Probably, approximately 30-, year 35, Paul began his work. 30-plus years that Paul gave to the Lord. They approximate 10,000 miles that he would have traveled, I would say the majority of those by foot. You could equate that to walking from New York to LA three times. Imagine the wear and the tear on his body. In my mind's eye, Paul may have been 50, but I bet he looked 80. A hard life. Like to read with you Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 24 through 27, "Five times I received at the hands of the Jews, the 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers. In toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold exposure. And apart from these things, there's the daily pressure on me, of my anxiety for all the churches."
You know, that's quite a list, but really that just covers 20 of the 30 years. 10 more years are left unaccounted for in terms of what Paul may have suffered. One of his prison letters was written to the Philippians, and in light of all of these difficulties that we've just read, in light of the sufferings and the difficulties that Paul went through, I have always had a little hard time understanding Philippians 4:4. When Paul says, "Rejoice in the Lord, always and again, I say, rejoice." It seems to be an unreasonable statement. If - if you think Paul means be happy. And the way that we define happy, I don't think that's what Paul means. I think Paul is talking about a state of mind. He's not talking about an emotion. Gladness is a state of being. It's not a moment of expression. Someone in a secular writing, said that joy is an internal manifestation of hope, peace and contentment. Paul's writing to the Philippian brethren. He's writing to troubled people, people who are being persecuted, people who are in poverty, and Christians who are having troubles with their own people.
Paul is in prison, and yet he has joy, because he is in the Lord. You know, living in a material world, we need to be reminded about what we have in the Lord. And sometimes I think I fail to remember that as often as I should. It takes time, and it takes effort to remember what we have in the Lord, because we live in a world that is about things. It's about stuff. Paul found this state of mind that allowed him to have peace, hope, contentment, in an extremely difficult 30 years. So, the question is how? How did Paul do that? How was Paul able to experience a sense or a state of gladness through such difficulties. You know, I believe there are four prison letters, Philippians, of course, being one and the other is Ephesians. Ephesians, chapter one, I think, gives a better understanding of what Paul means when he says, Rejoice in the Lord or have gladness in the Lord. You know, let's not be misled by what culture says, because I'll tell you, it's tough to keep your perspective, to keep your focus honed in day after day, on what's really important. What we're going to read in Ephesians 1. And again, don't be misled, these are as believers, these are our true riches. Our true riches are not the things that we involve ourself with every day. And Jesus himself would make that quite clear in Matthew six, because he would say, "lay up your treasures in heaven." Those blessings or those gifts in the Lord, are from heaven. You know, I don't want to douse water on the zest for achieving in life. You know, we can, and we should have our earthly goals and dreams, but we can't let those pursuits get in the way of what is most important. You know, we have all been with someone or have known someone to be in their last days. And they will tell you what is most important at that moment. It's the things that are in the Lord and yet, when that time passes, we get back into our routines, and again, it's difficult to keep our focus on what's important. But if we let those pursuits of the world get in our way, it will rob us of our joy or our state of gladness.
Ephesians chapter one and verse three, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be wholly blameless before him. In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us and beloved. In Him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace." I'd like to bring to your attention three things in what we just read. We could spend a lot longer time on that.
The first would be gratitude. You notice there when it starts off, Paul says, "Blessed." "Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Thank you. Gratitude. Appreciation. And Philip read Psalms, 100 and then we can read Philippians 4:6, you know, where Paul says, you know, "Be anxious for nothing but in everything, by prayer and supplication with gratitude." Everything. Pray about everything, but have gratitude before you pray. Paul understood gratitude. The gratitudes that we have, they will show themselves in our lives, those things that we are grateful for, they will be noticed. You know, there's the proverb that says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." If we are grateful for the gifts, the riches that we read about in Ephesians, it will show in our lives, and we will be spiritually minded people. Gratitude.
Second thing I'd like to look at is one of these gifts. You know, Paul understood his need for all of these gifts, and he certainly understood the gift of forgiveness, in which he thought himself to be the worst. In First Timothy chapter 1:13, through 15. "Though formally I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus." When I recognize how ugly sin is in the eyes of God, then the value of the gift of forgiveness increases. But the opposite can be true also. If I take sin for granted, I don't recognize it for what it is, that it separates me from God, then the value of forgiveness decreases and I lose my gratitude. I recently talked with someone who is struggling with past sin, feels unworthy for God's grace. I hope that they accept the gift that God has given and that they can find comfort in how Paul was able to deal with his sin. I recently read an article from a man who was adopted 50 years ago, and in reading what stood out to me was his gratitude toward his adoptive parents. He had a profound loyalty to them. Do I acknowledge that to God? How thankful I am that he adopted me? You know, and a direct consequence of me being adopted and of you being adopted, is that we're all brothers and sisters. What a gift, what a blessing.
One of God's spiritual gifts is each other, and that should make us rejoice in the Lord. You know Paul through his epistles, he talks about the "one another" situations throughout his writings. Paul understood, and you can, when you read Paul's letters, you sense his love and his commitment to his fellow brethren. Paul wants us to be patient with each other. He wants us to build each other up. He wants us to do good to each other. He wants us to show compassion to each other. He doesn't want us judging each other. He wants us to be humble with each other. He wants us to spend time with each other. Living in a time, you know, I really wonder what it was like living 200 years ago. When the sense is that people were around each other more. They spent more time with each other, which allowed them to need each other. And perhaps in our affluent society, the presence of being around one another as often is just a lot more difficult to attain. You know, in our society, it's real easy to embrace the culture which espouses self reliance and independence. But make no mistake, the evil one would want nothing more than for us to become sufficient, self sufficient, and drift apart. Don't deny the strength of the enemy. When alone, we become weak. Together, we are strong the gift of our adopted family, let's not take it for granted. Rather understand more fully how much we need each other.
It would do us all good to daily read Ephesians 1 to help us remember the blessings and the gifts that God has given us. Are we taking them for granted? Are we using them? Sometimes we have to learn, even in older ages, to need peopl. Rejoice in the Lord. Be glad that the Lord has given you gifts that no one can take away. Rejoice in the Lord can have another application. We talked about being in the Lord, and what you gain. Are you in the Lord? Because if you're not in the Lord, you can't have the gifts that he's offered to you. We all would rejoice in anyone who is ready to commit their life to the Lord. If there's anyone here this morning that would like to respond, we ask that you would come as we stand and sing.
