Joy that replaces worry with contentment

I've really enjoyed our study of Philippians this summer. I feel like here, studying Chapter 4, Paul saved some of the best morsels for the end. He packed them all into Chapter 4, so I'm pretty excited about sharing it tonight. We're going to find a lot of popular Bible verses tonight as we go through, but what I want to do is organize our time into three groups, because I like to do that, and use three themes. And tonight, I decided to pull some military themes for us. So our three themes for tonight are power in agreement, waging war over worry, and concealed carry of contentment. How clever is that? So that's how we're going to approach this chapter. So the first one is power in agreement, so let's read verses 1 through 5.

So the popular verse that we see in here is verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always. We see that separated out from the passage, and that's okay. It can sit on a coffee mug all by itself, and it's still fine that way. But sometimes those popular verses, it's great to say, hey, what's the context? What are the verses that surround it? And you might find it as interesting as I did, the context surrounding those verses. Look at the phrase, it's sandwiched between phrases like agree in the Lord and let your reasonableness be known by everyone. So the context is unity and agreement here. And that is an important military strategy, unity and agreement. So I want us to think back again about what Paul was facing as he wrote these words. He was facing imprisonment for himself. He was facing disunity in Rome, in his city that he was in, because we learned in chapter 1, he had said, he said, some preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. So in his town, there was disunity. In the town of Philippi that he was writing to, there were these influencers that were coming in to bring confusion. So he had that on his heart. And now in the church, there's these two women who are not in agreement, and it is affecting the life of the church. And so these women need to be brought back into agreement for a state of unity to happen in the church body. And he asked this true companion to be a sort of a mediator, to help out. Now good mediation skills between two people who don't agree would help them find something that they do agree on. Maybe that's why Paul put right in the middle of this, rejoice in the Lord always. Don't you remember when we opened up this whole Bible study in Acts chapter 16, and we talked about that Philippian jailer that it said that he rejoiced that he believed in God. And we talked about how that was just a foundation for this Philippian church. Rejoice because you believe in God. And every week we have said, we rejoice because we belong to God. We grow like we belong to God. This is a common denominator that everyone who truly belongs to God can come into agreement with. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice because you belong to God. Perhaps Paul was using it as a basis, as it's like, start here. Here's your common ground and we can work out, you know, from this. The charge is let your reasonableness be known to everyone. Are you a reasonable person? I can be unreasonable. I know what I look like when I'm unreasonable. The other reason I know is my husband tells me that I'm being unreasonable. But I bet you know what you look like when you're being unreasonable as well, whether or not you have anybody that tells you that. But you know, our country is in a deficit of reasonableness right now. We talked about reason in church on Sunday, the call to reason. And if Christians were to reason well and let their reasonableness be known, we would really stand out. So it is something for us to kind of mull over and apply to our lives. And we realize that unity and agreement is an important strategy in church life, just like it is in military. But what I want to do is keep going. And I want to go to our second point, which is waging war over worry. Our next military strategy, waging an all-out war over anxiety and worry. And I'm using those two words interchangeable because some of the translations actually use one or the other. Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. You know, do not be anxious. And so I'm going to also use them interchangeably, but I say war over worry because the two Ws. And so that's why I said that. So let's read verses six and seven.

Okay. So those four opening words, do not be anxious. By themselves, they're very clear, but they don't tell us much. We can't look at that and say, oh, the Bible says I'm not supposed to be anxious, so self, don't be anxious. It's not going to get me anywhere. I don't know, maybe you can get off the ground with that, but it's not going to do a whole lot for me. We've also heard statistics, you've heard this, like only 8% of the things that we worry about actually happen. The other 92% are either matters that are imaginary, they never happen, or they're beyond our control anyway. You've probably heard that before. And that's true, but that doesn't help us to stop worrying either. What we really need, it's the peace of God that we need, and it is the peace of God that we crave in our hearts, and it's the peace of God that we were created for. Don't you remember when we studied our divine design Bible study? We were created for that peace with God, but the world is broken. The world is disjointed. That's our theme in this Bible study, and disjointed mean it is thrown out of orderly function. And so we live with the reality of sin in ourselves, we live with the reality of sin pressing in us from other places, and all of that generates stress. Stress is unavoidable. None of us can hide from stress. The stress tempts us to worry or to be anxious. We've probably also heard about the harmful effects, physical effects of worry. I set to Googling it, and I started reading it, and I thought, this is just too depressing. I'm not going to talk about it, so you're not going to get it from me. But who among us hasn't felt, hasn't actually felt either mild or severe emotional, mental, even physical effects from worry? All of us have. We have felt it, so we know. We don't have to sit and talk about all the effects. We have felt it. And remember, we're talking in military themes today, so I want to take this verse apart, and I want to ask, what is the battleground? Well, the battleground, according to this passage, is our emotional health of our heart and the mental health of our mind. According to what Paul says here, the battleground is our heart and our mind. The physical body is not our battleground. Now, the physical body will carry the effects of anxiety and worry, but it is not the battleground. The physical body may need to be helped through those things. It's the same effect of having a fever. You have a sinus infection. Your body develops a fever. You are sick all over. You need to treat the fever. But treating the fever alone isn't going to fix your nasal passages, okay? So our physical body carries some of the effects of the stress, but that's not the battleground that we're talking about. I want to stick to what this passage is talking about and get to the root cause, because Paul said it's the heart and the mind where the problem lies. Now, how do we identify a victory in these battlegrounds? Well, this passage says, when we have the peace of God. The peace of God in difficulties is... the spoils of victory. That is when we know we have a victory, is when we have the peace of God. And what is our strategy in this battle? The strategy is prayer. Specifically, as Paul listed it here, prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving. And before somebody in this room shuts down and says, she's gonna talk about prayer, I've done it 100 times, it doesn't work for me, what I wanna say is, we don't give up on the war because one battle wasn't effective. A good strategy is to regroup, try a different approach, use different weapons, and to get reinforcements. And so we keep working at this, we keep growing. We say, well, that didn't work right there, or I didn't perceive it in my life, but we're gonna try the battle again, right? So what is the approach that we see in this passage, those three words, prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving? So I wanna take them apart a little bit and really camp on these. The first one is just the word plain old prayer, and this does not carry the idea of telling God what your needs are, because that's the second word is petitions. So here, the word prayer carries the idea of devotion, worship, and adoration. When we feel the darkness of worry or anxiety come over us, what we really need is to worship God, to be reminded of his power and his greatness. We need to remind ourselves that he's on duty, and he's capable of helping with our burden. That's what worship and adoration does for us. Now, one of Satan's tactics in our culture is to strip God from his rightful place as our creator, the creator of the place that we live, this world, and the creator of us ourselves, because it's pretty tough to really, truly worship someone that you don't really believe is bigger than you, that you don't really believe created you. And so most of us in this room came through the world's culture being affected at some point by this idea that God, whatever God you, whatever your perception of God is, he didn't create this, he didn't create you. And that is, that badly affects our prayer, badly affects it. The other thing, one of Satan's strategies is to convince you that if God did create things, he sort of set it in motion and just let it go as it's gonna go, because we see all this evil, and he seems like he's not big enough to take care of the evil, and he certainly doesn't care about me personally. That is what the enemy has tried to convince us of, because you don't worship and adore a God that you don't believe cares for you. So these are some of the things that we need to work through when we, and I'll give you a hint, there's a practice coming here in just a little bit. But if any of those things resonate with you, you need to work through those. You need to challenge any of those ideas and say, no, that is not true. So adoration, praise, and worship are critical to our emotional and our mental health. Second word is supplication. Some of your Bibles, it is, thank you, petition, boy, that went right out there. Speaking your worries to God, speaking your needs to God. I think of it this way. You know the movies of the old general store in the pioneer days, and you come in with a list, and you just give the list to the shopkeeper, and they take care of it for you. And you look around at the pretty things while they put your stuff together. Speaking your list of needs, concerns to God, and leaving it there. And the last one is thanksgiving, and there's no mystery here. It is giving thanks. It is an attitude of gratitude. Now, here's my question. In this passage, what Paul wrote to this church, this is a recipe that he wrote for emotional and mental health. When is the last time that you prayed proportionately with those things? So I'm going to give you an opportunity, actually, I'm rewriting the study guide and putting it in there, but for you girls, you're gonna get a supplement when we're done, and I didn't want to leave it on the tables because I know how you read ahead. So I'm gonna pass this out when Cammie does discussion. And this supplement is something that I think this will be a great fit for us now, the next six weeks, while we don't have Bible study, to practice this concept of proportional prayer. Worship, petitions, and thanksgiving, and to make them proportional. Now, I'm not saying this is how you need to pray for the rest of your life. Not what I'm saying. But sometimes when we see something in the Word isolated like this, we should just say, you know what, I'm gonna do that for a week or two or something like that. So I've got it on the slide here. I'm gonna just give you a hint about what this project is gonna be like for us, this proportional prayer exercise. And step one is going to be to list seven things to worship or adore God about. Now, if you haven't done this recently, this exercise might be a little more challenging than what you might think, to continue to come up with seven things to worship God about, his character. Now, this isn't what he's done for you. This is just who he is, worshiping for who he is. The next one is going to be seven petitions, things that would stress your heart or your mind if you did not bring them to the Lord. But we're limiting it to seven because we're keeping this proportional, the number of things that we worship God for to the number of things that we petition him for. And then the last one, step three, will be seven things to be thankful that God has done for me personally or has given me. I think it'll be an interesting exercise. I've done it. It's long. If you need to do two things, then do that because it takes a little time to do this. But I think you would like this exercise. And I think, based on what I've read here in scripture, that this may be a helpful exercise, particularly if you are struggling with worry, if you have struggled with worry chronically. So I want to move on, and I want to talk about friends and foes in addition to prayer because we're waging war. Since the war over worry is waged in the heart and the mind, we need to identify who our friends are and who our foes are so that we can gather a larger army for ourselves. To illustrate this, I want to tell you about a gift that I bought about 10 years ago, nine, 10 years ago. I bought the board game, Axis and Allies, World War II board game, for our youngest son. And it came in the mail. I think we ordered online. Came in the mail one spring day, and our son was super excited about it. We opened it up. And he goes, mom, do you want to play? Now, I'm a mom that played every board game that there was, from chutes and ladders all the way up. Like, I paid my dues. I played the games. I was a good mama. But that day, I looked at that game, and there was two things. First of all, I assessed that there was 7,000 pieces in those little packets there. There wasn't, but that's how it struck me that afternoon. Second thing, I looked at it and went, oh, it's a strategy game. I hate strategy games. And I think I said to Tim, you know, I need a nap. And I think I went and took a nap. But a healthy emotional and mental life may require strategizing for us. And we can't just go take a nap to have the best advantage over our enemy. Here's why I say that. Let's read verse eight.

It is a strategy that we employ for mental and emotional health. And we know that this advice right here is in keeping with bringing peace into our lives. How do we know it? Context means everything. Look at verse seven. The peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Here's the strategy for friendly thinking, and we haven't gotten to it now, but look at verse nine. Practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. So we better take a look at them. And this is in your study guide. I hope you did the exercise. I know Cammie's gonna lead us a little bit through this, so I'm gonna go quickly. But the first one is truth is a friend to bring into our army. Whatever is true, that is what we are to think on. Simple, right? That should be super easy. No, it is not super easy. Truth is not readily always discernible. It takes some work. You can't go take a nap. It takes a little bit of work. Rumors are not true, but sometimes we can suck them in as a friend when really they are a foe. Fake news is an enemy to us, but we can easily suck it in and think that it's something that we can, you know, feed on, but it takes discernment. Does anybody know what side of the fence coconut oil is on nowadays anyway? Case in point. And the other thing is our minds can tell us things will be true. Our minds will trick us and say, that will be true. And it's not true today. Someone has an illness. Our uncle just got colon cancer. And over the course of the next eight days, we're rolling that around in our mind and our mind says, that will be true for you. Before we know it, we find ourselves picking up the phone, getting a colonoscopy just because our mind is starting to tell us things that are untrue today. Do you understand what I'm saying? Have any of you done that? Our minds are very tricky things. So we need to be very careful. Whatever is honorable, honor is a friend for our army. But things that are corrupt, the opposite should be put away. They should not even be part of our entertainment, right? Whatever is just, pure, lovely, when I get to that word, I just, my mind goes to art. And I think of, in a lot of ways, how art can be lovely, the things that we view, the things that we perceive. But we also all know that there's another side of that that is ugly. It is unsightly. And yet, our pop culture, the death culture, honors that. But it doesn't, it's an enemy for our minds, those visual images. It's why I don't like Halloween. I'm sorry. There's nothing lovely in there. It is part of the death culture. And those visual images, truly, are they not enemies to our mind? If we really filter this way, we start seeing, we start separating, and we say, friend, foe. Friend, foe. Whatever is commendable, excellent, praiseworthy. With that one, I was thinking about how, in the last 30 years or so, it has become so fashionable to disregard the praiseworthiness of a previous generation, Ward and June Cleaver, and to disregard it as if it was dumb, or whatever. But it was praiseworthy. It was a mom and a dad who had two sons. She nurtured, he provided. Is this not praiseworthy? And yet, look what we have been tempted to do with praiseworthy things, when we really need to say, I mean, to take this verse seriously, and put it into practice in our thinking, in our reading, in our movie watching, in our shopping, in our entertainment, in our social media, to gain the peace of God that improves our emotional and our mental health. If we put this verse into practice as a filter, 97% of the things that we do, or watch, or shop for, or everything, would kind of go away. Think of all the money we'd have. Think of all the time that we would have if we truly filtered. So if we can just, like, increase our filter by, like, 10% starting tonight, we're going to be doing good. We are going to be winning some battles. All right. Back to axis and allies. To this day, I still have never actually played the game. I had to go to Wikipedia to find out that the object of the game is to win the war by, listen to this, capturing enough critical territories to gain the advantage over the enemy. Now, that'll preach right there. Capturing enough critical territories. Is that not what we have to do with these things that we are supposed to think on, bring in as friends, and the things that we are supposed to discard? But we can't go take a nap. We have to be on top of our game. But the Lord is there to help us. It doesn't mean, I don't mean by that that it's all up to me. I'm just saying that, God, the Holy Spirit gives us the strength, but we can't go take a nap. We can't just say, oh, I'm just, live and let live. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it does. It does matter what we think on and what we bring in. And this is one of the great themes of the whole book. Set your mind on things above. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. How do we get the attitude the same as that of Christ Jesus? Filtering, verse 8. The ESV said, have the same mind among yourselves that is yours in Christ Jesus. And I found this verse in Isaiah that's familiar, that just speaks to this. Isaiah 26.3, it's not in your study guide. You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. But Philippians 4 tells us how to get the mind stayed on the Lord. Well, verse 9 says, what you've learned, received, heard, and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. And so we move on to our last section which is concealed carry, the concealed carry of contentment. And I call contentment a concealed carry because as we develop contentment, it becomes an inner strength in our lives. It's not only seen on the outside, but it is there to protect us from worry and anxiety. Verse 10 says,

Remember what he just said, whatever you learned, received, heard, or seen in me, practice these things. So these comments of Paul are meant to not only inform us as to how he lives his life, but instruct us as to how we too can absorb that similar attitude and live our lives. Verse 12,

Now is it fair to take this popular verse, I can do all things through him who strengthens me, and actually is it fair to toss that out to anyone at any time and say, here, you can claim this. Because actually here, this verse is, it's protected by and dependent on the concealed carry of contentment. So I'm not sure it is fair to claim that verse without first making the investment that Paul made when he said, I have learned, I have practiced in whatever situation I am to be content. And then there's a little postscript in verse 14, he says, yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And I just feel like we have to pause on that really shortly because I like that phrase, share my trouble. Maybe sometimes we don't get involved in another person's problem because we feel like to get involved, we need to have an answer to fix it or we need to be able to relieve their pain or we need to be able to make a change. But maybe we're just called to share in their trouble. That's what Paul said to the Roman church in chapter 12. He said, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. That's sharing troubles. Sometimes we just cry with somebody. There's no fixing, there's no anything. It's just sharing in their troubles. But I also want us to remember that Paul had a particular relationship with these people that God ordained. They were living stones that God had placed together. He had crafted a relationship. We can't share in everybody's trouble. And the information age tempts us to absorb everybody's trouble. It's too much. It can be too much. And so I feel like we need to just say that right here, say we have to stop and ask, Lord, who did you, who have you put me in relationship with? I can share in their trouble, but oh man, I can't absorb everybody's trouble. It's going to kill me, you know. So we need to be careful. We need to be selective. We need to ask the question, who are we connected with? Like Paul was connected with this church. Look at he says, he says that in verse 15, you Philippians yourselves, you know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. Even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I've received full payment and more. I'm well supplied having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever, amen. And again we have another popular verse. My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory. Let's look at the context of where that belongs. What had the Philippians done? Well they had sent a physical gift through Epaphroditus that we learn was a fragrant offering to Paul and it was a sacrifice acceptable to the Lord. They had formed a partnership with him. It says they helped once and again. And they had made it a habit to do what Paul said in chapter 2, to not merely look out for their own personal interest but also the interest of others. So that is the context of the people and the circumstances that Paul spoke those words to. So again in that context Paul says my God will supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory. So here's a controversial question. Is it fair to claim that promise outside of the context or the conditions that we see there? I personally don't think so. I note how Paul said I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. Paul looked on the missionary gift as an investment that they made that we're going to pay spiritual dividends. It was sowing and reaping on their part. So if we want to build up that kind of credit on ourselves, this passage informs us that we should be looking for those same opportunities to not merely look out for our own personal interest but also the interest of others. Those areas that we can give a fragrant offering to someone who needs our help, that we can offer a sacrifice acceptable to God on someone else's behalf so that it becomes a credit to our account so that our God will supply all of our needs according to his riches in glory. God's grace does things that we don't deserve. Certainly. God gives us things when we've never even sown in the field yet. He does that. He breaks his own rules. But in this passage we learn that it is something that we should be mindful of so that we can share in others' needs as well. And the benediction says, Greet every saint in Jesus Christ. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Lord, thank you for this whole book. What a delightful Bible study it is. How challenging, how convicting. Lord, you know all the different areas that it has settled in each of our hearts differently. Lord, would you help us now by the power of your spirit to not just go about our day as if we never looked into your word, never saw our face in your word, but Lord, help us to put into practice those particular things that you speak just to us, Lord. And we thank you for it, Lord. And we rejoice because we belong to you. And we thank you for our great salvation in Jesus' name. Amen.