Isaiah 26:1-6
Psalm 122
Philippians 3:17-4:9
John 14:25-28
Well, last weekend, Sue and I had the joy of being able to visit our eldest daughter and son-in-law and our youngest granddaughter, Sophia. Sophia is four and a half years, four and a half months old, and is in this stage which I had sort of forgotten, but when everyone wants to hold her, she wants to try and stand up. You know, so she can. It's going to be another four and a half months before she'll be able to do it, but she keeps trying and her feet keep going down.
And we don't usually think about learning to stand. I mean, it's exciting when your child first stands and it's usually about nine or ten, eleven, twelve months, but then you forget about it. The child forgets about it. Standing, it's just something we do. But how we stand really sets us up for everything else. It's true for speaking, like if you try and speak like that, or liz with the choir today. You like, you know, stand up, shoulders back, feet apart because you can't sing without that. By the way, if you haven't signed up for the choir, I would strongly recommend that. We're going to sing some beautiful music for Christmas Eve.
But it applies in dance. You know, what's the first position, I think? It's how you stand. Or in sports. I mean, how many times do I look and say, why did I hit it there? And I look, because that's where your feet was going when you were hitting that golf shot or tennis stroke. Even sports like football, they work with the professionals on their stance. I mean, baseball maybe is the worst. I mean, like Ted Williams, you know, the great hitter for the Red Sox. Like he could spend like three hours talking about the nuances of the stance. Because how we stand determines how everything goes from there.
That's true in all these disciplines, but it's also true in our spiritual lives according to Paul. In Philippians chapter 1, or chapter 4 verse 1, he says, stand firm in this way. Stand firm in this way. And what way was it? He said that if we take the right stance, we'll experience God's peace individually. He said, as a congregation. As we come here to the fourth chapter of Philippians, Paul is wanting to give some final instructions. It's almost like the hitting coach, the basses are loaded, they're two outs. It's the bottom of the ninth. He's like, hey, remember this. Make sure you get your feet apart and dig in that back foot and put your weight on that.
Paul makes it actually even simpler when he tells us how we just stand in ways that we can then best follow Christ. He says, it's not toe to toe, but eye to eye and need to knee that leads to God-given peace. It's not toe to toe, but eye to eye, knee to knee to experience God-given peace.
If you haven't already turned to chapter four in the book of Philippians, we've been working through that as a congregation. I invite you to do that now. First we see that the stance that we need to take as believers is not toe to toe. That's good for boxers. It's terrible for followers of Jesus. Paul's addressing that there in verses two and three, where he's addressing some conflict that had emerged in the Philippian congregation, which in many ways was an exemplary congregation. It's less conflict than we see in almost any other of the letters that Paul has, but they do have some conflict here.
That's our natural response when we're in challenging tense situations. The first thing is fight, and that's the stance that we take. That's the stance that we've been experiencing now for months and with some special intensity this last week as we, things have come to a head in the election. Whether we've been excited or disappointed or conflicted in the response, there's been a lot of going at it toe to toe.
That's something that also happens in young growing churches that face challenges and struggles like the Philippian church here. That's a problem that, again, as we face as a congregation, as we're dealing with growth and looking ahead at going to two services, maybe there's some conflict and things bubbling up there.
Probably used this in a previous sermon, but it reminds me of some very good wisdom that a South African Pentecostal leader shared with me when I was doing some research there. He said to me, problems of growth are preferable to problems of decline, but they're no less problems.
And as we face those problems, again, our natural response is to want to duke it out. That's especially true among leaders. That seems to be the situation that we have here in Philippians, and it's a situation that we're blessed here with Church of the Cross. We have many of you embody the things that you want to see in leaders. That leaders are often ready to take a stand, take that hill, make decisions, go at it, and we are full of convictions. That seems to have been the case here with two leaders in the Philippian church, Euodia and Syntyche. It's described there in verse 2.
I urge you, Euodia, I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Now, they're fellow workers with Paul in the gospel. They struggled with him for the work of the gospel, and anybody who's going to struggle in the work of the gospel is a strong leader, and so strong leaders can go at it. Paul knew a little bit about that. He had his own conflict with his co-worker Barnabas that almost undermined the mission of God. God redeemed it, but maybe he was thinking back to that and why he urges his loyal companion to mediate in that situation.
See, when we're tempted to go toe to toe and insist on my rights and that I'm right, Paul gives some other counsel there in verse 5. Look at that with me. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Now, gentleness doesn't bring out some of the full effect of that word there. When we think of gentleness, we think of sort of weakness, but this is a gentleness that flows out of strength, that works out of justice, the idea of equity, that you're working for what is right, and then working for what is right in not insisting on the rights of the letter of the law.
Think equity embodies what was in the email that Pastor Dave sent out after the election. Let me remind you of five things that were recommended in how we respond to the election. This is what equity is like. It's okay to feel crummy if your candidate lost. It's to be mindful of others' emotions. You might need a break from the Internet. We need to love those who voted differently from you and look for shared visions of justice.
That's that sense of gentleness with equity. Of course, we see that kind of gentle equity embodied most fully in Jesus in the way he dealt with a woman who was caught in adultery and he said, I don't condemn you. And he was willing to go on the cross for the offenses that we caused. That's why Paul, in verse two, in trying to work through this, he says, be of the same mind in the Lord and it's echoing back, if we remember back to chapter two, to have the same mind in you that it was in Christ Jesus who did not consider equality with God his rights to be something to be grasped but who emptied himself.
Paul is saying that instead of fighting it out toe to toe on the basis of our rights, believers are to take a stance that enables us to see things eye to eye, to focus on what Christ has done for us, not what other people have done to us. That's the implication of verse four. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice.
See worship repositions our feet to follow Christ. If we're looking eye to eye at the Lord, we can't be facing off toe to toe in fighting. That's true for us as we gather corporately to worship at the Lord's day, to come here to the Lord's table and receive the Eucharist. That orients us for the rest of the week to have a posture of Eucharist thanksgiving instead of looking for a fight.
Individually that comes through if you use this book at home, the Book of Common Prayer is not just for Sundays. There's daily prayer. There's family prayer. And in this book it provides prayers that again reorient us so that we are looking eye to eye together toward the Lord. They have wonderful prayers. Dave stole my illustration. But thankfully let me share it again because as I was dealing with my own anxiety and concern about this last week, I was so blessed by the colic that we had last week.
Grant us Lord not to be anxious and you hear the echoes here in Philippians 4. Grant us Lord not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavily. And even now as we live among things that are passing away to hold fast to those that endure. Or there's another colic for times of social conflict or distress. This O God the spirit of neighborliness among us, that in peril we may uphold one another, in suffering tend to one another, and in homelessness, loneliness, or exile befriend one another. Grant us brave and enduring hearts that we may strengthen one another until the disciplines and testings of these days are ended. And you again give peace in our time through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
See worship, prayer, re-oriented our view of things to try and get the perspective of the Lord in whom we rejoice. In a similar vein in verse 8 Paul says, think about these things. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is commendable. If there's any excellence, and if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Paul is kind of riffing off what was a commonplace understanding of what virtues were in the ancient world. He actually gives us a model here that we can look at things around in our culture if we see them reflected in the image of Christ that we can affirm those. And it's a counterbalance to the overwhelming focus on whatever is false, whatever is dishonorable, whatever is unjust, whatever is unpleasing. If there's any unworthy of praise, post, publish, podcast, broadcast these things.
As that third counsel in the email Dave sent us, you may need a break from the internet. And then Paul goes on in verse 9 to say, keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me. And that's helpful to remember as we look at one of his other instructions here in verse 6. Do not worry about anything. Really after this week, do not worry about anything.
And then you remember where Paul was when he was writing this. He was in prison. He faced a very unjust system that was very likely going to keep him in prison or even execute him. And so when he says, do not worry about anything, I think we can take his advice and realize that we don't go at it toe to toe. We rejoice eye to eye and we pray need and need. That's his reminding when we go knee to knee that we can be anxious about nothing.
Now when Paul says to be anxious about nothing, it doesn't mean we're unconcerned about the world. We're not to hypnotize or tranquilize ourselves so that we don't recognize things that are anxious. But he is saying that focusing on those things actually makes things worse.
I found it ironic that I had to preach about this because I had a couple weeks where I've had a lot of things to be anxious about. It feels like as soon as I get one thing done, I get three more things that emerge out that are overwhelming me and causing me to think about, Lord, how can I get these things done? And of course, the more you worry about worry, the worse your worry gets. Because it's like not only do I have to worry about these things that I'm anxious about, but I'm now I'm anxious about that I'm anxious about things because God says don't be anxious about these things.
You see, the direct approach doesn't work. It's also not like don't worry, be happy. Instead, no, we have to find something to displace the worry and the anxiety that may rightfully be there. That there are things to be concerned about individually, congregationally, as a nation. And those things are prayer. Prayer is like water with fire instead of throwing more kindling on the fire.
Robert Rainey, one of my 19th century Scottish evangelicals, which is the area of my research, says the way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything. Or as Eugene Peterson translates verse six, let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayer.
There's nothing in our lives that is too great for God's power. Not the election, not the potential problems that could come in an ex-administration, not evidences wherever we might find them of cultural or national decline. Not the things that we may individually worry about, whether it's not getting everything done or failure or losing our jobs, not getting into the school that we wanted to get into. Of illness, of even death. Nothing. Nothing is too great for us to pray about and to remain in anxiety about.
But there's also the reality that there's nothing too small for God's fatherly care. If we're anxious about something, pray about it. God wants to hear it. I mean, when I think about when my children were little, I would listen, even though I knew there was nothing under the bed that was going to get them in the middle of the night that they were anxious about.
In the same way, how much more will our Heavenly Father willingly listen to the things that may keep us up at night? Peace is the fruit that grows out of this kind of believing prayer about things great and small, verse 7. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. God will not always change the circumstances that may be causing our anxiety. But God will change the inner attitude of our hearts and minds so that we won't be anxious about those circumstances.
Paul paints a word picture here that would have been very familiar to the Philippians. Philippi was largely a place where soldiers were retired. And watching over Philippi as most of the people that had been part of this guard that were deployed at different cities to watch over attacks. So this detachment would stand guard over it and protect it from intruders.
And how did the Roman garrison repel these attacks? Well, it wasn't like each soldier say, okay, I'm going to go do it. Okay, I'm back. Now you go. No, when they talked about standing firm that they would march side by side, shoulder to shoulder, that was the power of the Roman army was that they were united.
And it's the same way for us as we face the things we're most anxious about. All the pronouns and verbs here in this passage are plural. This promise of God's peace that will guard us is often appropriated individually, but it's only fully realized corporately. It's only when each of us takes the right stance together as a congregation, not fighting toe to toe, but standing, and rejoicing eye to eye, praying knee to knee, that we will experience that God-given peace, that guard of our hearts and our minds, so that we fully experience God's peace in its fullest sense of God's shalom.
Now it's easy to lose that sense of peace, to worry about the challenges that we face individually as a congregation, as a country. How fast will we be able to overcome those worries? Only as fast as we go on our knees, because it's not fighting toe to toe, but rejoicing eye to eye, praying knee to knee, that we will experience God-given peace. So we say with Paul, therefore my brothers and sisters whom I love and long for my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.