. Boy, we have to guard against that. The enemy would twist and pervert any one of us who believes he has some good, noble cause to become the agent of discord if we're not sensitive. And he says, and I love this about Paul, when he says, I want you to help these women who have shared my struggle. By the way, that verb, shared my struggle, soon athleteo, we get the word athletics which means to struggle or to strive.

Soon compounds makes it more intense. They have diligently struggled in getting the gospel out. But he says, I just want you to know, it wasn't them alone together with Clement also, and Clement was another of the leaders in the church at Philippi. We don't know any more about him. And then, just so he doesn't leave anybody out, he says, and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

He's sort of like the emcee at the banquet who doesn't want to leave anybody out. So he says, and everybody else who helped too. And even though their names aren't written in the book of Philippians, he says they're written in the book of life and that's a lot better, right? Remember Hebrews 6, God says He's not going to forget your labor?

It'll not be in vain. He has the names of all of them. So he says, these dear women shared my struggle together with Clement, whom the implied thought is you know and love, and the rest of all my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

In other words, they're on the team, they're believers, they're faithful servants, they're workers, not the only ones. But their names are in the book of life, that's the implication here. Their names are in the book of life. The book of life by the way is the register where God keeps the names of the redeemed. Daniel 12, 1, Malachi 3, 16 and 17, then moving into the New Testament you have numerous references to the book of life.

It's where God wrote down in eternity past the names of all His elect. And so you just get the feeling of the richness of fellowship here, don't you? Here are all these names in the book of life. Here's Clement and Cyzicus and the Philippian church and these two dear women. And Paul says we've all been working together, we've all been struggling and we've all been striving and we've all been trying to be used by God to build the church.

And now all of a sudden these two women have just gotten into discord that threatens the stability of the whole thing. Stand firm in one spirit is what he's saying, just as he did in 127. He loves them all. God loves them all. And they ought to love each other. There's got to be harmony. There needs to be a warm, genuine, loving unity.

And that creates an environment of stability. And boy, when you fracture that, the church becomes so unstable. When there is discord in a church, people get unstable.

They start falling and tumbling and toppling all over everywhere. Attitudes become bad, negative spirits, bitterness, lack of forgiveness, grows, hostility comes into play. There's a tremendous vulnerability, personally and individually, when there's collective discord. So, to be spiritually stable means that I must pursue peace, be a peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus said. I want to pursue loving harmony in the church. I want to be a Cyzicus.

I want to be somebody who helps people resolve their conflict. Because that's how you create a spiritually stable environment. Let me give you one word to sum it up. Love. Be a lover. We are to be the agents of love, to build that stabilizing bond of love in the church. You want to be spiritually stable? Then pursue love in all your relationships. Pursue peace and harmony and unity.

Now I'm going to give you a second point. Very simple one, verse 4. It's Paul's second principle of spiritual stability. Rejoice in the Lord always, in case you weren't listening, again I will say rejoice.

He really wants to emphasize this. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say rejoice. The second principle of spiritual stability is maintaining a spirit of joy. This is a tremendous force in your own spiritual balance.

Why? Because we tend to be victimized by our circumstances. We have our highs and our lows and our highs and our lows and we fluctuate and vacillate, all dependent on how stuff is going on the outside, right? If I'm successful in my job, if my relationships are what they ought to be, if there's calm in my life, if everything is going the way I'd like it to go, if everything is in a sort of peaceful mode externally, then I have joy.

But if stuff starts to disintegrate, then I lose it. You see, that's not at all what this is saying. First of all, here is a command, rejoice in the Lord. And somebody would say, well, how in the world can you command somebody to rejoice? How can you go up to somebody and say, rejoice?

And then say, listen, did you hear what I said? I said rejoice. Well, how can you commend that? I'll tell you because look what it says. It doesn't say rejoice.

It says rejoice in the Lord. I can't rejoice in my circumstances all the time. I can't rejoice...I can't rejoice in my circumstances most of the time. I can't rejoice in the way things are going in this world. I don't like the way things are going in this world. I don't rejoice over my own immense spiritual accomplishments.

I don't have any except by the grace of God and all I ever see in my life is my failures. I don't rejoice in that. If I'm going to rejoice in something, it isn't going to be me. You say, well, don't you rejoice in people?

Oh, well, I've been very disappointed by a lot of them. I don't want to tie my joy to them as much as I like them. I don't want to tie my joy to them because it'll come and go. Well, don't you rejoice in success? No, that comes and goes too.

I just soon rejoice in the Lord because He doesn't come and go. He stays. He never wavers.

He never changes. That's it. So you see, if I believe in Him and my faith is strong and I know who He is, it doesn't matter what my circumstances are. That's what I said at the very beginning. Remember, I said, spiritual stability is directly tied to how you think about God.

It's exactly what it is. You show me a person who is stable in the midst of any situation and I'll show you a person who is perfectly tuned in to an understanding of God that surpasses any circumstances. He knows God is beyond all of that. And that's why I am so convinced that these people who have problems, problems, problems and are always worrying about this and that and struggling with all of their little problems in this life and are always running around looking for a quick fix somewhere, a book, a seminar, a counselor, a psychiatrist, or whatever it is to get the quick fix would be so much better off if they had memorized the book of Psalms. And then at the end of that, they would know so much about God that it would be irrelevant what was going on around them.

Well, we've got all these other solutions. And that seems like an obvious thing to me. Why do you think God gave the Psalms to the people of Israel? Why do you think they were put into Hebrew poetic form in meter so they could be easily memorized? And why were they set to music so they could be easily remembered? Why? So they could hum a tune to lighten their step?

No. So they could sing a hymn to deepen their theology. And then they would know God. And when they knew who God was, everything else seemed rather insignificant. So you rejoice in the Lord. If you don't know much about the Lord, it's tough to rejoice. If you know a lot about the Lord, it's not too tough to rejoice. You know, the early church even rejoiced when they suffered because they said they were so happy, Acts 5 41, to have been counted worthy to have suffered for such a worthy name. What a privilege.

What a privilege. This continual habitual joy should mark us. Rejoice in the Lord always. And I repeat it, rejoice in the Lord. In the Lord. And it's our knowledge of Him that causes us to rejoice. It says in Romans 14 17 that the kingdom is made up of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Joy in the Holy Spirit. What do you have to rejoice about?

Let me suggest a few things. You think about the Lord. Well, first of all, you can just rejoice in who He is, right? That He is sovereign over everything.

To me, that is...that's the ultimate. You can't really steal my joy when I realize that God is in charge of everything. He is in charge of every circumstance.

The single greatest truth I know about God as a Christian is His sovereignty. He is in charge of everything. Nothing happens out of His control. Controls it all. Absolutely all of it.

What comfort is in that? Furthermore, He controls it all. Get this one, for my good.

Did you hear that? God knows you're sitting down, you're rising up. He knows the words you speak before you speak to Him. He knows the way you're going to walk.

And He holds every part of your life in absolute and total control. What a tremendous truth it is. And when you realize that God is loving, that God is wise, that God has infinite understanding of every vicissitude, every aspect of life, it's a whole different approach to understand that. It's one thing to know it, to read it, it's something else to believe it with the fiber of your being, and that's what holds you in the environment of joy.

Think about it this way. Why do I have joy unspeakable and full of glory? First of all, because everything in my life is controlled by God.

Secondly, because God saved me and made me His own child and promised me to give me an inheritance in Jesus Christ. I'm His child, I belong to Him. I rejoice because Jesus Christ is coming someday to take me to be with Himself.

And He is right now there preparing a place for me that where He is I may come. I rejoice in Him. Furthermore, I rejoice because my God is able to supply all my needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus. Furthermore, I rejoice because I am being used by God to serve the One I love the most.

What a privilege. Furthermore, I rejoice because God is using my life so that other people can hear the gospel and be saved, and God is using my life so that other Christians can be encouraged to love God more and serve Him more faithfully. I rejoice because I enjoy instant access to God. Do you know that any time I want to, I can talk to God and He listens?

I don't even get that in my own house. But I get that from the God of the universe. The God of the universe listens to everything I have to say, even if it's a long conversation. You know why I have joy? Because death is gain.

Death is gain. That's why I have joy. And the more I understand my God and the stronger my faith in Him and His inviolable plan, the greater the depth of my joy and the deeper my joy, the more untouchable it is. You can't get to my joy very easily.

On the outside, you're not going to touch it. Circumstances and all of that, because it's buried deep in my confidence in who God is and in His eternal promises to me. That's spiritual stability.

Why would I compromise? God's in control. Why would I waver in my faith? God is in control. Why would I doubt? How can I doubt a God who is so clearly revealed in Scripture? I can tell you, dear friends, spiritual stability is directly related to these two things to start with.

Spiritual stability is the product of a person whose life is filled with the love of Christ shed abroad by the Spirit within him, and spiritual stability belongs to the person who is so deeply in understanding of the character of God and whose understanding has been translated into a real faith, and he believes God to be the God he is revealed to be, and in those things he finds his stability. That's the first two. There are more. Let's pray. Father, we hear the echo of the words of the Apostle Paul who said, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. And we want that to be us. We want to be steadfast, unmovable, not shaken by trials and difficulties and problems and the frailties of our fallen flesh and the difficulties of this life. We don't want to collapse under persecution or hostility or rejection or intimidation. We don't want to fall to sin. We want to be the strong. We want to be those who are resolute, can't be bought or bribed or softened or defeated. We want the world to see us and see the strength of Christ in us. We want to be like Daniel, didn't know how to compromise because he knew too much about his God to be swayed. Give us a greater knowledge of you and a greater experience of that love and joy which you grant your faithful children, for Jesus' sake.

Amen. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, here on Grace to You. Today's lesson from Philippians 4 is part of John's series that is taking you through seven steps to spiritual stability. Well, we're just a few days into 2023, and if it hasn't happened already, the busyness of life will soon test your commitment to having a consistent time in God's Word this year. And John, even for people who love God's Word, it takes work, it takes hard work, to devote yourself to Scripture the way you should.

Yeah, it's like anything. It's a discipline, and we need to be in the Word every day. We don't live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and that means the whole of Scripture. You want to start at that point? Just start reading the Bible. It's amazing how the Bible is so self-explanatory that it'll explain itself to you as you accumulate more reading in the text. So the best starting point, the tool that we talked about toward the end of the year, and I need to mention it now because we're still early enough in January, it's the MacArthur Daily Bible. There is no substitute for daily Bible reading.

It takes discipline, but, you know, 15-20 minutes a day, that is not too much to ask for the benefit that it brings. This Daily Bible is basically a reading from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, for every day, 365 days a year. And if you do it every day at the end of the year, you will have read the entire Bible, and with the reading each day is a devotional that kind of points you in a direction of a spiritual truth that can be applied that day. Now, look, January 1 is already in the rear-view mirror, and we're moving rapidly away from it, but you can start and catch up pretty fast with the MacArthur Daily Bible. Don't put off getting one. Cultivate the habit of daily Scripture reading, and you can order one today.

The price is very reasonable. Get a MacArthur Daily Bible today and read through the Bible this year. You will see a profound impact on your life, and that will be directly related to your spiritual joy and fruitfulness.

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