Cultivating a Christian Mindset, Part 2

If you would take your Bibles
and turn back to Philippians chapter 4 and back to Philippians
chapter 4 verse 8, where we left off just last week. I took a stab at an illustration
and at least with one individual apparently didn’t quite connect. And so I will briefly try to
explain my illustration that led us into this passage last
week. The illustration was fairly simple.
There was a man down in Denver, saw his car being entered by
a woman, approached the car. The woman closed and locked the
doors. started the car and began to drive off and the man with
no other recourse jumped on top of the car and held on to the
hood for at least 13 blocks and they said in speeds up to 50
plus miles per hour. Ultimately, he fell off. He was
injured. The car continued north all the way to Wyoming. They caught the woman, threw
her in jail. The man is recovering in the
hospital. The point was simply this. A lot of times, that is
like our mind. The funny thing about this whole
story, unique, I should say, or strange, not funny, but the
man had left his keys in the car. My suggestion last week
is that’s what we do with our minds. Whenever we divest them
of worry, it’s like leaving our keys in the car if we don’t fill
our minds with something else. Because worry and concern and
doubt and sinful thought is going to enter in and is going to steal
the car of our mind if we don’t fill our mind. Now, you’ve got me confused. If you don’t fill your mind with
something else. This is a simple illustration. If you would, let’s go back to
this passage that we began last week where Paul is urging us
To replace a mind and a heart filled with worry. Given over
in prayer, as we have seen in previous weeks. But now to be
filled up a mind to be filled up with things far better than
worry. Philippians chapter four, verse
eight and nine. Finally, brethren. Whatever is
true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is
pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute. if there is
any excellence, and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind
dwell on these things. The things you have learned and
received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and
the God of peace shall be with you.” We are to be about the
business as a Christian of cultivating a Christian mindset. Not just
doctrine, Not just right thinking, but we are to cultivate good
things in our mind, the right kinds of things in our mind,
because ultimately, as we saw, spiritual stability or steadfastness
is dependent largely on how we think. Proverbs 23, 7, As a man
thinks within himself, so he is. You cannot rise above your
thoughts. You are going to be no better
than the level of your thinking. As I suggested last week, this
world that is a difficult and greatly vile place to live, so
much sin and so much sinful thought, it is not an easy thing that
Paul calls us to. In this world, A life of godliness
is difficult to sustain. And it takes a constant watchfulness
over our lives in order to sustain that even by God’s grace. We
are constantly under attack. We are constantly under a barrage
of the world’s influence, not to mention the devil himself
and our ever wayward flesh, right? Our secular world and the hedonistic
society in which we live. This culture of corruption that
we find ourselves placed into, inserted into in the world, but
not of the world. Can be misleading and we can
be misled and we can be debilitated, we can be weakened. And so we need constant vigilance.
We need a constant watchfulness and we need to cultivate a Christian
mindset. I suggested to you last week
that this is not to be the final word on every Christian virtue.
These eight things that Paul points to. It’s not as if Paul
is saying, look, if you just do these eight. Focus on these
eight. Use it as a checklist. Go through. And if you focus on what is true
this year, then you can move on to what is honorable next.
That’s not at all what Paul is saying. Paul is saying that a
virtuous mindset begins with these. But this is just the beginning.
These are just. facets, as it were, of the gem
of Christ likeness. But we began last week and I’ll
just review briefly that it is a mindset. It is thinking that
Paul is mostly concerned with. Paul has been concerned throughout
the epistle of the Philippians, as we’ve said, with our mindset,
because Paul knew Paul knew from his own heart, Paul knew from
human nature that if he could correct the thinking, then the
life would flow out. No wonder Paul says, finally,
brethren, let your mind dwell on these things. That’s the main
thought of verse eight. Let your mind dwell on these
things. Focus your attention, your mind.
This is once again a call, just like he has given throughout
the epistle, a command, if you will, to write thinking. Straighten
out your thinking is essentially what he says. Typically, the
mind is focused on the flesh. It is depraved. It is wayward. But in Christ, we have our minds
corrected. Not unlike Nebuchadnezzar, not
unlike the Gerasene demoniac, who were both ultimately seen
as being in their right mind. And the Christian, by God’s grace,
is in his right mind. The Christian has his thinking
corrected. He now sees himself for who he
is, a sinner desperately in need of God’s grace. And he sees God
for who he is, the almighty creator in control of everything. And
he sees the Savior. His thinking is corrected. I
repeat Martin Lloyd Jones’s words from last week, that is the life
of faith, he said. Faith, according to our Lord’s
teaching, is primarily thinking. And the whole trouble with the
man of little faith is that he does not think. And it can rightly
be said from that, that the man outside of Christ doesn’t think
at all. He isn’t using his mind. Lloyd-Jones goes on to say, he
allows circumstances to bludgeon him. That is the real difficulty
in life. Life comes to us with a club
in his hand and strikes us upon the head and we become incapable
of thought, hopeless and defeated. If that sounds familiar, then
your thinking is off. If you are not currently in Christ
and you don’t have a Godward focus, then your mind is not
operating at full capacity. He goes on and says the way to
avoid that, according to the Lord, is to think. We must spend
more time studying because Christian faith is essentially thinking
the trouble with most people, however, is that they will not
think. And that is the essence of worry, faith can be defined
as this. It is a man insisting upon thinking
when everything seems to be determined to bludgeon him and knock him
down. And that is where we get caught up. That’s when we leave
the car door open and the keys in the lock. And that’s when our mind is hijacked
and taken and taken by worry and taken by thought is because
we’ve ceased to think. We’ve ceased to fill it with
good things. We’ve ceased to meditate upon God and who he
is and upon good and pure things. Because of that, we’re called
once again here by Paul to clear thinking, to thinking upon what
is good and right, As I told you last week, it isn’t
just the rest of Paul’s epistles where he frequently addresses
the thoughtful Christian, but here in Philippians time after
time, which tells me that in this culture of Macedonia, there
was so much pressure on the Philippian church, so much misinformation. So much godlessness that Paul,
especially for the Philippian church, was mindful that their
hearts and their minds needed to be altered and adjusted according
to God. Let your mind dwell on these
things was Paul’s admonition, his great admonition to the Philippian
church. Because of that, he says, essentially,
we are to consider mull over, think upon, esteem everything
that is right and good and true and not leave the car door open
and not leave the keys in the ignition. We’re to think. One pastor said it this way.
He said, of course, In all of our ways, it is important that
we should never permit our minds to feed like the carry on vultures
on the wicked, filthy and unholy things of the flesh. He looks
at this passage and says that much is patently obvious. We
know we’re not supposed to think on those things, the things that
used to occupy our mind, the things that used to occupy that
place of worship for us, really. A place of idolatry. He goes
on and says this is thoroughly natural to the carnal man. And
the carnal mind is still in the believer, and it will be until
the day when our bodies of humiliation are changed. But we are not to
permit it to dominate us. What he says is those things
are constantly going to press. We cannot forget what we’ve seen. We cannot forget what we thought
about. We cannot forget completely our
old ways. Especially when the world is
constantly reminding us. But he says we must not permit
it to dominate us. Since the Holy Spirit dwells
in us to control us for the sake of Christ. We can’t capitulate,
we can’t give over, so we must adjust our thinking. And he goes
on to say that there are a great many people that misunderstand
what Paul is saying here in this passage toward that very end. Listen to what he says. Many
have missed the very point. By taking all these things in
an abstract way, what is true, what is honorable, and you just
think about true things, honorable things, just those words and
letting them mull through your head as if that’s going to do
anything. What he basically says there is we need concrete examples. of each one of these things.
We need to constantly be thinking about what is true. What kinds
of things are true? What is truth? He goes on to say, we found exceedingly
difficult to think on things true, honest, just, pure, and
lovely if there be not some definite, concrete examples before the
mind. Paul wasn’t just saying, think
on true things. Think about true, whatever true
is. Paul said, you know what? You need to put some truth before
your minds. You need to put what is honorable
and just and right before your minds. You need to have concrete
examples of each. We began to look at these last
week. First of all, regarding true, obviously it refers to
doctrine, but it also means to truth. It also speaks rather
to truth in our life. Truth is opposed to falsehood
and speculation. Thinking on what is true and
real as opposed to what is just hypothetical and fearful. As we know, God and His Word
is the standard of truth. Whatever is true then in our
lives, whatever is true in thought or true indeed, ultimately orients
itself in God, right? These things focusing on whatever
is true, as we saw last week, obviously, would include reading
and meditating upon God’s word, since it is the truth. But it
is also focusing on truth as opposed to error. What is true
as opposed to what is speculation in our minds, tending to fear,
fear of the unknown, fearful of things that could not may
not ever come to be. We are to focus on what is true
also as to what is merely possible, speculating about all those things
that could possibly happen to us instead of focusing on what
is true and right and good. Now that God is in control. The God is good and that God
will give to us what we need, that all things work together
for good for him. Who is in Christ? Is it true? Secondly, we looked
at what is honorable, honorable as opposed to dishonorable. What
we using that old word venerable. We are to focus our minds on
those things that are worthy of our consideration as opposed
to what is just bumbling and frivolous, unbecoming of a Christian
to spend his time thinking about, unworthy of our thought efforts. We’re to bring our moral and
thought life above those foolish things and not wallow as it were
as a pig in the mud, thinking about things that we hadn’t ought
think. Things that Paul says shouldn’t
even be mentioned. This qualification is cited for
deacons and and and for elders as well, that these are to be
men that are honorable, not worthy of being worshiped, but worthy
of being honored as a dignified individual, carrying themselves
above the fray and slop and foolishness of the world. As one described
it, it contains the idea of being serious in mind as well as character. Not silly or flippant or one
who makes light of serious matters, but one who carries themselves
in a dignified manner. Frivolity, said one by way of
reminder, is the great aversion of men. The great aversion of men by
nature to seriousness of thought and feeling, that’s where most
people operate. They don’t want to be serious.
They don’t want to think about serious things. They don’t want
to think about the hard questions of life. They don’t want to think
about eternity. That basically describes what
an unbeliever is. The Christian. has been enabled
by God’s grace to overcome this hindrance. He’s learned to take
the unseen world into his calculations and all of his world becomes
focused upon those grave things. We are to be dignified. We’re
to be those who think about dignified things. Thirdly, we’re to think
about what is right. Not necessarily here righteous. He could have. Paul could have
used that word righteous, but it is the core of that word.
It’s what is right. And in a society that is entirely
subjective about right and wrong, it behooves us as Christians
to know what is right and think about what is right and focus
and dwell on what is right. And it is always in God’s estimation. God is the one that determines
that standard. God is the one that sets the
standard of doing right. Laying out what that is for us.
As I said last week, our culture, these godless people that we
know, they know ultimately what is right. They just don’t have
the grace to live accordingly to it. They cannot live according
to what is right. But for the Christian, For the
one and dwelled by the Holy Spirit of God, for the one that has
God’s truth before him in his word. We must we must focus on
what is right, not only in our minds, but in our lives, letting
it bleed out in all that we do. Fourthly, what is pure, whatever
is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is
pure. And that word obviously points to what is morally pure,
chaste, holiness in both word and deed. It goes beyond just
mere modesty, as we saw last week. One described it that whatever
things are pure, which are neither tainted nor corrupt, free from
all debasing elements, which would include our thought life,
our motives, our attitudes. We are called to focus on what
is pure, As opposed to what is impure and in an ungodly culture
like the Philippians were in, not unlike the ungodly culture
that we are in. This takes active mental effort. It means turning off the TV if
need be. It means walking away from conversations
if need be. It means cutting friendships
if need be. We are to think upon what is
pure. And if there are those things that are impacting and
negatively influencing our minds to where thinking pure thought
becomes a difficulty, where it becomes a trouble for us, then
we are to take whatever steps in our life we need to take in
order to maintain a pure life, a life of purity and thought
and speech and deed. And then fifthly, Paul points
to this little quality that I merely introduced last week. We are
to let our mind dwell on not only what is true and honorable,
right and pure, but we are to let our mind dwell on whatever
is lovely. And I challenged you men, and
I gave you an extra week because there’s There’s got to
be some admission here that we don’t typically wake up and say,
how can I make myself more lovely today? But that really is the
command that’s at least inherent in it. There’s somewhat of a
difficulty here because the word lovely, this particular word
is used nowhere else in Scripture. It basically means to be pleasing
or amiable, whatever calls forth love from others. And so lovely
is that whatever or whoever is lovable, engendering affection. And when you think of it, there
are some very concrete examples to be able to put before our
mind. But ultimately, as with each of these qualities, we are
not only to set our mind on those things, but it is plainly obvious
here that we are to cultivate those virtues in our own lives.
When Paul says whatever is true, we’re obviously to cultivate
truthfulness. When Paul says whatever is honorable,
we’re obviously supposed to focus on that, but we’re supposed to
cultivate a dignified life of our own. When Paul says that
we are to let our mind dwell on what is right, are we not
supposed to do and be and think what is right? We are same thing
with purity and the same thing here with what is lovely. When
our minds begin to focus on what is lovely, we can immediately
think of God. God is lovely. God engenders
love. God calls us with everything
in our being to look up to him in just a love gratitude. A thankfulness to God that issues
forth just in praise in all that we do and think and say. Our
Savior is lovely, one who would go to the cross and pay our price
while we were yet sinners, that is a lovely Savior. I know it
isn’t a word that we don’t that we use often, especially in men’s
vocabulary to talk about what is lovely. We kind of blush.
Our church, the saints, God’s people are lovely. God has begun
to work in them. And it isn’t so much because
of them. You know, we’re all kind of a little quirky. All
got some rough edges, all unfinished, and yet God has begun to work
in us. And because of that, we are lovely. We ought to be lovely
to one another. Our families are lovely. Some
more lovely than others, but they’re lovely to us. They are
supposed to be lovely to us. They are supposed to engender
love for us. It’s called natural affection
in the Scriptures. Our country. Say what you will. Our country is a lovely country.
For those of you who have traveled outside of the country, you soon
find out how lovely our country is. And I’m not just talking
about the God given beauty to it, but all that we have done
and all that we have accomplished as a country, all that we stand
for or much of what we stand for our city. Our city is a lovely
city. Most people. Fight and quibble
to kind of try to move here and great place to live. Top ten
year after year and all the votes. But those things, all of those
things beginning with God and coursing down to whatever it
is that you look out on and see as lovely are supposed to stir
us to cultivate that same loveliness. And that’s where we fall short.
Trey encouraged the other night that we’re to be looking for
the good in others, we are to be looking for the giftedness.
How is God gifted others? And that is true. We’re also
supposed to look at them with a view to what we love about
them. What do we love about each other?
What can we love about each other? See, sometimes we as Christians
forget about manners. We forget about the fact that
God’s grace should make us gracious people. We forget that a Christian
is to adorn the doctrine of God Second, Titus 2.10, we too are
to cultivate. It’s not just that we are to
sit back and think on these things and admire and appreciate all
that is lovely in the world and let it have no effect on us.
It should change us. We too should be those that inspire
admiration and love in others. As one defined it, It signifies
what is dear to anyone or what has such a quality as engages
affection, stirring the affections. Men get this. We are to stir
the affections of our brothers in Christ. Whatever the modes,
he goes on, whatever the modes of action tend to endear him
that does them to give him with others, not simply the approval
of their judgment, but to open for him a place in their hearts. That’s how we’re supposed to
live, we’re supposed to live lovely lives, we’re supposed
to live lives that endear the affections of others and not
just our brothers. He goes on to say, whatever things
breathe the spirit of Christian love and the doing of which should
be worshiped to him who is loved. In other words, we are to live
lives that prompt others to worship our God because of what they
see in us. For the Philippians, what a tall
order. This vile Roman society, harsh, abrasive, crude and rude,
kind of like a combination of New York City and maybe San Francisco
all rolled into one. And Paul tells them, be lovely,
won’t you think about lovely things and go be lovely. Do you
think they just immediately scratched that one off their list? Yeah,
right. As I said, this isn’t something
to which we, especially men, but I would even say largely
as a Christian society in America, it isn’t something that we typically
aspire to. With women, it comes a little
more naturally. They are lovely pretty much by nature. The problem is, for men particularly,
is we don’t care, right? We don’t care if anybody likes
us. That’s kind of how we live. We kind of like to live a little
rough and tumble, throw the elbows, you know, stick our chin out.
We’ll take our positions. We’re going to own them. We’re
going to stand on them. And I don’t care if you like me. I’m going
to live how I want to live. That’s really it, isn’t it? We
don’t care if we’re lovable. But we should. It says so right
here. So this is a problem, especially
for us men, right off. We don’t care what people think. And we should. There should be in the Christians
life a change of focus. Whereas before we didn’t discriminate
what we loved, we looked at what we wanted to look at, we esteemed
what we esteemed. We really didn’t care what others
beheld in us. We just lived. Well, as a Christian,
all that changes, or at least it should. We should have our
focus changed. We should care. That in us, others
see what is good and lovely and such. Many of you know about my, up
to this point, secret book idea. I talk about it all the time.
I don’t know why I call it a secret. Someday I’ll write it, maybe.
I’ll spare you that. Well, I won’t spare you the title.
This title that I came up with years ago was How Not to Be a
Pain in the Neck. The idea behind it is that we
don’t use our role as our capacity, I guess, as consumers. We don’t use it enough as a tool
or even a weapon for evangelism. I’ll tell you what I mean by
that. What if as consumers, as men, we sought to be lovely with
all those with whom we do business? I see some shifting in a seat
that is guilt motivated. What if the mechanic or the waitress
or the customer service person looked forward to seeing us simply
because of how we carry ourselves as their customers, as how we
treat them as their customers, because we’re lovely in all that
we do. From what I’ve observed in my
own life and in the life of others, at the very most, we’re simply
nice. We’re polite. We’ll give our
coffee order. We’ll say please and thank you.
And then we’re on about our day, right? That’s how we deal with
most people. They’re nothing more than a than
an apron or a shirt. But we don’t do anything with
that niceness. We ought to be so nice. We ought
to be so lovely that it opens the door for us to waltz right
in and say, look, I’m this way for a reason. I didn’t used to
be this way. God saved me and so on, and there
is your open door. Someday I’ll write a book. But
we are called men and women, we are called to be lovely. We
are called to think about and dwell on what is lovely and we’re
called to cultivate that in our own lives. Number six, whatever
is worthy of pardon me, whatever is of good repute. Whatever is
of good repute here, the NIV once again has a good job here
of translating admirable. Literally, it means well speaking
or expressing what is kind and likely to win other people. And
so it is a parallel thought to what Paul has just expressed.
Now, it is not only does it engender love, but actually people are
actually talking about it. What people are actually talking
about is what what is good should be in our thought life, what
is good and right and pure and just. Shouldn’t we? Shouldn’t we be
on their list of good things to talk about? Shouldn’t other
Christians be on your list as you see God’s work of grace cultivating
these excellencies within them? Shouldn’t that be on our topic
of conversation? It should be. And we should be
on theirs. It means to be sweetly spoken
of, not just well spoken of, but well reputed. Well thought
of. Not just somebody taking a stab
in the dark to say something kind about you, but knowing you
and knowing your character and seeing God’s grace so strongly
in you that you become the topic of conversation. As one said it, whatever things
upon being seen lead all who behold them to to explain, well
done. or indicate on the part of the
one doing them such elements of characters are usually admired
and well spoken of, deeds that sound well upon being named,
chivalrous generosity, meek condescension, a great feat, a noble idea. In other words, It is it occurs
when one speaks well of another, provides a good report and the
personal aspiration to be that person of whom others speak well. Be someone of whom others can
speak, well, what a great admonition. Be the kind of Christian through
your hard work, through your good effort, through your sportsmanship,
through how you carry yourselves in the marketplace. Be that one
that the customer service agent says, let me wait on her. What a transforming idea for
a city, what a transforming idea for society. There is a seventh. Paul says,
finally, brethren, let your mind dwell on whatever is true, honorable,
right, pure, lovely, of good repute. If there is any excellence,
and when he says any, he’s not looking for the infinitesimal
amount. He’s not indicating doubt here
as if to say even if there’s just a tiny little bit of excellence.
Find the least tiny bit. Instead, what he’s pointing to
anything at all that is of excellent quality. It’s an interesting
thing here. Paul doesn’t use this word anywhere
else in all of his writings. In fact, the word was so common,
though, that it has led most commentators to surmise that
Paul had a problem with this word. He didn’t like this word.
This word in the Greek culture. was essentially the prominent
word for moral excellence. And it was a very common word
in heathen philosophy. It was a commonly used word in
society to speak of someone who had done something good or someone
who was humanly good. And so Paul seems to purposely
avoid using this word almost ever, except here. Because Paul
didn’t want to slip into this whole moralism thing seems to
be the reason that for his avoidance of this word, Paul didn’t want
to applaud self congratulating self effort. One described his avoidance in
these terms, he says, the apostle uses this word nowhere else.
It had been too much debased and soiled in some of the schools
and ideas were oftentimes attached to it very different from that
moral excellence of the Christian life. And so you had Paul basically
standing back, not using, not wanting to use this word. But
here. Paul uses the word. Precisely
because it was prominent in heathen culture, All these Philippian
ideas about this intrinsic excellence and they weren’t Paul didn’t
want them to completely set them aside. Paul told the church to
look for these things, look for anything that is morally excellent
and think upon those things. It is not unlike our modern word
character. And sometimes we in the Christian
circles, we shy back from the whole word character as if there
can’t be anything good outside of the Christian life. There can be goodness, human
goodness. And we are to applaud those things.
We are to recognize those things. Those things can be the seed
that grows in the life of an unbeliever into seeing that they
cannot possibly generate this goodness from within. The word here is used in a wide,
great sense of moral excellence. And who more? Who more to engender
those thoughts of what is morally excellent than a Christian? We
should take this character quality and run with it. We should be
those who are looked upon and viewed upon as being morally
excellent because we have been redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. Outside of that, there is effort. You can’t say that
no non-Christian man has ever failed to do a good thing. People
do good things all the time, but it’s their point of orientation
that is off. They’re not doing it as unto
God’s glory. They’re not doing it by the grace
of God. They just happen to get one little
thing right. bravery, excellence, hard work. All of those things can be achieved
by those outside of Christ. We’re not giving anything away
by using this term, and neither was Paul, to say that we are
to look for anything that is excellent and anything worthy
of praise. It’s not going to harm our cause for the Gospel
to commend someone for their hard work if they’re not in Christ. Peter was less shy about using
this word. Peter used the term of God, 1
Peter 2.9, the excellencies of him who has called you out of
darkness into his marvelous light. Peter wasn’t afraid to use the
word because he uses it again in 2 Peter and he uses it of
us. He said, for this very reason, applying all diligence in your
faith, supply moral excellence in your moral excellence knowledge.
Obviously, with Peter, a Christian could aspire to this moral excellence. As I said before, aspiration
to moral excellence is not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing for
a person in our society to desire to be good, to desire to do right,
to desire to work hard. To us, that’s the moment of opportunity
to step in and say, let me give you the fuel for your tank. Let
me tell you where the capacity to live a truly God pleasing
life comes from. Now, believers. They know that if there is any
of this moral excellence, it is by God’s grace in our lives.
And because of that, we ought to acknowledge more of this,
especially in other believers, not just because of them so much.
But because it is a work of God, as I said earlier, we are to
look for other believers and regularly ask ourselves, what
is the most prominent grace that this saint exhibits? Would it
be wrong to tell them Would it be wrong to thank God for working
that in and through their lives? We should recognize and acknowledge
that we should encourage that in them. Brother, I see that
you are such a gentle man. You are so prayerful. God, thank
you for this person’s diligence. They never quit. You know, whenever I’m down,
you are an encourager to me. Is it wrong to acknowledge someone
for being a servant? Or being faithful? Or to acknowledge
someone who exhibits a great measure of godliness? It’s right
and good, and especially in this society, to approach someone
and say, you know what? You are a model of modesty in
a culture that has gone the wrong way. You are peaceable. The church can’t survive without
that. What about approaching someone?
Who has conquered the sin of gossip and saying, I appreciate
you because of your purity of speech. I appreciate your selflessness. Thank God for your patience.
Thank God for your perseverance. Those are the things that Paul
says we’ve got to fill our mind with. We’ve got to look at each
other in such a way and acknowledge because of what God has done. The moral excellence. That is
all about us. Finally. Paul says, let your
mind dwell on whatever is true and honorable, right and pure,
lovely of good repute. If there is any excellence in
anything worthy of praise. Obviously, it isn’t what Paul
isn’t saying here is that we’re supposed to go live our lives
to to gather in the praise of others. But it’s not wrong to
live a good and godly life that ultimately causes someone else
to thank God and to praise God for his work in our life. It isn’t doing something, in
other words, in order to merit or elicit praise from others. It starts with the observation,
the recognition, the acknowledgement of praise in God’s world, in
the church or in others praise for all that God is doing. You
see, for the Philippians, they had much for which to praise
God, didn’t they? They had seen a church begun, an astounding
organism of God planted by the river with just a few ladies. We don’t know exactly how big
it had gotten, but it had gotten big enough that Paul turned his
attention and wrote a major epistle to them. The church had seen
sinners saved, the church had seen gifts of the saints unleashed
for ministry. The church had seen divine protection
against unruly government and ungodly society, there was much
for the Philippian church to give praise to God. And in doing so for us again,
what we’re doing here is recognizing God’s effort. We can acknowledge
what he’s done in and through others, and it’s not wrong to
do that to another individual. But ultimately, it’s the praise
that God desires to hear from us. It is acknowledging God’s
work in others Here, Paul takes us far beyond that. To God’s
praiseworthy work in the world, the blessings that we enjoy,
the peace that we enjoy, the laws that protect us, the prayers
that He answers, the provision and sustenance of His people,
and every day, every day for the salvation that we enjoy in
Christ. There is much. There is much
to focus our hearts and mind on praise. There is much that
is worthy of praise. As one pastor said, anything
at all that is a matter of moral and spiritual excellence so that
it so that it is the object of the proper object of praise,
it is the right pasture for the Christian mind to graze in. I
love that. Because there’s a lot of places
where the Christian mind can go and graze that are quite improper. It is the right pasture for the
Christian mind to graze in the virtue of which the apostle speaks
is the fruit which grows on the tree of salvation. Goodness is
the highest spiritual sense proceeds from faith is done according
to God’s law and his glory. What Paul calls us to do here. is not just to empty our minds.
As I said two weeks ago, if he had just said and wagged his
finger, don’t worry, that is one of the most harsh statements
in all of Scripture. But he doesn’t say, don’t worry,
be happy. He said, don’t worry, pray to
God. And in the meantime, fill your car, take the keys, fill
your mind with these things. Fill your mind with true thoughts
and honorable thoughts, things of good repute, excellent things,
praiseworthy things. As one Puritan pastor said, bear
in mind constantly. That a life of truthfulness and
justice and purity is made up of daily and hourly acts characterized
by these virtues. His life is a godly life who
remembers that life is made up of days and hours, and the acts
performed in days and hours, who is always thoughtful and
always watchful and always prayerful, and from whose heart, purified
by grace, there exhales a fragrance of heaven to pervade whatever
things God’s providence brings. The wise Christian will bring
his Christianity into all the details of his daily life. That’s what Paul asks us to do.
Let’s ask God for his grace to do just that. A gracious God in this familiar,
even common passage where so many have found comfort, we have
found New thoughts and new reasons to praise you. Father, we thank
you and praise you for the fact that we do not have to live empty
minded lives, but there is so much that a lifetime could not. Could not exhaust. All the great
and glorious things that you have for our mind to dwell on.
Lord God, we do pray for the grace to adjust our thinking.
We do pray that you would take away worry and anxiety from us.
Lead us into a life relationship of prayer with you, a communion
with you that does not stop. And grant us the grace to fill
our minds with these and other good things. That we would be
found as useful vessels. Vessels that glorify you in all
that we do. We thank you and we praise you.
It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen.