BE ESTABLISHED

Philippians 4:1-5
December 9, 2018

Show picture of logos of brand that shows the year of establishment.

These logos with their respective establishment years indicate the moment they were
founded and after several decades, most of these brands have existed until today, gaining
profit, booming in the market, and selling products to the consumers.
As we read the last chapter of Philippians – there is one thing that we can read in the
mind of Paul and that is he wanted them to be standing firm in the Lord. In other words, Paul
wants them to be established.
(John 16:33, Acts 14:22, 2 Timothy 3:12) The world is tempting, the flesh is weak, the
devil is roaring like a lion and that makes the church life struggling of instability.
How to be established?
1. HARMONY – vss.2-3
If you want to stand firm for Christ, let’s maintain our best to maintain the unity and
harmony inside the church.
The more isolated a believer is from other Christians, the more spiritually unstable that
believer is.
Have you seen Christians who leaves the church and remains faithful? I doubt.
In these verses, we find conflict of 2 influential women (Euodias & Synteche) inside the
church. And if not taken into action immediately, the church would become critical, bitter,
hostile, unforgiving, proud, and the church will be divided to its destruction (Ephesians 4:3).
This reveals to us that even the faithful ones in the church are subject to selfishness and
pride that threatens the unity of the church.
That is why, Paul urged them, beg them (beseech) to fix their conflict. How? By getting
right with God. Notice verse 2.
Even if the church has a great sound doctrine, but if there is no unity, the church has no
power, the church will lose its testimony (1 Corinthians 1:10, 1 Peter 3:8).

2. HUMOR – vs.4
When a person loses joy, you become unstable in your Christian life.
Notice how Paul repeats the encouragement to them to be joyful (again). This
repetition simply tells us that in reality, there are a lot of things in this life that robs us of our
joy as a Christian. In reality, it is not easy to be joyful. It is not easy to be joyful when your
children are sick, it is not easy to be joyful when your husband and wife cheats on you, it is not
easy to be joyful when you’ve got problems in work and business, it is not easy to be joyful
when you are hurt, when you are disappointed.
But let me remind you that joy is not a feeling. Joy is a deep down confidence in your
heart that God is in control of everything for our own good and for his own glory, therefore, joy
will tell your heart that all is well no matter how big is your problem.
 You cannot rely your joy in people because people change and will hurt you. The only
way to experience a joyful life is to trust in the Lord for all the problems you have because Jesus
never changes (rejoice in the Lord).
And one of the secret to have a joyful life is to spend time with the word of God because
the Bible will change the way you think about God (Psalm 1:1-3, Acts 5:41, 1 Samuel 2:1, Psalm
13:5, Matthew 6:28-33).
When you make God bigger, your problems become smaller. When you magnify God in
your heart instead of your difficulties, faith will rise in your heart. And then it will produce joy in
your heart.

3. HAPPINESS – vs.5
Moderation means having control of not being too much and not too less. In other
words, it is all about contentment.
When the world is full of complains and discontentment, we believers must be an
example of contentment. If you have you have today, be content of what you have, be thankful
to God and be happy with it (Philippians 4:11-12).
Discontented people are unstable in their life. Discontented people focused on self-love,
self-esteem, and self-fulfillment. But soon they realize that the more I focused on myself, the
more unstable I become in my Christian life (Hebrews 12:2-3).

4. HOPE – vs.5
Once again, the Philippian church is reminded that Jesus is coming very soon. When our
hope is in the coming of Jesus – we do not become like the unbelievers who are unstable. The
coming of Christ motivates us to be honest, to work for God, to do more for Jesus, to serve
more, to give more, to win more people to the Lord, to make use of our time and resources
wisely.
The world is getting worse, the weather is getting worse, the politics is getting worse,
the people around us are getting worse, prices are going up, cost of living is more expensive,
diseases and sickness are all around us, false teachers and false churches are gaining more
disciples than us, this tells us that the hope of the believers is not in this world but in the
coming of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:18, Titus 2:11-13).