The Lord Is On The Throne

From Pastor Chuck’s teaching through Philippians 3:

Let’s turn now to Philippians, chapter three.

Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. Again remember that Paul is writing from his prison cell in Rome, but his exhortation is to rejoice in the Lord! It is interesting that we can’t always rejoice in our circumstances. Sometimes our circumstances are such that it brings great pain, stress, or sorrow. And when we consider our circumstances, we could actually be very sorrowful. But when we think of the Lord and all that the Lord has done for us, then there is always cause for rejoicing. It’s so important that we not focus on ourselves or on our problems. But that we focus on the Lord, who is greater than any problem than we might ever face! And if you will learn to keep your focus on the Lord, then you will find that you can always rejoice in the Lord. And so this is what Paul is saying, look, this is what it’s about—rejoice in the Lord! It’s sort of a summary of what I’ve been saying to you, finally, this sort of summarizes it! Just rejoice in the Lord!

To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, Now the things that Paul is writing to them are things that Paul had taught them when he was there. But now he is writing some of these same things to them.

It’s sort of like Peter when he wrote his second letter, he said that he was writing to them things that they already knew, but he wanted to put them in remembrance of these things. Knowing he said, that I’m soon going to be leaving this body, this tent, this tabernacle, I wanted to write them to you, though you already know them, so even after I am dead you might have them as a continual reminder.

There are certain things that we need to be continually reminded of. We are so prone to lose sight of the basics. So they felt it was important to put them in words, to put them in writing, so that when they go back and read it again, they will be reminded, oh yes, the Lord is on the throne! The Lord is going to take care of it! The Lord will watch over us! The Lord will keep us! And these are the things that we need to be constantly reminded about—God reigns! God rules! God’s in control!

There was a dear, elderly saint who had a tremendous gift of exhortation. And we would often have her share her gift with the church. She was in her nineties, but she would get up there and she would say, the Lord is on the throne! And you know, many times, at that stage of our ministry, we were going through great hardships. Often I would go over to talk to her because she was such an encouragement. But basically every time I would go over to talk to her and sort of, you know, tell her the problems that were going on, she would say, well Charles, the Lord is on the throne. Oh yes! Thank you, I needed to be reminded of that! The Lord is on the throne! He is ruling! He hasn’t abdicated the throne. The Lord is on the throne. And that was really her message. It was a message of encouragement to be reminded, the Lord is on the throne! I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to fear. He is in control.

— Pastor Chuck Smith