A Life Anchored in Christ | Chad Lewis | Philippians 4:1-9

Thank you for joining us for a sermon from Sojourn North.

Well, I'd like for you to think with me about this atmospheres.

There are times when you can walk into a room, not know anything that's gone on before you got into that room, and you can tell the atmosphere of the room.

Have you felt that before?

Where you walk into a room and you're like, it feels cold and tense in here.

I'm not sure what was going on before I got in here, but I'm sure it was no good.

I'm sure it was no good.

And you just feel the tension.

You may feel it right now.

It's like, I hope you don't feel it right now, because you're welcome here.

But other times you can walk into a room and maybe no one's saying anything, but you're like, oh, this is a good place.

There's a lightness of spirit here.

This feels good.

This atmosphere's good.

Well, just like there's atmospheres in rooms, there's atmospheres in churches and schools and homes and workplaces, there are atmospheres that we can talk about in our soul.

Our soul has an atmosphere.

And I have a few descriptors of that.

Sometimes the atmosphere of our soul is fear.

Sometimes it's urgency.

And so you're just moving with compulsion.

I gotta do, I gotta do something, I gotta do something.

Sometimes the atmosphere is comparison.

It's like always just looking, oh, well, they're doing this.

Oh, I'm better than this person.

Whoa, they're better than me, and that's not a great place to be.

Sometimes it can be an atmosphere of resentment or bitterness.

And this is sometimes things that we wake up to.

It's not where like we sit down consciously and make a list and say, okay, I want to be bitter today, so what are five things I can do?

All right, let me get my sticky notes out.

All right, check, now I'm bitter.

It's just, it happens.

It just emerges, right?

But sometimes we find our souls at peace.

Sometimes there's an atmosphere of gentleness or hope or trust.

It can be all sorts of things.

It can be different from day to day, and truly, even in the time of one day, the atmosphere of your soul can shift to many different places.

It can be like this.

And depending on how you're wired and how you're made up, if you're like me, my atmosphere of my soul can be woo.

And I just I just seek to notice it and ride the waves.

But in this passage today, to look at it, I want us to ask this question because I believe it's kind of what Paul is asking us is what atmosphere fuels your heart?

What is filling your heart?

What's the atmosphere of your heart today?

And then what's the atmosphere of your heart most days?

And as you look this week to be able to slow down and pay attention, because a lot of times we don't pay attention to what's going on underneath the hood.

We just keep going and we just keep going.

But to slow and to interrupt and say, Lord, what's what's going on in here?

And in today's passage, we're going to see a beautiful progression that Paul names that we often don't experience.

In verse 5, he's going to say, the Lord is near.

Sometimes we sense the Lord's nearness, sometimes we don't.

He seems like he's a million miles away.

In verse 7, we're going to see the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

There are times we might experience that and times where we just feel like there's nothing guarding our minds and hearts.

And then verse 9, amazingly, it says, the God of peace will be with you.

And that's extraordinary because we desire peace in our souls.

We desire peace in our relationships.

And the promise is the God of peace is near us and he will be near us.

So with that in mind, if you wish, I'd invite you to stand for the reading of God's Word.

We're in the last chapter of Philippians.

We'll do the first half this week and we'll finish next week.

But as we've been going through these weeks, it's been Christ is the center, Christ is the center, circumstances, relationships.

Last week we looked at Christ reshapes when he's at the center, how we view and how we live in relationship to the past, to the present, and the future.

And this week Paul writes this.

So then, my dearly loved and longed-for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown, in this manner stand firm, dear friends.

I urge you, Odia, and I urge Centiki to agree in the Lord.

Yes, I also ask you, true partner, to help those women who have contended for the gospel at my right side, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

I will say it again, rejoice.

Let your graciousness be known to everyone.

The Lord is near.

Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any moral excellence, and if there is anything praiseworthy, dwell on these things.

Do what you have learned and received and heard from me and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

This is the word of the Lord.

Maybe seated.

So as we move into this, we've been saying throughout this whole series, and we want to say it all the time as we engage with Scripture, is where do I find myself in this story?

And what is going to stick to my heart as we listen to the Holy Spirit, as you've been prayed for even before you entered this room this morning?

Lord, what are you speaking to my heart?

Well, the first point of our outline as we look at verses one through three is that Christ steadies our relationships.

And if you look at verse one, think about the words that Paul uses for the relationships of the people he's talking with.

If you slow down, it's amazing.

Just read verse one again.

He says, So then, my dearly loved, man, I dearly love you.

Doesn't that mean a lot?

He says, My dearly loved and longed for.

We know that he's away because he's writing as he's in prison.

I love you dearly and I long for your presence.

This is the heart with which Paul is writing.

He says, for brothers and sisters, and then he gives them this description: my joy and my crown.

There is a lot of love in Paul for the people he's writing.

He adores them.

And he says this in this matter, in this manner, I'm sorry, stand firm in the Lord, dear friends.

Once again, he calls them dear friends.

And as he tells them to stand firm, what's the next thing that he writes?

Well, he writes about relational tension in the community.

And so this is something I need you to remember is that if you hear someone pronounce names like Euodia and Centiki, I have no idea how to say their names.

It's like, well, you got a degree of pasture undergrad, so surely you know how to say those.

I don't know.

I don't remember professors pronouncing these names.

We could call them E and S if we want to, but Euodia and Centicki.

Let's look at who they are.

He is saying in this passage, don't be anxious, don't worry.

But what is one of the biggest things that causes anxiety in the church?

Well, conflict.

And here he's writing to them, and he's saying, These two women who aren't just on the outskirts of the churches, what is the description he uses for them?

Who have contended for the gospel at my side?

These were women who had contended with Paul, that were ones who proclaimed the gospel, who who shared the gospel, who exhibited the gospel in their lives, who modeled it.

And we don't know, and I think it's a grace a lot of times when the scriptures don't give us too much, because if we heard what they were arguing about or what their conflict was, we'd probably miss the conflict and start talking about what the actual conflict was.

His main point is that there's a conflict.

And what is his admonition?

Does he say, tell them to get along?

He doesn't say that at all.

He doesn't say work it out.

He admonishes them with community.

He says, agree in the Lord.

He's saying, come back to the center of what you agree on, and it's the Lord.

He's trying to set their focus, remember, setting our focus throughout the whole book of Philippians, that Christ is the center of our circumstances.

Our circumstances will rock us, but as Christ is the center, it brings down the heaviness and the weight of our circumstances, even though we will be feeling weight and heaviness.

But when Christ is the center, it changes our perspective.

And he says, tell them to agree in the Lord.

And so Christ studies our relationships, and this is the reality.

Where there are people, there will be conflict.

Too often we don't even talk about that.

If you're married, will there be conflict in your marriage?

There will be.

A plus B equals C.

And what Paul is saying is think this way and practice this way.

He's saying, make this the modality of your life.

And as you do, you'll see fruit.

And if you will, I want you to look at verses four through seven with me again, because there is much richness right here.

And I want to look at each phrase.

He says, Rejoice in the Lord always.

I will say it again, rejoice.

So this is a rhythm of life.

This isn't you do it one time and then you come back next year and try it again.

The desire is that this can be a daily thing.

Rejoice.

It's a posture towards God with gratefulness, rejoicing, having joy in the gospel, Lord, that I've been saved.

And then in verse 5 it says, Let your graciousness be known to everyone.

So he's saying, act in this manner.

And we don't always feel like being gracious, but act in graciousness, in community.

And you have to be in community to do that.

And then he gives us a promise to remember the Lord is near.

The Lord is near.

He's here with us.

And then he hits us with something that I think is, I think, like I said last week, that's a very much taken out of context verse when people say, forget what lies behind, press forward to say, you don't have to worry about your past, never think about your past.

It's like, no, that's not what Paul's saying at all.

Paul talks about his past all the time.

If you want more information on that, uh go back to last week's sermon.

But this is taken out of context a lot.

Because we have to see the whole.

It says in verse 6, don't worry about anything.

Other translations say, be anxious for nothing.

And what I've seen is I've seen people take this in my lifetime and lifetimes before me.

Not that I've lived a life before this one.

This is my first life.

That sounded weird, but I've read that historically people have used this as a bat or as a club, and they say, Are you anxious?

Are you anxious?

You feeling anxious?

Be anxious for nothing.

Boom.

Are you worrying about something?

They do a little pump fake on that one.

Is Paul saying, if you feel anxiety, you're sinning?

He's not saying that because we know Jesus was anxious and never sinned.

It's like this in your anger, don't sin.

Anger's natural, it's a feeling.

Anxiety is a natural feeling.

If you're in the middle of the road and cars are zipping by and you're standing there, should you feel some anxiety and worry?

I hope so.

Or you got something you need to go to see one of our counselors about.

Because that anxiety is supposed to get you out of the road.

But sometimes when we live in a place where we are just anxious all the time, it's because we lived in a place growing up where anxiety fed us and it just becomes part of our mode of life.

That's here, right here.

One of my dearest friends, who's one of the best preachers I've ever heard, has an amazing uh sermon he preached years ago, talking about how he lived with a dad who was always at death's door, and he grew up feeling anxious, and then he said in the sermon, he said, someone said to him one time, Wouldn't it make sense that you have an anxiety disorder because your body learned how to be anxious every day?

And he said, Yeah, that does make sense.

So the thing is, is it about the feeling of anxious?

Don't feel anxious.

That's not what Paul's saying.

He's saying, in this mode of living, don't let anxiety drive your life.

Don't let worry drive your life.

Don't let it have the whip and whip you to live compulsively like you're living on your own.

The Lord is near.

So be anxious for nothing means this.

Don't live, letting anxiety be the compulsive movement of your life.

Let it be the thing that instead shifts your gaze to the creator of the universe.

And that's where he continues on.

He says, instead, in everything, in the big things, in the small things, when people say, Should I pray about the small things of life?

I'm like, yes, absolutely.

Pray about the tiniest little details.

I've prayed about the silliest things, and because of God's grace, I prayed this one time.

I was in massive depression.

I was chaplain of a high school and middle school in Gastonia, North Carolina.

I didn't have nice shoes, so I had these Timberland boots, but I had to wear a tie every day.

I hate wearing ties.

And so I'm, I went outside just to sit in my off period because I was feeling so low coming off a broken engagement.

All these things have been going on in my life.

And I was sitting on a bench and there was a grasshopper a few feet away.

You're gonna think this is a silly story.

And I believe this is something God gave me.

It doesn't always happen like this, but it did this day.

I said, Lord, I don't know if you're there.

I don't I believe you're there.

I feel so low.

If you're there, could you let that grasshopper just jump on my boot?

Is that a silly prayer?

It wasn't to me.

I'm sitting there.

That grasshopper leapt from two feet away onto my Timberland boot.

And I was looking at it and I was like, all right, God, I guess you're there.

And I just sat and it was there on my boot for a while.

And then it hopped off.

I prayed prayers like that before, and the grasshopper didn't hop, metaphorically, onto my boot.

But God gave me a little extra encouragement that day.

And all things and everything, small, big, medium, everything.

Why?

Because he cares.

The best picture you can have of a dad and a kid coming to their dad and saying, Dad, can I tell you about the thing I built?

And he's like, Yeah, you can, and he takes you over and he built a little box out of Legos.

It's like, that's wonderful.

Thank you for showing me that.

That's the heart of our father, if you multiply it times infinity.

He cares.

He says, through prayer and petition.

With thanksgiving, once again, so we were rejoicing.

It's like a bookend because we're setting our gaze upon God, rejoicing, and then with Thanksgiving, thanking God.

What can you thank Him for in Thanksgiving?

Thank you.

Thank him that he hears.

Thank him that he's near.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lord, that you rescued me from the domain of darkness and brought me into the kingdom of light.

Thank you that all my sin is washed away.

Not one remains.

Thank you that I stand before you as your precious child, and nothing can separate me from you and your love.

Thank you.

And Lord, with that in mind, I feel so anxious right now, and I'm so worried about this.

Present your request to God.

And the result, and I don't think it's always the immediate result.

It's not like you do this once and then do it again next year, but as we foster this in our life, what is the promise?

Verse 7.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Man, there's a lot in that verse.

The peace of God, it's such a peace that it surpasses all understanding.

What's another passage where Paul says something passes understanding?

Well, in Ephesians 3, he prays that we might comprehend the incomprehensible love of God.

So God's love is incomprehensible, but we can grow in the depth of it.

The peace of God is so far beyond our understanding.

And it makes sense, like these are fruit of the Spirit.

These are not something, things that we can just strive and gain.

It's like it's a it's a relinquishment, and it's like, Lord, I've it's a surrender.

It's it's a posture of the heart.

And if I may, just it it this is the difference when I'm anxious and I'm saying, Lord, with Thanksgiving I come before you.

And I can't.

But you can, and Lord, with open hands, I just pray for your help today in this moment.

Because I need your peace, Lord, to guard my mind and my heart, my thoughts, my feelings, my affections.

Lord, I need you.

Have you ever felt the peace of God?

Sometimes when there's a tumult in me, just a drop of peace.

It can be the sweetest nectar.

It can be the balm of Gilead on my soul.

It's just like, okay, I can make it today, I can make it the next five minutes.

Let's go to our last point.

Christ studies our relationships, Christ quiets our hearts, and finally, Christ reshapes our minds.

And from this, he had just said, guard your minds.

That's what the peace will do in Christ Jesus.

Guard your hearts and your minds.

And then he says, God's gonna do this, but here's how you get to participate.

Think this way, practice this way.

Trust.

All right.

I'm gonna read verse 8 and 9 again with let's let's look at this.

Y'all hanging on?

We're gonna keep going.

I'm excited.

All right, here we go.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any moral excellence and if there's anything praiseworthy, dwell on these things.

Verse 9, do what you learned and received and heard from me and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

So the peace of God will be with us.

The God of peace will be with us.

So Paul says, think, dwell on these things, and he says, do, practice these things.

And it slows us down, and I want to give you a practice here.

The Christian life isn't merely about believing.

Is it about believing?

Absolutely.

That's why we read the scriptures, that's why we read Christian biographies, that's why we gather together.

That's why we continue to grow together.

That's why we learn doctrine.

That's why we we learn about who God is and what he desires.

It is about those things, but it's about simple practices too, of opening up our homes to strangers, about giving to those who are in need.

But it's this daily rehearsing, and then Paul gives us a list of what to dwell on in our minds.

And what I'd like for you to do is think about what do you dwell on throughout large sections of your day and see if they fit in this, not in a way of condemnation, don't think of it like this, but think of them in a way of just curiosity.

What consumes your mind?

Are you dwelling on things that are true, that are honorable, that are just, that are pure, that are lovely, that are commendable, things that have moral excellence, things that are worthy of praise.

Dwelling, putting our mind on those things.

So what stories, what voices, what conversations, what habits.

And so I wanted us to think about this, and I I always have this sense of humor in my mind that I would I would think like, I'm about to walk in a circle for you right now, and it's an illustration.

But I have a thought of someone saying, What did you learn in church today?

Well, the pastor told us to walk in circles.

It's like, okay, very good, very good.

This is what goes on in me.

I call it a loop of anxiety.

This is just one example, it's very generic.

I can't make it.

I'm feeling anxious.

These are internal voices.

There's no one to help.

No one understands, I'm all alone.

So that's the cycle I'm in.

I can't make it, there's no one to help.

No one understands, I'm all alone.

If I get stuck in a cycle like that, there are times that I stand up and I walk it.

I write it down and I walk it.

And I'll tell you why in just a second.

I can't make it, there's no one to help.

No one understands, I'm all alone.

It's looping inside.

And what I do is I'm going to walk in that circle and say, Lord, I'm stuck in this loop.

And I choose to step to the side and look at that loop.

And I want to speak truth to it, and I want to dwell on things that are true and honorable, Lord.

I know that I can speak to this.

I can't make it, and maybe that's true, Lord, but I'm not been asked to make it in my own strength, Lord.

You are for me, you're with me.

I love that song we sing.

The shepherd song, right?

I will not be wanting.

The Psalm 23.1 got me through one of the toughest seasons in my life, the first verse from the New Living translation.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I have uh uh I have all that I need.

That's the translation.

And I would just say, Lord, do I have all I need?

I I don't feel it, but I trust it.

Help me trust it.

So it's like, I can't make it.

I I can, Lord.

You you're gonna bring me home.

There's no one to help.

I want to look at that and say, even this passage, it says, Lord, you are here.

And I know the Holy Spirit is my helper, and I know I do have a community of help.

And I haven't reached out because I feel too alone.

I feel like people won't understand.

And that's no one's no one understands.

Well, the Lord does.

And part of my story is I'm so tired at times of not being understood that I don't try anymore.

And I got very, very lonely doing that.

And it's still hard for me, but I try to get it out.

Uh, I got an interesting world that goes on in here, and it's like I'm gonna I'm gonna try.

It's worth trying to be understood.

And maybe people won't understand me like this, but their love and listening brings encouragement.

I'm all alone.

That was the last of my loop.

And it's like, I know I'm not alone.

I feel I'm alone, but Lord, I know I'm not.

Lord, help me not be stuck in this cycle.

Maybe this week, walk in a circle and then step outside of it.

If you don't like that, there are a lot of other things.

Sometimes we just even need to do something physically with our body just to say, I have human agency to get out of this because what I've done historically is just sit in my chair.

This is my greatest strength a lot of times, my cognitive ability.

I just sit and I just swirl.

Oh, it's miserable.

And to be able to stand up and be like, okay, I'm gonna do something physical to get out of my head.

And here's my here's my circle, here's my loop of anxiety.

All right, Lord, here we are.

Walk in a circle with a friend.

Step outside the circle.

Now here's the key.

Will you feel differently after doing that?

Maybe.

I hope you feel a little different, but maybe not.

But the truth is it's a man, it's it's a movement of faith to do what you what I just did.

It doesn't have to be like that.

But I've spoken truth to what was be anxious for nothing.

This is what's driving me right now.

But Lord, I want to be led by you, your truth, and your love.

Here's your sentence to carry for the week.

The gospel doesn't merely change what we believe, it does do that, but the gospel doesn't merely change what we believe, it reshapes the atmosphere of our hearts.

And that's what we long for.

The gospel doesn't merely change what we believe, it reshapes the atmosphere of our hearts.

And remember when I say think this way, practice this way, baby steps day after day after day.

It's small things over a long period of time will yield so much fruit.

I promise you that.

I promise.

And we come to the table today remembering that we are, oh my goodness, I almost just fell down the step.

I was walking a loop so much I got dizzy.

All right, we're coming back to communion.

We remember that the God of peace is with us.

The peace of God is with us, the God of peace is with us.

What is the sign that we have?

The greatest sign is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on flesh, fulfilled the law of God, lived a perfect life for us, and as God, he bore the punishment that was ours, taking the sin of the world as a sacrifice so that we could be made whole.

That is the sign and the reminder.

Every week we come to remember Jesus did this for you.

He did it for me.

He was with us, he is with us, he will always be with us.

This is our God.

And if you're a Christian here today, whether you're visiting or a member here, you're welcome to come if you're a Christian, if you've trusted in Christ as your Savior, and to take some of the juice and the bread back to your seat and just hold it there.

I'll come up after everyone has the elements and I'll lead us to take it together.

But come and ask yourself, what am I dwelling on?

Lord, what are you speaking to my heart today?

And listen and remember.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you so much for this passage.

We thank you that you are the God of peace, that you have brought peace to us, that you brought us reconciliation with yourself and the beauty of that through Jesus.

Jesus, we thank you for your life, your death, your resurrection, for your presence, that you are near.

Holy Spirit, we thank you that you are making requests for us and guiding us and teaching us.

I pray that we would listen to your still small voice and that we would be changed and encouraged.

And Lord, through all of these things, I pray for my brothers and sisters as they come today, Lord, that we would experience something that whether we're feeling anxiety through the roof, that we could be in that loop, that we could step to the side and say, Lord, do a work.

Help me to sense your peace that passes all understanding, Lord.

We desire that.

And we ask that in Christ's name.