Philippians 4:8-9 • James Sutton

Well, good morning. I want to begin this morning with a welcome to those of you who have been visiting our church online for the last several months. Normally at this point in our worship service, we'd have what we call gospel hospitality, where we invite people to get up and greet one another in Christ. We'd pass these black attendance binders and say something along the lines of, if you're visiting with our church, please give us a way to contact you because we'd love to take you out to coffee, get to know you and answer any questions you have about the life of our church. We haven't really figured out a way in this current arrangement to do that.

So here's what I want to say. If you've been watching online, or if you've joined us for any of our outdoor services and you are new to our church and you're wondering if these people even know that I'm here—the answer to that question is no, we don't, but we want to. My name is James Sutton. I'm associate pastor. You can look up on our website. You'll find my picture and my email address. Please send me an email. I'd love to set up a time for a phone call or a Zoom chat, just to get to know you, to welcome you and to answer any questions that you have about our church.

Having said that, we're continuing our series on Philippians. We're in Philippians chapter four. We're going to be focusing on verses eight and nine tonight. Although I'm going to get a little bit of a running start on that. Last week, we looked at Philippians four and the theme really was joy. We really dug deep on joy. Paul Deschamps, our youth director, did a great job with that sermon. This week, we're going to focus more on peace.

Joy and peace are two themes that you wouldn't really expect to find in a letter written by a guy who's in prison. And yet they're prevalent themes in this book. And as Paul mentioned last week, they're prevalent themes because Jesus is the primary theme. Jesus, of course, is the source of all our joy and our peace. But this is a good time for a sermon on peace, right? We're living in times of high anxiety, really high anxiety.

Normally we'd be coming at this passage and we'd be comparing ourselves to Paul and we'd be saying, yeah, we really can't compare to what life is like in prison, being kind of chased around. But maybe we feel like we can compare ourselves a little bit more with Paul right now than normally. I mean, just to consider some of the things that are pressing in on us: of course, the virus is bringing lots of anxiety. If you haven't been feeling that, maybe you aren't a human being. I mean, the illness, the sickness, the death, the economic instability, the job security concerns, the way that this has impacted the rhythms of our daily lives. What is going to happen with schools? That's what I want to know. Please Lord, let me know what's happening with my children. It's creating all kinds of anxiety for us.

And then of course, there's rampant racial injustice that's coming to the forefront of our minds and just the stress that that's causing—years and years of racial injustice and the tension that's being expressed. What do we do about that? Just seeing the hurt and the damage that's caused just moves up your spine, doesn't it? Then there's the division that we experience, whether that's division within our politics, within our media branches, division around the world, division on what exactly to do about the virus, division even in our homes and in our conversations about what's going on in our daily lives.

Or perhaps it's other things. Perhaps it's anxiety from loneliness or anxiety from not being able to get outside. Kids, are you sick of being cooped up in your homes? Are you ready to see your friends? We all are. Or maybe it's murder hornets or Saharan dust clouds, or the fact that hurricane season is here or whether maybe it's just the fact that we don't have professional sports to keep our minds off of all of these things.

We're living in a time of incredible anxiety. Anxiety is an attacking enemy that's relentless. It feels like wave after wave of things that just rip you apart. And in fact, if you go back to verse six in the passage I'm about to read, where it says, "Be anxious for nothing," the root of the word anxious there can literally be translated as being torn apart, ripped in two.

So let's look at this text because we need to be reminded of peace. We need to be reminded of the hope that we have in the gospel in response to this wave after wave of attacking anxiety. Let's listen to these words. I'm going to start in verse six of chapter four and go through nine.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. — Philippians 4:6

And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things, which you've learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you.

Let's pray real quickly. Lord God, this passage tells us to not be anxious, but to come before you with supplication and thanksgiving and prayer, laying our requests before you. Lord, we request that you would face all of the things that cause us stress and anxiety in our current situation. Would You address the illness and sickness around the world? Would You address the division? Would You address the injustice? Lord, would you transform our current reality to a reality where we could get some semblance of peace?

But Lord, even in the midst of this, we give you thanks because we know that you're a God who works all things for our good and your good purposes. And so Lord, we trust that you are at work. We pray that you'd be working this morning through your word as we look at this text. Lord, remind us of Your great power, remind us of Your loving presence. Lord, use this word to encourage us, to strengthen us and to build us up. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

The Guard Against Anxiety

So anxiety, it is this ever attacking enemy that wants to tear you apart. But the amazing thing about this passage, the beautiful thing about this passage is that there's great hope here. I want you to look really closely at verses seven and nine. Verse seven talks about the peace of God. Verse nine talks about the God of peace.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:7

This peace of God and this God of peace serve as a guard, a protection against the anxiety, the waves of anxiety that this world wants to throw at you. That's a real stark military kind of image. Think about that for just a second. Think about having a guard that is essentially a decree of God. God has declared his peace upon you, and that is meant to protect you from all of the things that you might worry about in this world. All of the things that might threaten to tear you apart.

His declaration is the same kind of declaration like "let there be light" that brought light into existence. It's that powerful. That is your guard. On one hand, that is your guard, the peace of God. On another hand, it's also the God of peace. It's not just that proclamation, but it's Him Himself who is near.

I could maybe illustrate this a little bit. When I first bought our house, the previous tenants had an alarm system. There was a sign in the front yard that said this house is protected by ADT—or I can't remember what the alarm company was. But I had that sign in my front yard, but I didn't have an alarm that was active in the house. Not until several years later when we had a couple of break-ins, despite the sign, that we actually got the actual alarm company to activate the actual alarm system. All of a sudden that sign was a lot more meaningful. It wasn't just a proclamation. It was backed by a presence of a voice that would come through a box if any door was open that shouldn't be open.

This is the reality for us as Christians. We have not only received a declaration of peace, but God has not only declared His peace upon us, but He Himself, the God of peace has drawn near to us to ensure that peace. We not only have His declaration, we also have His presence. And really one is as good as the other, but we have both.

You could think about this in theological terms of justification and adoption. Not only has God declared us just, but He's adopted us into His family. Our experience of His peace is the same way. It's been declared. We are defended. We are a part of His protection. We are part of the force field of His kingdom. We are marked by the peace of the kingdom of God. And inside of that force field is the God of peace Himself backing it up. What a beautiful picture. What a beautiful reminder.

We can go because of His proximity. We can go to Him in prayer, but we are in effect citizens of this new kingdom and we're to live like it. This passage lays out essentially two things in addition to prayer that are really marks of believers who are part of God's kingdom. Maybe could think of them as disciplines of peace from those who are part of the kingdom of peace. Those of you who are graduates like me of NC State, you're gonna love these two points.

The Two Disciplines of Peace: Think and Do

The two points laid out, these are the two things, the two disciplines of peace in this passage in verses eight and nine, in addition to prayer which was mentioned in verses six and seven, are these two things: think and do. It's the NC State motto. So isn't that encouraging for NC State people that when we get to the kingdom of God, there'll be banners just like at NC State that say think and do, because those are the disciplines of peace, the marks of those who are in the kingdom of peace.

Let's look at those two this morning. First of all, is think—the discipline of think. That's in verse eight. Let me read it again.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. — Philippians 4:8

That word "think" is the Greek word logizomai, which means essentially to dwell, meditate on, or soak in. It's a very active verb. So it's not just having these passing thoughts. It's a dig deep. It's a soak in. It's a really kind of dive deep on these ideas—a command. Paul is not just saying, here are these passing thoughts that should be passing through your mind. He's saying actively: if you want to be a part of the discipline of being part of the kingdom of peace, then you need to dig deep on these concepts. You need to really think about these things.

The list and really their opposites give you a sense of not only how this is a mark of those who are at peace, but it's also a revealing kind of exercise to think about their opposites and how gravitating towards these things is a discipline of peace that can give you peace.

Whatever Is True

Let's look at a couple of them in-depth. First of all, the first one on the list is whatever is true. Think about whatever is true. If you think about the opposite of truth, it's lies. One of those things produces anxiety. It's not the truth—it's lies. One of those things is the kind of thing that is produced by anxiety. It's not the truth—it's lies.

And in fact, you can kind of see this as it plays out in our understanding as Christians. What we proclaim as the truth—what Christians proclaim as the truth—is an actual set of ideas that will reduce anxiety in comparison to anything else that the world has to offer.

Let's just take for example naturalistic atheism. Naturalistic atheism says that the truth is you just were random. You just happened to exist. You just kind of can't—there's no purpose to you. It just kind of happened accidentally. And here you are. There's no real clear morality that guides the universe. It's just whatever you need to do to survive—that's the real driving morality of the universe. So anything that threatens your survival, you've got to really fight it. It's really up to you. You've got to do it. You've got to achieve it. You've got to fight off all the things that might kill you. And by the way, eventually you will die. It's inevitable. And when you die, there's nothing. Doesn't that make you feel better? That's not the truth.

That's not the truth because the Christian truth is the truth that produces a lack of anxiety. Think about this—the opposite of what I just said. You have a purpose. You were designed. You're loved. Your actions matter. You're so loved that God gave up His son to die for you. Even the circumstances that you find yourself in are the things that God is using for your good. Everything happens because of His purpose and plan. And it's all gonna work out. And when you do die, that's gain, as Paul says. That's gonna be marvelous, amazing, wonderful. That is when the actual peace that you can't even possibly comprehend will be fully experienced. That's the truth that Paul is inviting us to think about.

If you wanna practice the discipline of peace, start meditating on the truth of the gospel. Start meditating on the truths of Scripture. Allow those things to knead that peace into your heart. Soak in that and be relieved by it.

The secular world in all of its anti-anxiety literature moves straight to practice. It says, instead of thinking about things, what you should just do is start doing some breathing exercises. The theory goes essentially that anxiety is kind of a result of an evolutionary process—you're getting tense because there's a threat. So you need to trick your body into relaxing. Start breathing deeply. There's no threats. There's nothing to worry about. It's essentially a denial, a lie.

Paul says: you need to let your mind gravitate, as a discipline of peace, towards the things that are true.

Because that is a mark of the kingdom of peace, the God of peace who has proclaimed peace upon you. Look at the second thing on the list. Honorable. Whatever is honorable. Think about the opposite of honor, right, is shame. Shame produces a lot of anxiety. You have any shame? Remember that in the kingdom of God, there is no shame. Jesus Christ wipes away all of our shame. He forgives us of all of our sins and clothes us in his righteousness. There's nothing but honor for us in the kingdom of God. Those who have repented and turned to Christ, we are given his honor. Think about those things. Allow the reality of the honor you're given in Christ to ease the tension in your back. Shame will tear you apart, but the honor of Christ will put you back together.

What about the next thing? Just. Whatever is just, justice. Oh, man. Could we talk about justice? The gospel teaches that God will ultimately make right all anxiety producing wrongs. We live in a world of great injustice. If you haven't gotten that, you've been hiding under a rock. There are injustices all around us, all kinds of injustice, racial injustice, all kinds of injustice surround us, pervades us. It's everywhere in this world. But the kingdom of God is a place of justice. It's a place where every wrong is made right. Paul's not saying, "Hey, so shut out the world, forget about the injustice out there, don't engage with it, just fix your mind as if you close your eyes and think about the justice of God." No, he's saying, think about the fact that God himself, who is just, will not allow these injustices that exist to exist forever. Think about what is just, think about God's justice and the fact that he will bring that justice someday, right? That He is working towards that, that that is the truth, right? Think about that justice, not some kind of relativistic justice, but the absolute justice of God. Think about that. Those are the sorts of things that are going to produce peace. Because when you think about the fact that God is just, that He's the one that's going to bring all this about, you can relax. How much tension do we have trying to figure out all of the world's injustices when we need to look to the one just God who is our only hope at experiencing justice?

We could go through the rest of this list. Pure, whatever's pure. God removes all anxiety producing spots and blemishes. He removes our blemishes and gives us purity. We could look at lovely. God removes the grotesque and replaces it with beauty, right? And not just skin deep beauty, but a real beauty. Think about Isaiah 57:

How beautiful are the feet of him on the mountain who brings good news. — Isaiah 57

The gospel is good and beautiful and it even beautifies feet. There's nothing in the Jewish mind that's more dirty and grotesque than feet. Right? And yet that passage is talking about how through God's work, the amazing beauty of the gospel, this good news comes even through feet. There's this beauty that exists for us in the gospel. Think about that. Think about whatever is commendable. God shields any blame and damnation and replaces it with commendation and reward. Those of us who are sinners and yet in Christ, when we get to heaven, what is it that he says to us? "Well done, my good and faithful servants." Think about that. Think about anything of excellence and worthy of praise. God removes all the worthless and replaces it with inestimable excellence. These are good things to think about. He removes the disdain and replaces it with praise and rejoicing.

Now these things, we could preach an entire sermon series on these things. Right? We totally could. Each one. In fact, I kinda want to. You don't want me to, but I kinda want to. There's a sense though in which these things represent a grid into heaven, into the kingdom. Right? It's when Paul says, fix your eyes on the heavenly places where Jesus is seated. Right? These things get us there. They help us to fix our eyes there. But there's also a sense in which this is a grid or a window to Christ himself. Each of these things kind of give us a different angle, a slightly different viewpoint on who Jesus is. Think about that. He's our truth. He's our honor. He's our justice. He's our purity. He's our beauty. He's our commendation. He's our excellence and our worth. Thinking about these things only gives us a view into heaven, but they give us a view into Christ. And they do bring about peace. They are marks of peace and they're a discipline of peace. Thinking about them helps us to not only know the peace of God, right? Not only to realize what that is like, what that kingdom looks like, but also gives us the God of peace in Christ Jesus. A very fresh look at him. Him who was torn apart, who sweat blood, who cried out on the cross in utter terror because He was being torn apart for you so that you could be made whole. Think about these things.

We're inundated by all kinds of ways and messages and we're pushed all the time to think about the anxieties of the world. But where are you taking time to stop and soak, to wrestle with, to meditate on these truths? The thing is, you need to. We need to do this as a discipline of being a part of the kingdom of peace.

I'd encourage you just this week, take one of these each day this upcoming week and journal about them, or spend some time praying about them, or talk with someone, get on the phone and call someone and say, "Hey, I just wanna talk about what's true for a little while, that what we know," and allow your soul to be nourished about that.

Second Discipline: The Do

Second discipline of peace that's here is discipline number two is to go with the think, there's also the do. This is in verse nine.

What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. — Philippians 4:9

Let's unpack this a little bit. What are the things that they had learned and received? Well, Paul taught a lot about a lot of things, right? We have a lot of his teachings in the New Testament. In fact, a lot of the New Testament is made up of Paul's teachings. So those are his teachings. In essence, the application for us, as we think about what we have been taught, we think about the teaching of scripture. These are the things that we can read and we can comprehend and we can understand, we can learn them.

That's what I'm doing. I'm teaching scripture. And then there's the received part, which kind of implies more than just a cognitive knowing, but a kind of heart level adoption. Things that you have learned and received, things you have taken into your heart. So you've learned them and you've received them.

So these things that they've learned and received from Paul, these are the things that they are to practice. Suffice to say, by the way, that this list that I just read has all kinds of radical implications on how you live your life. Truth, honor, justice, purity, beauty, love, commendation, excellence, praiseworthiness. There's some implied kind of directives, right? The fact that you wanna think about what's true means you should probably be honest. The fact that you wanna think about what's pure is you should probably be pure. You should pursue purity. The fact that you think about justice, you probably should pursue justice. These are the things, the values that you've learned and received. But scripture is full of these things. And so he's talking about the bulk of the whole of his teaching. We need to focus on the whole of the Bible's teachings. We need to learn it and receive it, not just understand it, but to digest it and to bring it into our hearts.

But he also says not only just what you learned and received, but also what you heard and you saw—what you have heard and seen in me, he says. There's a relational component to this stuff that he's talking about that we should practice.

We talk a lot about the relational component and the importance of relationships in this church. We have a rich community, we talk about community groups and the importance of being in community and rubbing shoulders with other Christians. We talk a lot about discipleship. That's what Paul's talking about here. He didn't just send in distance learning packages, some sort of online downloadable content, the information that he wanted the Philippian church to digest. He went there. He lived amongst them. They heard and they saw him. They are his disciples in the same way that he was discipled by others. And ultimately, we're all disciples of Christ. There's a relational component to this.

He's saying, you've heard and you've seen it. And most of us, we can point to people in the church that have come alongside of us, we've rubbed shoulders with, that have taught us, that have helped us, that have discipled us. If you don't have a relationship like that, I'd love to talk to you about what it looks like to get in one of our community groups or to involve yourself with other believers in our church, because that's incredibly important.

But here's the thing: all of this in this passage is past tense. He's saying, you learned it and you received it. You heard it and you saw it. That's past. And now what should you do? Practice these things, present tense.

There is a sense in which I think all of us want to learn more and receive more. And all of us feel very ill equipped to do anything. I often think about the fact that, man, I'm not the smartest cookie in the drawer. I think about my preaching, even the way I do ministry, I kind of often have the thought, man, I just need to go back to seminary for another several years and really soak up more of this stuff before I try to do this. All of us feel that way.

Many people come to our church having been raised in the church, having experienced great mentorships. They come to me and say, "Pastor, I really need a mentor. I can't serve right now, but I need somebody to pour into me." That's not the posture Paul is saying we should have. It is good to have discipleship. It is good to learn and to receive and to study, but you've also got to do. You can't just receive; you've also got to go. You've got to do these things.

I often hear this argument: "There's a head, heart, hand dynamic. I really need to digest this teaching. It needs to filter down into my heart before I act." And oftentimes that's how things work—that's fine. But I can't help but wonder sometimes if our hearts wouldn't be transformed if we actually took the stuff that was available in our head and we actually went to try it. The experience of trying it, maybe the results of that experience might transform our hearts. You have to act.

Paul certainly experienced that. Think about all the crazy stories Paul would have. If you were sitting down for coffee with Paul and you asked him to tell you some stories—tell me about that time you got stoned and people thought you were dead and you just popped up and went right back into the city. Tell me about that time you were shipwrecked. It had to be crazy. How did that work out?

I can't help but think that all of these experiences of the Apostle Paul helped to bring near to him the reality of the presence of the God of peace. Because he had to feel not qualified. He had to feel not ready. He had to feel at times like, "Man, I don't know what's going to happen." And the fact that God worked through that had to reassure him. That experience had to reassure him that God is with me. And that's what this passage says:

Practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. — Philippians 4:9

A Challenge to Act

So I want to issue this challenge just in closing this morning. I double dog dare you. I double dog dare you to pick any imperatives of Scripture and just try it. Pick the one that scares you the most. Probably as soon as I said that, something popped into your mind. There's something that you know Scripture teaches that you're supposed to do that you're just holding back on because you're scared. You're afraid of what that's going to look like. It causes you anxiety to think about doing whatever this command is.

Maybe it's sharing the gospel. That's something that causes a lot of anxiety for a lot of us. Maybe it's reengaging with that person whom you've had conflict with that you've totally given up on. Maybe it's giving generously to the poor. Maybe you can't stand to think about giving up the security that comes from your finances—I'm talking about real generosity, generosity that hurts.

Maybe it's going to a church plant, leaving the safety of a large group of Christians and going out on the frontier with a small group. Maybe it's reengaging in a battle with sin that you've given up on. Maybe it's becoming public with the fact that you're a Christian in a world that increasingly is questioning whether Christians are good or worth spending time with.

Move out of the comfort and try to form a relationship maybe with someone of another race. Maybe instead of just talking about racial injustice, it's time to move towards trying to do something about it—not just from a platform of wanting things to change, but from a platform of the gospel. Try something. Maybe it's making a risky sacrifice for the sake of someone else. Those opportunities come up often.

It's interesting to note that the most frequent command of Scripture is to not be afraid. Maybe it's that one. Maybe it's time that you spend some time thinking about the truths of Scripture, acting based on the truths of Scripture, and allowing the God of peace and the peace of God to move into those moments in such a way that reassures you.

I think that command—the "don't be afraid"—is repeated so often in Scripture because God wants that in our ears. He wants us going as though He's right next to us. Don't be afraid. Don't be anxious. I myself, the God of peace, will defend you, protect you. My peace has been declared on you. Go, be not afraid.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.