Philippians chapter 4, beginning in verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and 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. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. This is the word of the Lord. And you may be seated. Well, the joy of the Lord and the peace of God are principal themes in the book of Philippians. And the Apostle Paul has no doubt that these saints are at peace with God and therefore have every reason to rejoice. They've been reconciled to God by believing the gospel and trusting in the redeeming work of Christ. And what's more, as they seek to work out their own salvation, it's none other than God Himself who is actively at work in them, giving them both the will and the ability to do so. And as Paul, therefore, assures them in the first chapter, he has no doubt that God will surely finish the good work He's begun in these saints. And so whenever they finally complete their earthly course, a blessed eternal home awaits them in the presence of God's unveiled glory. They have a new body to look forward to. And whatever else happens, therefore, in this life, they have every reason to rejoice because Christ has secured for them peace with God. And there is nothing, as Paul says in Romans 8, that can separate them from his everlasting love. But as we've seen, there's a difference between the objective peace of God that we enjoy because of redemption and the subjective experience of that peace that's involved in our sanctification. And it seems that this congregation had recently been overwhelmed with anxiety. From the commands that Paul gives, we get some insight into the struggles of this congregation. They were finding it hard to rejoice in the Lord because the days were quite difficult. Opposition from the world was mounting and threats of false doctrine were on the rise. However, in the past, this congregation had fearlessly stood united and firm for the faith of the gospel against all opposition. So what's happened? What's changed? Why the sudden anxiety? Well, in the past, they had stood united side by side for the faith of the gospel. But as of late, dissension had arisen among them, disrupting their experience of God's peace. Nothing can take their peace with God away from them. That's the work of Christ. But they weren't experiencing the benefits of that peace among the congregation. And whenever there's division in the ranks, we're more vulnerable to external threats. And this, no doubt, gives rise to anxiety. So Paul admonishes them to set aside selfish ambition, to denounce their empty pride. He urges them to consider their fellow believers as more important than themselves and to look to their interests as well as their own. He implores them to think like Christ, to adopt Christ's attitude of humility. He pleads with them to settle their differences, to come to agreement in the Lord that once again, they might experience the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. It surpasses all human understanding because it's anchored in the knowledge of God and that he is working all things together for the good of his people. It's a peace far and above the fray of this troubled and chaotic world. It's a peace that hails from heaven itself. And so it's a peace that remains steadfast and secure even in the midst of a storm. A peace that the trials and tribulations of this life, no matter how grim, they cannot extinguish this peace. This is the peace that compels us to rejoice in the Lord at all times and in all circumstances. This is the peace that expresses itself through our lives in moderate and steadfast reasonableness. This is the peace that subdues anxiety, the peace that calms our fears, dispels our worries. It's the experience of peace that belongs to all those who take every anxious thought and every overwhelming concern and every worrisome situation, they take it before the Lord in humble, thankful prayer, trusting all things into the sovereign hands of our God. And this is the peace then that belongs to all those who cast their cares on the God who cares for us. It's the peace that surrounds our hearts and minds and keeps us wondrously safe In scripture, the heart and the mind are not nearly as distinct as we think of them today. We often refer to the heart as the seat of our affections and our emotions, our feelings, and we reserve the mind for the seat of the intellect and rational thought. But in scripture, they're much closer to being synonyms. The heart is actually the core of our being, our inner nature, the seat of our emotions and will and thinking. And the word mind is simply a subset of the heart, focusing more on the process of reasoning, the thoughts and perceptions themselves. Well together then, heart and mind refer to the whole of the inner man. And this is what God's peace protects. And so as we noted last time, Philippi was a colony guarded by a garrison that belonged to the mightiest and most efficient military force in the world at the time. Paul took advantage of this familiar imagery and he utilized this military language. While those Roman troops might be able to keep the citizens of Philippi from physical harm, they could do absolutely nothing to protect the hearts and minds of the people that they were tasked with guarding. However, Paul says, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding forms an impenetrable garrison that stands guard over the souls of all who are in Christ, all who actively put their trust in God. And scripture says, all earthly powers combined are less than nothing before the God whose will prevails. And so this is a peace that quiets the conscience and delivers the soul from the righteous condemnation of sin. It's the peace that shields us from the accusations of the evil one, the accuser of the brethren. You know, if we're in Christ, every accusation of the devil, every indictment from the evil one, that's made against us is a blasphemous lie. Not because we haven't sinned and not because we're not still struggling with sin. It's a blasphemous lie because Christ has borne our iniquity on the cross. He paid the price for our redemption. And so an accusation against God's people is a slap in the face of God. Our debt of sin has been canceled, and we now stand before God in the righteousness of our Savior. Our sins forgiven, cleansed from all unrighteousness. As we sometimes sing, my sin, not in part, but the whole, has been nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. But not only does this peace of God guard our hearts and minds from condemnation, it safeguards our hearts and minds as we encounter the hostilities of this hate-filled world of toil and trouble. Of course, we still experience the sensations of the storms of this life. God hasn't promised that he will deliver us from that. We still feel the sting of the rain. We still hear the terrifying peals of thunder through the trials and tribulations of this life. But if we trust everything to God in humble and thankful prayer, we have this promise. His peace will mount guard over our hearts and minds. And the troubles of this life then need not make us anxious. They need not agitate us or overwhelm us or drive us to despair. We can rejoice in the Lord always whenever we know that we're safe in the care of our Savior. And so now as we come to verses eight and nine, Paul begins with the adverb, finally. He's bringing his admonitions now to a conclusion. And in the Greek, the word translated finally means, as for the rest. So if I were to paraphrase what Paul is saying here, something to the effect of, before I close, I need to say at least two more things that will summarize all of the admonitions I've been giving you, two comprehensive commands that are essential if you're going to stand united in the faith and experience God's peace. If we would rejoice always, if we would live reasonably, if we would rebuff anxiety and bring everything to God in prayer as we should, then we must watch our thought life and live by what we've learned. That's a summary of the two commands that he gives. But this morning, we're just simply going to begin by looking at the first of these two final admonitions, where Paul says, 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. Think about these things. Paul is telling us that our thought life has a lot to do with our experience of God's peace. It has a lot to do with our ability to rejoice in the Lord always. It has a lot to do with our ability to live reasonably before the world. It has a lot to do with being free from anxiety and praying as we should. And this is what Paul wants to address. What do you think about? What occupies your mind? What captivates your thoughts? Where's your focus? Listen, our thought life finds expression in the way we live. I know every parent here has, at one time or another, surely heard from their children an answer that seems quite puzzling. When they do something so odd, so strange, and we say to them, what were you thinking, right? And if your children are like mine, they probably said, I wasn't. I wasn't thinking, I just did it, right? But of course that's not true, is it? We're always thinking. We may not be thinking wisely. We may not be thinking astutely. We may be lazy with our thoughts. We may be acting impulsively. But impulse doesn't arise from a void. You know, some would say that there are thoughtless expressions of our nature whenever we act impulsively. Those are just thoughtless expressions of our nature. But as we've seen, the Bible doesn't draw a sharp line between our hearts and our minds. Thinking is a reflection of our nature, and our nature is a reflection of our thinking. They work together. The point is simple. Impulsive actions are evidence of prior thoughts and training. They're patterns of thought that may be so ingrained in our minds that we simply react without a formal process of deliberation for about what we're about to do, right? But make no mistake, there is always some kind of thinking going on behind the scenes, thinking that's responsible for our actions, a way of thinking, a worldview, if you will. There's always something going on between our ears, always. Now, of course, we shouldn't be so hard on our children because this is a difficult question to answer, right? It often takes a lot of reflection to uncover the thought processes that lie behind our impulsive actions, right? You know, there have been times when I said something or did something or I chose a course of action that didn't turn out so well. Anybody ever been there besides me? And with regretful reflection, I've asked myself that very question. What was I thinking, right? And this is what Paul wants the Philippian saints to ask themselves. Through pride and selfish ambition, they have allowed dissension to arise within their congregation and fester among them. It has made them vulnerable to the world's opposition. It has robbed them of their joy and their experience of God's peace. They're brothers and sisters in Christ. They've been united by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. They shouldn't be looking upon one another suspiciously. They shouldn't be insisting on their own way. They shouldn't be thinking of themselves more highly than they ought. What were you thinking? That's what Paul is saying. And I'm telling you, he says, what you should have been thinking. It's clear that you weren't thinking as you should. Now, it's often been said that this is where the real battleground is. It's in the mind, right? That's where it all begins. And that's where the battle is either won or lost. It's in the mind. As Jesus says in Mark 7, 21, we're defiled by the evil thoughts that come out of our hearts. That's what he says. Murder, lust, deceit, covetousness, he gives this whole list. All things that begin with the mind, with evil thoughts. And the heart and the mind then are the source of sinful actions. And what defiles a person, Jesus says, is what comes from within. And that means we can't trust our own assessments of what's right or wrong. I can't look to myself in my own reasoning. I won't know what's right or wrong, good or evil, righteous or wicked. One reason is because we are so corrupted by sin. As Jeremiah 17 9 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Right? And as he goes on to say, Jeremiah tells us, only the Lord is able to search the heart and expose the truth because we won't tell ourselves the truth. We will lie to ourselves. And so this is David's prayer in Psalm 139. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and then lead me in the way everlasting. You see? I can't trust my own heart to make righteous and moral decisions and judgments. My deceitful heart will find all manner of ways to rationalize my thoughts and my actions, to justify my motives and my deeds. Now, we need the objective truth of God's word to lay us bare, to show us what's right from that which is wrong. As Hebrews 4.12 says, the word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword. It cuts deep, and it cuts with precision, discerning the very thoughts and intents of the heart." Well, scripture is clear. The mind of sinful man is not righteous, and it's not neutral either. It's corrupt. Dr. Seuss may have said it best. He wrote a children's book, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think, right? Of course, he was celebrating a child's imagination. But what comes to my mind is what Paul says about the ungodly at the end of Romans 1. He says they delight in inventing new ways of doing evil, novel ways of sinning. Oh, the thinks we can think, right? How true. The scripture has a lot to say about our thought life. And so this morning I want us to consider the importance of our thought life for our growth in the grace and knowledge of our Savior. It is extremely important. As Paul tells us in this passage, our thought life can undermine our experience of the joy and peace that is ours in Christ. And the battle is fought in the mind. Now, as we approach this subject, it is important to remember that there is a tension for the Christian here and now between the already and the not yet. Throughout this letter, the Apostle Paul has been encouraging us to be of the same mind, to be of one mind, to think the same way. That means it is quite possible for us to be of a divided mind, right? For us not to think the same way. And when he says that we would all think the same way, it doesn't mean that you come to think like me or I come to think like you. It's not about compromising our thoughts with one another. It's about all of us coming to think like Christ. If we're in Christ, we're no longer who we used to be. That's the reality of the salvation and redemption that's been given to us. We've been adopted into God's family. We've been made citizens of heaven. We have a new identity. We are not who we used to be. However, Scripture doesn't say that that's the end of the story. In fact, it's just the beginning. We were born into this world children of wrath, subjects of the kingdom of darkness, and therefore we have to learn what it means to live according to this new identity. And so whenever God grants the gifts of repentance and faith, we begin a lifelong journey of growth in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a journey that will not end until we see him face to face. And so the Christian life is about being transformed from one degree of glory to another as we behold the glory of our Savior. And this is what the Bible refers to then as the renewing of the mind. Whenever we come to Christ, God doesn't wipe our minds clean like a hard drive, right? We don't begin with a blank slate. We have to unlearn what it means to live as enemies of God and learn what it means to live as his beloved children. We have been born into this world with a natural disposition to be an enemy of God. We have to unlearn that. And we have to learn what it means to live as the dear children of the one who has adopted us and made us his own. And so the renewing of our minds is more like a refurbishing project. You know, there's demo days in our lives, aren't there? Times when, by God's word, he tears down those edifices that we have built up in our minds, those false ideas, those false ways of thinking. And so we're learning to disregard the old and to replace it with the new. We're learning how to think godly thoughts. We're learning righteous patterns of thought. We're learning how to focus our minds on eternal things rather than on the temporal things of earth. And this renewing of the mind, how does the Bible say it's accomplished? It's not osmosis. It doesn't happen by itself, on its own. It's not intuitive. It's through God's word. It's going to be a battle. It's going to be a struggle. I love what Peter says in chapter one, verse 13. He tells us to prepare our minds for action. Actually, literally, he says, gird up the loins of your mind. That's quite a picture. In biblical times, people wore these long flowing robes. And so when someone was just about to get serious about their work, whenever they were preparing themselves for arduous activity, they'd pull up their robe and secure it with a belt so it wouldn't get in the way. It's what we would say today, rolling up our sleeves. Let us roll up our sleeves. the sleeves of our mind, and get to work. Paul is telling us to have our minds ready for action. How do we do that? By renewing our minds on scripture. It's the word of God that must control our thinking. And this is how change occurs. As the psalmist says in 1 1911, your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. I can guarantee you this, if we don't hide his word in our hearts, that sin will be abundant in our lives against God. The only way to make progress in sanctification is by the word of God. That's the way it comes, the word of God energized by the Holy Spirit living in you, granted on the basis of Christ's work, the Holy Spirit who opens your eyes to see the word of God as the word of God. I love what Paul says to the Thessalonians. He said, I thank God that whenever you heard the gospel, when you heard the word of the Lord, you received it as it is, not the word of men, but the word of God. How many people hear the word of God and say that's just some man's opinion? Some man a long time ago wrote this down, it's his thoughts, they may be inspired thoughts, but they're not perfect, they're not holy, they're not inerrant. No, that's not the way scripture speaks of itself. That's not the way Christ speaks of scripture. And so indeed, this is what we need to know, is that this is the word of God, and it is the word of God that changes us. So as we internalize his word, it begins to direct our lives. When we renew our minds on his word, it will be reflected in the way we live. You know, so many people today want God to wave a magic wand and change them, right? But what does God call us to do? He calls us to seek him, to know him, to pursue him, and that, by the way, is eternal life, knowing the Father and Jesus Christ, whom he sent to be our redemption. That's what John says, or Jesus says in John 17 3. Well, as Paul said earlier, he himself presses on that he might know Christ in the fullness of his redemptive work, and so should we. Well, in this passage, Paul is telling us what sort of things we ought to be thinking about. In the Greek, think about is literally to consider or to calculate, to consider or to calculate. It refers to that with which we fill our minds. Think about that. that with which we fill our minds. But it denotes more than simply keeping something in mind. It actually has the nuance of dwelling on it, to taking it into account. It's sometimes used as an accounting term, to reflect carefully on it so that it begins to shape what we do and say. This is thinking about something with a view of those thoughts translating into action in our lives. And it's in the present tense, by the way. In other words, our thoughts must be continually directed towards whatever is true, whatever is honorable, just, pure, and so on. And we'll look at those virtues in due course. But for this morning, I'm simply wanting us to note the emphasis that the scripture places on our thought life. So getting our thought life under control is of great importance. Not only does it determine our actions, as we said earlier, Our minds are never really at rest. They're always thinking about something. Even when we're asleep, our minds don't sleep. They dream, right? You know, experts have tried to measure how many conscious thoughts a person has in a day, and there's not two of them, I think, that agree on the exact number, but they all say this, that it is literally thousands upon thousands. I've heard estimates of somewhere around 7,000 all the way up to 60 and 70,000. But, of course, that's their means of measuring, and we don't know what criteria they're using. But the point is, that resonates with us, does it not? We're not paying attention to our thoughts quite often, but they're always going on. Even when we're spacing out, our minds continue to work, right? Have you ever tried to not think? What do you end up doing? It's hard, isn't it? You end up thinking about not thinking. And so consciously or unconsciously, whether aware of it or not, our minds are always grinding away. There's an old saying that an idle mind is the devil's workshop, but that's not quite right. No, if it's the devil's workshop, then it's not really idle, is it? That's simply when our mind is busy inventing novel ways to sin. Now, I think it's more accurate to say something like an undisciplined mind or a wandering mind or a mind that's not focused on righteousness is the devil's workshop. But that one's not nearly as easy to remember, is it? But that's it, an undisciplined mind, a wandering mind, a mind that isn't focused on righteousness, that's the devil's workshop. He has something to work with there. Well, Paul is admonishing us to discipline our thought life. We mustn't let it run amok. And they can. Our thoughts can control us rather than we controlling them. Everywhere scripture teaches us then that we must discipline our minds It is pervasive throughout scripture. As someone once said, the mind is like a butterfly that's flittering between one flower and another, never standing still. And so whenever you try to focus your thoughts, that's when you suddenly become aware of how random and undisciplined your mind can be, right? Have you ever sat down to read the word of God or to go before the Lord in prayer only to find your mind wandering off on its own in all of these strange directions? You quickly realize how many wayward thoughts are vying for your attention. You realize how many distracting thoughts there are trying to keep you from your objective. Is the enemy at work in that? Oh, most certainly. But that's no excuse. You know, I love what Luther said. He said, entertaining those thoughts, we should be able to reject those thoughts when they come into our mind. You can't stop the enemy from injecting a thought into your mind. You certainly don't have to dwell on it. The illustration he used is, you can't stop birds from flying over your head, but you certainly don't have to let them build a nest in your hair. And so we have to discipline our minds, we have to focus our minds, we have to speak to our own minds the word of God. This is what the psalmist does. What do you think he means when he says, bless the Lord, oh my soul? He's not talking to everyone else, he's talking to himself. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. He's basically telling himself, you will bless the Lord, for that's what he is worthy of. So we have to focus our minds, renew our minds. You know, we never do what doesn't occur to us. And therefore, whatever occurs to us is of utmost importance. And herein, we're in the realm of the mind. That's why scripture has so much to say about meditating on God's word. Meditation isn't emptying your mind. That's the Eastern mystical idea of meditation. Biblical meditation is like a cow chewing its cud. You take the word of God in, you ingest it, you ponder it, you think about it, you memorize it. That's nothing wrong with memorizing scripture, not at all. And if you're not able to memorize it, you just keep reading it over and over again, right? And so the point is, is that we meditate, we think about, we ponder the word of God. Because again, herein is the battleground. And as Paul told the Corinthians, we have to take every thought captive to the word of God. Listen, you have to lasso those rebel thoughts, right? You have to get a hold of those wayward thoughts, those proud thoughts that would exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. We have to bring them into submission. to the word of God. And so this morning as we close, I want to leave you with this thought, pun intended I guess. There's an old saying, you are what you eat. And scripture agrees with that. Paul is telling us to fill our minds, as we will see next time, with godly attributes. To fill our minds with God's virtues. Whatever we take in, whatever we feed our minds becomes evident in the way we live. We were created, what does the scripture say? To live by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. That's the bread from heaven. That's the bread from heaven. In the Old Testament, the manna was simply pointing forward to Christ, the word made flesh, who is the bread from heaven. And so we do not live by bread alone, earthly bread, but by every word that comes forth from our God. And again, that's why we're commanded to meditate upon his word. We need a mental diet that is rich in scripture. This is what's wrong with so many who claim to be Christians today who have no idea what it means to live like a Christian. They're living solely on feelings, on emotions, and there's nothing substantial to feed their souls. We have to have a diet rich in scripture. You know, computer programmers have a saying, garbage in, garbage out, right? In other words, if your programming is all garbage, then all your results are going to be garbage. No good at all. And that's true for us. Think about our diet, our mental diet. What do we take in? What do we think about? What do we watch? What do we listen to? You know, the world seems to have free access to our minds for six whole days, and then for just an hour or two on the Lord's Day, we come in and think that that's enough to sustain us? No. As the Puritans were often fond of saying, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. That's the food we need, the food of his word. And so indeed, you can't gorge yourself on a diet of worldliness and expect to grow in holiness. It will not happen. As Proverbs 4.23 says, we have to guard our hearts with all vigilance for everything we do flows from it. I like what one translation said, be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life. This is why Joshua tells the people of God to meditate on God's word day and night. That's what it takes to grow in grace. Do you want to grow in grace and knowledge of our Savior? This is what it takes to strengthen our walk. This is what it takes if we would glorify God in all that we do and say. And so my prayer for all of us, myself included, today. May our God give us the grace and strength to discipline our minds. May he give us an appetite for feasting on his word. May he grant this to us that we need not say regretfully, what was I thinking? May the word of God be evident in our lives. May it be seen that we have been thinking in accordance with the revealed will of our great God and Savior. This should be our prayer, and this should be our goal. May God grant it, and to Him be glory forever and ever.