“The Lord is near!” (Philippians 4:5b – NIV)
Four words which carry so much truth and yet can often hold so many questions. How? When? Really? The reality of the presence of Jesus with His people is at the heart of the Christian message. At Christmas, we celebrate that Jesus is Emmanuel, “God with us.” At Easter, we have just remembered that the veil in the Temple was torn in two, removing the barrier that separated God from His people, allowing us to enter into what the Bible calls the Holy of Holies, or the very presence of God. The truth of sin, which goes back to the Garden of Eden, is not fundamentally that humanity is going to be punished for disobedience but that we are going to be separated from the presence of God because we did not trust or believe Him. And here in this letter, Paul is reminding the believers in Philippi that Jesus, their Lord, is near. I really believe that these four words are, in many respects, the heart of the passage we are looking at. We can be joyful, not because we have great circumstances, but we rejoice in the Lord. Why? Because The Lord Is Near! We can be gentle, not because we are nice people (although I hope we are!) but are gentle because of the Lord. Why? Because The Lord Is Near, showing us his kindness and gentleness. And I could do the same for the verses that follow … but I won’t.
So what does The Lord Is Near really mean for us? Well, theologians tell us that there are two ways that we can interpret these four words and they seem appropriate for our study of looking at how we can live sane in a crazy world.
First of all, there is a transcendent aspect to this phrase. The risen and ascended Lord who is sitting at the right hand of the Father has promised that he will return and one of the overriding motivations for all that the early church did was that tangible expectation that Jesus would return and would do so soon. And it is this same expectation that the church today should live in. As one theologian has put it:
“Believers today, [the early Pentecostals] reasoned, can, should and must evidence the same longing and power as the first Christians, if they are to be in eschatological continuity with the beginning and end of the church of Pentecost. To recover the apostolic faith meant to live in expectation of the coming of Christ in the time of the Latter Rain.” (Steven J. Land, “Pentecostal Spirituality – A Passion For The Kingdom”)
This is a bit of complicated way of saying that our lifestyle and motivation can be driven by that very real expectation that the Lord, our Judge, King, Master and God, could return at any moment and we want our lives to right with Him, not out of fear of punishment but out of devotion and worship. Even though we are facing challenges and difficulties, pain and anxiety, stress and uncertainty, we have this truth in the return of Jesus that God knows and understands and that our future home, our real home, is far better than this current one and we can and should view this current situation in the light of eternity. When we do that we can look at our current circumstances, the challenges of lockdown, the struggles of illness and even death, and we can declare in the words of the Apostle Paul, who was imprisoned, punished and beaten …
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV)
We can say this because the Lord is near. As the great preacher, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes of our four words:
“You may be having a hard and difficult time – Paul does not minimise it – people may be very cruel and unkind, your position may be really grievous. You may be having to bear something terrible, people may be constantly nagging at you, day after day, night after night. But whatever you may have to suffer or endure in this life, the Lord is at hand and he is preparing an amazing reward for you. When he comes, and when the reign of glory begins, you will be with him, you will be reigning with him, and you will be sharing in his joy and all his glory … So, then, remember that he is coming, the Lord is at hand – keep looking at that.” (Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Life of Peace)
Secondly, however, there is also an imminent aspect to the phrase “the Lord is near.” Not only is the Lord near because he is returning soon in glory. He is near because, as one translation puts this verse, “the Lord is ever present with us.” (The Voice Translation). JB Phillips, in his New Testament in Modern English, translates this verse as,
never forget the nearness of your Lord
New Testament in Modern English (JB Phillips)
The joy of the day of Pentecost is that through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is not only seated at the right hand of the Father, he is also here with us, in the very midst of our struggles and challenges. As Nicky Gumbel, in his book, A Life Worth Living, writes,
“The Lord is near in the sense that he is already present by his Spirit. We sense his presence, we speak to him, we hear his voice in our hearts. We can’t see hi but we see all the signs of his presence. Abiding in his presence is one of the keys to standing firm in the Lord.”
It is wonderfully reassuring in these times of lockdown, restriction, recession, God is still in control and we are being prepared for something far more magnificent. But it is also wonderfully reassuring, perhaps at times even more so, that in these times of depression, despair, hopelessness and crisis, God has not left us alone, he is close to each and every one of us bring hope, faith, power, love and above everything else that deep and real knowledge and experience of his presence with us because, THE LORD IS NEAR.