Philippians 4:2–9 — Living at Peace

This sermon is from Philippians 4, verses 2-9 and is entitled, Living at Peace.

Philippians 4:2–9

It was delivered to Ecclesia Churches on Sunday, March 29, 2026.

One of the most common requests that I have received, including from non-Christians, is

for some form of peace.

Either we are asking for peace in the midst of ongoing trouble or an end to the trouble

that would return us to this state of peace. And it seems that drilled into the heart of every man

and woman is this desire for peace in our relationships with the people around us,

within ourselves, a peace in the world at large. Think about it. A war begins. We pray for peace.

A diagnosis is made and we pray for their peace in addition to their healing. A loss is suffered

and we pray for peace. So whether we have come to Jesus or not determines whether we find ultimate

peace, but we are all of us looking for it. And the church that Paul is writing to has struggled

with conflict of all kinds, and it has certainly threatened to steal their peace. They've had

conflict within the church, threatening their peace with one another. They've had Judaizers

trying to steal their peace of mind by adding religious requirements to their salvation.

And then they've had pagans trying to steal their peace with God by convincing them to

submit to their own desires instead of to the will of Christ.

And in this passage, Paul will address these three areas of concern that we absolutely

share with the early church.

So this passage, I can say for a fact, is of interest to all of us.

Across these nine verses, the first two are about peace with one another.

The next four are about peace within yourself.

And finally, the last two are about how we live at peace with God.

And the one thing, the one solution that is common to all three areas is hopefully not

surprisingly submission to Christ and to his call.

Because when Jesus remains central, he is our peace.

and we will find no other that is greater than him. And so let's go ahead and read and rely on

the Spirit to give us a greater peace today than what we began with because of the way

that we are called to Christ. This is Philippians chapter 4, verses 2 through 9.

Philippians 4:2–9

I entreat Iodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also,

true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together

with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

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 your 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.

The first question that we want to answer is, how do we find peace with one another?

What does Paul have to say to these very specific individuals and to the church at large that will help us to find peace with one another, to deal with conflict?

Well, he has a lot to say, actually, packed into these two verses.

So let's kind of unpack what's here.

And the first point is only apparent if we consider the previous verses about maturity.

Remember, Paul called the church to be mature in a specific way, in their humility, and

recognizing that they were not finished yet.

And it takes a very mature person to be called out and corrected and respond to it positively.

Proverbs 27 verse 6 says,

Proverbs 27:6

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

So the fact that Paul calls out this disagreement between two important members of the church

community and calls them out by name in the letter tells us a lot.

It tells us that this disagreement between them has kind of spilled out and is starting to impact the church.

But it also means that Paul has a lot of respect for both of these women and must consider them mature enough to handle being called out or he wouldn't have done it.

So the first thing required for peace with one another is the maturity to be humble and potentially to be corrected.

Sometimes the people who love us actually love us enough to say hard things to us.

And the question is, do we have the courage to respond to correction with humility?

The second thing that we see is that the church leadership is being called into this task of

helping these women find unity. Whatever this disagreement is, it clearly isn't a first-tier

doctrinal issue. This is not something that's about salvation or the identity of Jesus or

anything that Paul feels the need to go to bat over specifically. This is probably a matter of

preferences or opinions. And the problem isn't that they disagree. Good godly men and women

who love the Lord are going to disagree about things that matter less than the gospel.

But when those disagreements turn into rifts that threaten the unity of the church, it's no longer just a personal matter that pastors and leaders and even the congregation can turn a blind eye to.

And that's really very countercultural in our country, isn't it?

Because we prioritize privacy and independence.

And at least I was certainly raised to stay out of arguments that don't concern me whenever possible.

But for the Christian, we are actually called to care deeply about the relationships with one

another, not for the sake of gossip or taking sides, let me be clear there, but for the sake

of unity. We want to be men and women who are rooting for the unity of each other, who are

cheering on each other in our marriages, in our friendships, in our maturity. And too often,

the answer to these disagreements ends up being division of people, of relationships,

of even churches. Because the easier answer when it comes to conflict is to run, to say,

I don't need you anyway. I can isolate myself with one or two other people, and I don't need

the church. They'll quote Jesus even from places like Matthew 18, where he says,

where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. And they'll claim it as

some sort of biblical proof that they can be the church on their own, outside of community,

without shepherds, without brothers and sisters, without people to be in conflict with. Yeah,

there's something appealing and easier about that, isn't there? I understand that. We can understand

in that. I get the desire to isolate. Really, I do. It is easier to run, but it's not better,

and it's not biblical either. That place in Matthew 18 that is so often quoted where two

or three are gathered, Jesus is actually saying in context that the community of the church

is the best place for resolving conflict with another Christian. That two or three that are

gathered, it's actually two or three leaders in the church gathered around Christians who are in

conflict. That passage isn't about worship music at all. It's about working through conflict

with brothers and sisters in the Lord with the help of the church and your leadership.

It's a call to unity because the wisdom of God is to have us live in unity with one another.

The final place that we see this peace with one another taking shape in our passage

is actually woven throughout this entire two verses.

Paul says they are to agree in what specifically?

In the Lord.

They've labored side by side with Paul and Clement.

We don't know a whole lot about Clement.

He's probably, my guess would be, some sort of pastoral leader, which is why he's called out.

But what have they labored in?

The gospel.

Finally, he reminds them that their names are written in the book of life.

So what is it that connects them?

All of them.

Christ, being saved by the same Savior, being a part of the same mission together.

This is where we find our unity with one another.

So we have a lengthy list of where it isn't found at this point.

Where do we not find peace with one another?

It isn't found in getting everyone to agree that we were right.

It isn't found in letting everyone deal with their own issues either.

And it isn't found in running away anytime we have a conflict.

Anyone else feeling convicted yet by this passage?

I certainly have felt it.

if we want peace with one another, we keep Jesus at the center and we live to serve one another,

as Paul says, thinking of one another more highly than we think of ourselves.

So if there is someone that you are in conflict with, I want you to ask two questions. First,

How can I serve them best in the Lord?

And second, how can I pray for them?

And if you really want to be bold, you ask them both of those questions personally.

The next place that Paul goes is having peace within yourself.

If you are a human being on planet Earth and have never struggled with anxiety, you are lying.

Either about not having anxiety or about actually being human.

So let's read from verse 4 where this passage begins addressing this area of unrest within your own mind.

I'm going to read this again.

He says,

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again I 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.

Paul begins not by talking about anxiety at all.

He begins with a posture of celebration.

Rejoice, he says.

Specifically, rejoice in the Lord.

Rejoice because God is on the throne.

Rejoice because of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf.

Rejoice because you are a citizen of heaven with an eternal hope.

Rejoice with a purpose.

A lot of reasons to rejoice.

So we begin by rejoicing, but what about this peace that we long to find within ourselves?

So there are a lot of people out there who claim to have the peace that you are looking

for in yourself, but most of them are centered on the self.

You say, well, that makes sense based on what you just said.

Let's think through a couple of these groups.

Eastern religions will say by turning inward and knowing yourself, you'll find enlightenment.

You'll find peace right there within yourself.

The New Age religions often put you at the center of all interpretation, and you get to

decide what the truth is based on your own knowledge and experience and what makes you

feel best.

And then there's the secular world that pretty much dispenses with truth altogether, and instead

focuses on what pleases you and satisfies your immediate desires. You live your own truth,

they say. But Paul tells us that inner peace isn't found by looking in. It's actually found

by looking at God and rejoicing in his provision. Just like our peace with others relies on

serving and loving them well, it's a joy that comes from the right perspective,

a view that we get by standing on God's truth and beholding what he has done that we find truth

within ourselves. And verse 5 is also based on perspective, where it says,

let your reasonableness be known to everyone. Here, it's based on the perspective that the

return of Jesus is coming soon. That seems a little counterintuitive, doesn't it? That you

should be at peace because we don't know how much time is left before the end. It's like when I

think back to when I would goof around all day instead of working on my homework as a kid,

and then my mom would say, dad will be home any minute. And suddenly, you get more schoolwork

done in 15 minutes than you did the other eight hours of the day. And my heart starts to race just

a little bit just thinking about it. And that doesn't seem like peace, but there's another part

to that. Because when you know that time is short, your priorities change, and they actually get

clearer. Think about this. When someone gets bad news, like you only have weeks to live,

they don't make a list of everything that needs cleaned in their house or the errands that need

done. Part of the initial processing of this news is that their list of what's important

gets more clear than it's maybe ever been in their lives. Paul, helping the Christian to clarify

the list here is helping them to prioritize things that have eternal importance over things that

don't. He's calling us to an eternal perspective focused on the limited nature of our time here.

This reasonableness that he refers to is qualified by what is reasonable in light

of the fact that time is short and Jesus is coming back. With that in mind, what seems reasonable

actually changes a little bit, doesn't it? If Jesus is coming soon, I make it a priority to

know him. I get into the word daily. I spend time in prayer. I serve my brothers and sisters in the

Lord. That's what I make a priority. If Jesus is coming soon, I make it a priority that my children

know the Lord more than anything else. They must know Jesus. The world will gladly make your schedule

in your priorities for you, and it will fill it to the brim. But for the Christian, that is

unreasonable. I make it a priority to talk with people about Jesus today when I believe that he's

coming back soon and not wait until this elusive, perfect opportunity that never seems to come

around. And paradoxically, shockingly, when I live with that kind of purpose, I actually find

peace that I was looking for and not finding in the busyness of everything else that I was

distracted by. So the answer to high anxiety isn't canceling everything and living with an empty

calendar and empty to-do list. The answer also isn't cramming your schedule and to-do list so

full that you forget to be anxious. It's prioritizing my life around the fact that

time is short and the Lord's return is at hand. So finally, we have verse 6,

which is one of the most commonly quoted verses thrown in the face, sometimes with the best of

intention, of the person struggling with anxiety. What's that? They say, you're struggling with

anxiety. You took medication? Don't you read the Bible? It says not to be anxious about anything.

Can you tell that this is a sore subject for me? Let's look at this verse in context for some help.

Verse 6 is translated, do not be anxious about anything. The tense and the word used for anxious

here means to be loaded down with a burden of worry. That sounds like anxiety, doesn't it?

That pressure on the chest, that burden of worry about something.

Here we have a problem, don't we? Because life does hand us things on a daily basis

that causes us to worry. Things like, my paycheck was less than I thought.

what am I going to do to pay my bills? The news from the doctor wasn't good. What's going to

happen? My child is making choices that are out of my control and I'm worried for them. There are

bombs being dropped and bombs being threatened to be dropped all over the world. So am I sinning

by being concerned? Am I being disobedient to the word of God by caring about these things that are

happening in the world around me? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to choose ignorance

and bury my head in the sand? Am I supposed to choose to put a smile on anyway and fake it

until I'm actually happy? God knows that we will frequently be handed heavy things

and worries and concerns and cares. But the Christian has a specific instruction when we

receive those heavy things. We bring them to the Lord. Paul isn't saying to avoid the things that

make us anxious. He's telling us not to hold on to them. And instead of holding on to them,

we bring them to Jesus through prayer and supplication, which just means to be earnestly

requesting God's help and his wisdom and his provision. And when we come to him trusting him,

we are given a peace that surpasses all of our ability to think it out and solve the problem

for ourselves. We are given a peace that comes only through knowing Christ.

I want you to know that more than anything else, this has been something I have struggled with.

Ultimately, I think it's a struggle with pride in which I think I am strong enough and capable

enough to handle things on my own.

That approach will often get you recognized as a competent and hardworking person.

But when you apply the same logic to worries and cares and troubles, it's a recipe for

an anxiety disorder.

And after a while, your body starts to tell you there's an issue.

And then your mind starts to tell you there's an issue.

And before you know it, you are yelling at God, telling him the weight of the world on your shoulders is too much,

while still refusing to hand over a single thing to him.

Instead, God invites us, God invites me and you through the words of Paul,

not to just stop being anxious, but instead invites us to honesty,

to saying, Lord, I am anxious about this and I can't handle it.

Your prayer life reveals a lot about how much you trust God.

Because the things that we pray about are the things we trust God with.

And the things that we don't are what we think we can handle.

And just like Christians are a people who know we are in process, we are also a people who know we

are weak and in need of the strength of the Lord in our weakness, the joy of the Lord in our

suffering, the provision of the Lord in our poverty, which is perhaps why we are instructed

to bring everything to the Lord with thanksgiving for all that he has done for us.

And Paul says that peace of God actually guards our hearts and minds in Christ.

From the perspective of God, there is a war being waged against the people of God.

And one of the greatest tools of the enemy is to convince the Christian that I can handle this.

Instead, the Lord invites us to openly say, this is heavy.

I can't handle this.

I believe you can.

Thank you, Jesus.

in that order, actually. And with that, Paul gives us one final instruction in these last

two verses, and it has to do with living at peace with God. If we are people who are regularly

bringing our needs to Jesus, how are we living as children of the kingdom of heaven?

And in these two verses, he gives this long list of how we are to think and what we are to practice.

The hard truth for many is that if you want to live at peace in this kingdom, you must be submitted to the king.

Disciples of Jesus have peace with God because of the finished work of Jesus.

We are not earning our peace with God because Jesus has given that to us through our justification.

But if we claim to be following Jesus on the narrow way, we can't live pulling our own

way and expect not to experience a lack of peace in that process.

I'll give you a quick example.

I spent a lot of time training to be a gymnast when I was young until I was about 16 years

old.

I would spend those last couple of years, two to three hours, four or five nights a week

in the gym.

And I loved it.

I followed my coach's advice.

I did the exercise they told me to do.

I practiced the skills that helped me move on to the next level of skill on each piece of equipment.

I trusted my coach.

I was being transformed into a stronger version of myself.

I was told, you have potential if you keep working at this.

And then my coach left when I was probably 14 years old.

And it was tough.

And something changed.

My friend's dad, who was a great coach in his own right, stepped in to help.

But something in my attitude had shifted.

He gave us many of the same workouts, the same training, the same good advice.

But my posture had changed.

I stopped listening and I started complaining.

I started wasting time and I stopped improving.

I even got kicked out of the gym one night for being disrespectful to my coach.

And you know what?

My entire experience of the sport changed.

It became hard.

There was conflict.

This place that had once been a place I found peace was now very uncomfortable.

My point is this.

If you try to live as a Christian, but resist submitting in obedience to Christ,

you will lack peace in your faith.

If you choose to continue submitting to your sinful desires,

you will feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

As you decide to live at odds with the Jesus you say you follow,

you will feel conviction, and it is uncomfortable.

If you choose to continue living with priorities that are out of order

from a kingdom perspective, you are going to feel off balance. The list of things that Paul gives

for Christians is what it looks like to live as someone who has surrendered to the will of Christ.

He says to dwell on these things, to think about, focus on these things that are true, honorable,

just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy. When we live our lives focused on

the things of God, submitted to his will and his priorities, we end up living at peace with the

kingdom of God, even if those decisions cause us to live at odds with the world. But wouldn't you

rather have it that way around? Wouldn't you rather be at odds with the world's priority

and at peace with the kingdom of God? Then at the end of verse 9, Paul changes the verb in a really

important way. He changes from this considering and thinking to practicing and doing.

What you have learned, he says, and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things.

Any athlete will tell you, any musician will tell you that at a certain point,

you can't move any further just by thinking and you have to start doing.

And a life of following Christ and having peace with God because of that decision is a life of training in righteousness.

So that 2 Timothy 3.16 says, we will be equipped for every good work.

I am sure that the Holy Spirit is doing all kinds of things in our hearts with a passage like this.

But I would encourage you to consider two things as we close.

First, if you have not yet decided to trust Jesus with your life, to be baptized, to proclaim your faith in Christ alone,

I can promise you that you will never find peace in this life that is eternal and unwavering like the peace found in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the only one who can reconcile you with God, and you cannot have peace with God without coming through faith in Christ.

So if you have not done that yet, do so today.

Secondly, to any of you who are believers, who lack peace in any area of your life,

your relationships, you have anxiety maybe, you're struggling with obedience to the will of God,

God's word gives us the answer to each of these things.

And it begins with submitting to the way of Jesus.

Seeing others through the lens of one who is also saved by grace and keeping Jesus central.

When it comes to anxiety, giving the weight of your worries over to Jesus in prayer without delay and doing it over and over again.

And finally, submitting in obedience to Jesus for a peace that lasts not only through the rest of this life and any chaos that it brings along,

but it also lasts past our understanding and into eternity.

Ekklesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Council Bluffs, Iowa,

and in homes throughout the week.

We are a Bible-centered church focused on preaching from Scripture and making disciples of Jesus.

You can learn more about our statement of faith and contact a pastor by visiting ekklesiachurches.org.

.