1. "Conflict can be like a tar pit. You're drawn to something that you want to see in there, you accidentally step in, now you're trapped. And then the more you move, the more you try to do, the deeper you sink. The more you try, the worse it gets."

2. "You can only give what you have. You can only make peace with others if you have peace yourself."

3. "Conflicts where one person is entirely guilty and the other person is entirely innocent are exceedingly rare. If you're stuck in a conflict with another church member, pay closest attention to what you're responsible for, where you've gone wrong, what you need to repent of and what you should do about it."

4. "When you're stuck in a conflict with someone, you can be tempted to write them off. You can be tempted to scratch their name off your list of people you can be bothered to care about. But that's your problem, it's certainly not God's."

5. "Brother, sister, when you're in a conflict with another Christian, you want to get up not just to the balcony but keep going, keep going higher than that, go all the way up to the throne room. You want to view your conflict with that person from God's point of view."

6. "Gentleness is love guided by self-control, applying just enough strength to serve someone in a way they will receive."

7. "Only a gentle person can turn the flood of what they think needs saying into the trickle of what the person before them can actually receive."

8. "Turn your anxious list into a prayer list. Turn every care into a prayer. Whatever weighs on your heart the heaviest, pray about it first. Prayer is a spiritual bench press for getting the weight of anxiety off your soul and every rep in prayer will spiritually strengthen you."

9. "Instead of letting your problems keep you from praying, let your problems keep you praying."

10. "One of the most important fronts in the fight for holiness is the battle for your attention. You become what you behold. If you behold truth and goodness and beauty, you will become true and good and beautiful."

Observation Questions

1. In Philippians 4:2-3, what does Paul say about Euodia and Syntyche's past ministry, and where does he say their names are written?

2. According to Philippians 4:4, what does Paul command the Philippians to do, and how often does he say they should do it?

3. In Philippians 4:5, what quality does Paul tell believers to let be known to everyone, and what reason does he give immediately after this command?

4. What does Paul instruct believers to do instead of being anxious in Philippians 4:6, and what three elements does he say should accompany their prayers?

5. According to Philippians 4:7, what will the peace of God do for believers, and how does Paul describe this peace?

6. In Philippians 4:8-9, what eight qualities does Paul list as things believers should think about, and what does he promise will happen if they practice what they have learned from him?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why do you think Paul appeals to Euodia and Syntyche individually rather than addressing them together as a unit, and what does this approach teach us about how to handle conflict in the church?

2. How does Paul's reminder that these women's names are "in the book of life" (v. 3) change the way we should view fellow believers with whom we are in conflict?

3. Paul commands believers to rejoice "in the Lord" always (v. 4). Why is the phrase "in the Lord" essential to understanding how joy can be commanded rather than simply felt?

4. How does the promise that "the peace of God...will guard your hearts and minds" (v. 7) differ from God simply answering our prayers or removing our problems? What does this tell us about what we most need in times of anxiety?

5. What is the connection between what we "think about" (v. 8) and what we "practice" (v. 9)? How does this sequence explain the path to experiencing "the God of peace" being with us?

Application Questions

1. Is there a current conflict with another believer where you have focused more on their fault than on your own responsibility? What specific step of repentance, confession, or seeking understanding could you take this week?

2. When you wake up each morning, what is the first thing you typically reach for or think about? How might you restructure your morning routine to remind yourself of reasons to rejoice in Christ before the day's anxieties set in?

3. Think of a recent conversation where you used more force than necessary—perhaps in tone, volume, or insistence on being right. How might you approach a similar situation this week with the kind of gentleness Paul describes?

4. What specific anxiety are you carrying right now that you have not yet turned into prayer? Take a moment to write it down as a prayer request, and consider sharing it with your group so they can pray with you.

5. Evaluate the media, entertainment, or content you consumed this past week. Does it pass Paul's eight tests in verse 8 (true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, praiseworthy)? What is one concrete change you could make to fill your mind with what is good?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Ephesians 2:11-22 — This passage explains how Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility and made peace between Jews and Gentiles, providing the theological foundation for reconciliation among believers.

2. Mark 11:22-25 — Jesus teaches on prayer and faith, including the command to forgive others when praying, which directly supports the sermon's emphasis on forgiving those with whom we are in conflict.

3. Colossians 3:12-17 — Paul gives a parallel list of virtues believers should put on, including compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and forgiveness, reinforcing the call to gentleness and peace.

4. 1 Peter 5:6-11 — Peter instructs believers to humble themselves and cast all their anxieties on God because He cares for them, echoing the sermon's teaching on exchanging anxiety for God's peace through prayer.

5. Romans 12:9-21 — This passage provides practical instructions for living at peace with others, including blessing persecutors, living in harmony, and overcoming evil with good, extending the sermon's application of peacemaking.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Tar Pit of Conflict: Gary Friedman's Story

II. Seek to Reconcile (Philippians 4:2-3)

III. Rejoice in Jesus (Philippians 4:4)

IV. Be Gentle (Philippians 4:5)

V. Cast Your Cares on God (Philippians 4:6-7)

VI. Contemplate and Copy All That's Good (Philippians 4:8-9)

VII. The Gospel Brings the Solution to Life's Greatest Problems

Detailed Sermon Outline

You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.

Gary Friedman built his whole life around being part of the solution. Friedman is an attorney who practices in Northern California, and he is a conflict management guru. Over the past 45 years, he has helped negotiate over 2,000 conflicts, from corporate meltdowns to a long-standing feud between the players and the management of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He has trained thousands of lawyers, judges, and therapists in what he calls an understanding-based approach to conflict resolution. So it made sense when Gary's neighbors urged him to run for local office in his hometown of Muir Beach, California.

Muir Beach is a tiny coastal paradise, population 300. How hard could it be?

But the reason Gary's neighbors wanted him to run for office is that the town meetings had become hostile. And toxic. People were calling each other names and feuding like this was a presidential election being carried out over Twitter. Perhaps Friedman, this godfather of mediation, could bring peace. So began one of the greatest trials of Gary's life.

He says it took about an eighth of a second for him to get sucked into the conflict. He says, I became defensive, I became aggressive, I became strategic. Gary started imposing strict rules on these town meetings, a tight time limit for every speech, an inflexible agenda that nobody could change, and 23 new subcommittees. He started referring to his opponents as the old guard and himself and his allies as the new guard. Meetings got tense.

Gary repeatedly cut people off to stick to the time limit, and he enforced his new rules. He found himself regularly explaining to his wife, Trish, that he was under attack. Friedman said, It felt like we were at war. Squabbles over a road development project and water prices had morphed into an all-consuming, larger-than-life battle. Friedman said, I no longer had a sense of proportion about me and I lost myself.

He had become the very problem that he had set out to solve.

Have you ever gotten stuck in a conflict? Conflict can be like a tar pit. You're drawn to something that you want to see in there, you accidentally step in, now you're trapped. And then the more you move, the more you try to do, the deeper you sink. The more you try, the worse it gets.

You can only give what you have. You can only make peace with others if you have peace. Yourself. So how can you find peace? What has to change within you in order for you to spread, not conflict, but peace?

Keep those questions in mind as I read our passage for this morning, Philippians 4:2-9. You can find the passage on page 982 of the Pew Bibles. Philippians 4:2-9.

I entreat Euodia 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. 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.

Paul's writing these verses from prison in Rome to a congregation several hundred miles away that he founded and that he dearly loves. And here he begins to wrap up the letter. In one sense, he's just giving us a kind of rapid fire series of exhortations about how to live the Christian life. He covers all sorts of bases in short order. This is one of the most densely packed practical passages in the whole Bible.

But when you look at all the exhortations together, you can find one thread running through just about all of them, which is peace. And peace in a fully biblical sense, not just the absence of conflict but the presence of joy, wholeness and flourishing. It takes peace to make peace. You have to get peace in order to give peace. So how can you both find peace and make peace?

Ultimately, Only in and through Christ. Five exhortations from our passage point the way. Point one, seek to reconcile. Seek to reconcile. This sums up Paul's intervention in this conflict in verses two and three.

Look at those verses again. I entreat Euodia 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. There's a lot about this passage that we don't know.

We don't know who Euodia and Syntyche are except that their names tell us that they're women and that they're from Gentile backgrounds. We don't know who Clement is and we don't know who is this coworker of Paul's whom he calls true companion. Though from the Greek grammar we know he's a man. He was probably a member of Paul's apostolic church planting circle who was serving the Philippian church at the time. It's clear Paul knew who it was.

It's clear they would have known who he was talking about. We also don't really know what issue was dividing Euodia and Syntyche. The dispute must have been relatively significant and also pretty well known for Paul to mention it in a letter like this. But we don't know much more than that. But that's okay.

In inspiring this passage, God the Holy Spirit determined that even without having all the answers to all the questions we would ask, we would still be edified by considering how Paul responded to this conflict. So let's look at Paul's response. First, Paul appeals to each party individually. Each is responsible for their part in the conflict. And each is responsible to pursue reconciliation.

Paul doesn't take sides here, but instead he enlists both parties to turn toward each other. Conflicts where one person is entirely guilty and the other person is entirely innocent are exceedingly rare. If you're stuck in a conflict with another church member, pay closest attention to what you're responsible for, where you've gone wrong, what you need to repent of and what you should do about it. Second, Paul enlists someone he trusts to help, this person he calls true companion. If you're locked in a conflict with a roommate or friend or husband or wife, it could be wise to get help.

But who you get to help matters. So seek out someone spiritually mature ideally someone who knows you both and who you both trust. Third, Paul reminds everyone involved that this conflict is not the first word about them or the last. Looking at verse three, yes, I ask you, 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. Notice how Paul celebrates these two women's ministry.

Paul honors Euodia and Syntyche for laboring alongside him to spread the gospel. He values and cherishes and publicly highlights their contributions to his missionary work. Right now, for the moment, these two may be at odds with each other, but Paul is not at odds with them. Far from it. And Paul reminds Euodia and Syntyche and the whole Philippian church not only what he thinks of these two but what God thinks of them.

The end of verse 3 says, Their names are in the book of life. What is this book of life? It's a metaphor used throughout Scripture for God's choice of his people and his indelible memory of those who are his. That he will not forget. That one day that book will be opened and all in that book will be admitted to everlasting life.

Revelation 21:27 tells us this is the list of all those who will enter the new creation. In other words, God's beloved chosen people, those he has singled out for salvation. When you're stuck in a conflict with someone, you can be tempted to write them off. As the expression goes, throw them under the bus. You can be tempted to scratch their name off your list of people you can be bothered to care about.

But that's your problem, it's certainly not God's. God is the one who has written their names in his book and he will never scratch their name out.

So how can you Get your heart toward that person to match God's heart toward that person. Whenever you're in conflict with someone, it's tempting to reduce who you think the other person is to just the shape and size of your disagreement with them as if that's all they are and all they ever will be. But only God gets to speak the last word about somebody. Not you. And if that person is a believer, God's last word over that person will be life, eternal life.

He is the one who wrote their name in his book. So very practically, if you find yourself in conflict with another believer, especially another member of this church, what should you do? A few encouragements. First, pray. Pray for the other person.

Pray for your heart posture toward them. If they've sinned against you, forgive them then and there as you pray, apart from whether they've asked your forgiveness. It's exactly what Jesus teaches us to do in Mark 11:25. And whenever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

In addition to praying, be quick to repent, quick to confess, quick to expand your own sense of how big your share of the conflict.

Is seek understanding. Learn to see the other person's position from their point of view and try to see your position from their point of view too. One of many Proverbs that teaches us about this, Proverbs 18:17, the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him. And as Paul does here in verse 3, remember and highlight and thank God for what is good about that person. The anthropologist and negotiator, William Ury, once found himself being screamed at face-to-face by the then president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

Ury says that in the moment, he tried to mentally go to the balcony. He tried to get his mind out of the face-to-face screaming confrontation and get up above it. See it from some distance. See it the way a third party would. Try to get some neutrality and an overview of his situation.

Brother, sister, when you're in a conflict with another Christian, you want to get up not just to the balcony but keep going, keep going higher than that, go all the way up to the throne room. You want to view your conflict with that person from God's point of view. View your conflict from heaven. View it from eternity past. And view it from eternity future.

If you want to make peace with another believer, remember that God has already accomplished a far harder, far deeper, longer lasting work of peacemaking through the death of his Son for your sins. As Paul proclaims in Ephesians 2:14, For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one. And has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. Point number two, rejoice in Jesus. Rejoice in Jesus.

This is Paul's directive in verse four.

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. How can Paul command joy? Isn't joy an emotion and therefore not something you can just sum up at will? How can joy be a duty?

The key is what or rather who Paul tells us to rejoice in. Rejoice in the Lord always. Always. And Paul means here as he almost always does when he says the Lord, he means the Lord Jesus Christ. He means the one who is God and became man and humbled himself to death and rose from the grave and reigns at God's right hand all in order to bring us salvation.

God himself is infinitely happy. He is blessed with limitless joy because his own Wisdom and beauty and goodness have no limit. And he created us out of overflowing generosity and love so that he could share his own wellspring of joy with us. But from the beginning, starting with humanity's very first parents, we've all rejected God's offer to be happy in him. Instead, we've all acted on the conviction that we can be happier without him.

We'll do better than your offer, God, thank you very much. And the consequences of that choice, which the Bible calls sin, include death, judgment, eternal condemnation, and therefore, the eternal total absence of happiness. God would have been just to simply sentence all of us to that eternity of misery and judgment, but he's not only just, he's also merciful. He's not only holy, he's also gracious. So he sent his eternal son to become a man, to live a perfectly righteous life for us, to die on the cross as the punishment for our sins, and to rise triumphant over death three days later, and now to reign in power and glory at his right hand.

Also that, if you turn from sin and trust in him, you'll receive eternal happiness in him forever. You'll be happy in God with no end, no limit, no threat of ever losing your eternal source of happiness in him. So if you've never turned from sin and trusted in Christ, believe in him. Turn away from trying to be the chief architect of your own happiness. Turn away from rebelling against God and resisting his rule and come to him humbly, depending totally on him and his promise in Christ to save you.

How can Paul command Joy? Because the good news of the gospel is a never-failing spring of joy. As Don Carson commented on this verse, obedience to this command is possible because the ground of this rejoicing is changeless. 500 years ago in his book, the Pathway into Holy Scripture, the English Bible translator William Tyndale beautifully made this same point. Eulogion, which we call the gospel, is a Greek word that signifies good, merry, glad, and joyful tidings.

Tidings that make a man's heart glad and make him sing, dance, and leap for joy. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. You can rejoice because Jesus always gives you reason for joy. And you must rejoice because nothing less measures up to the magnitude of the gift Christ has given you.

So how can you rejoice in the Lord when you don't feel like rejoicing? You have to refocus your mind and heart on the reasons Christ has given you to rejoice. God has set his love on you for all eternity. There's ground for rejoicing. Christ has purchased you at the cost of his own blood.

More ground for rejoicing. The Spirit lives in you to renew you and assure you. Still more ground for rejoicing. Your sorest trials are the blink of an eye compared with the eternity of happiness God is storing up for you. Your heaviest afflictions are light compared with the weight of glory that God will one day load you down with.

There is still more ground for rejoicing. So then how can you remind yourself of and renew your focus on These reasons for rejoicing in Christ, a few encouragements. Spend unhurried time reading and praying through Scripture at the start of your day. Grab hold of a verse to bring with you into your day to remind yourself of God's goodness when circumstances cloud your view of him. Come to our church's gatherings eager to be reminded of reasons to rejoice in Jesus.

Seek out fellowship with people who are joyful in Jesus and ask them to help you rekindle your flickering flame. Another suggestion, work singing into your daily routines. Sing the doxology or a verse of a hymn with your family or roommates at meal times. What if you don't feel joyful, don't feel like singing? Just try it.

Odds are you'll have more joy in Jesus after you sing than you did before.

Point three, be gentle. Be gentle. Look at verse five.

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. What does Paul mean by the Lord is at hand? Does he mean God is near us to hear our prayers and ordain circumstances for our benefit and rescue and deliver us? Yes, I think so.

Does he mean that Jesus is soon coming back and so we should live in light of his return and be ready and watchful and sober? I think so. Ultimately, in light of all of Scripture, it's tough to choose between those two. They both tie into each other and imply each other. So whichever one he might have foremost in his mind, I think he kind of implies the other.

We should live in light of God's near presence and Christ's near return. And Paul's command here is, let your reasonableness be known to everyone. You'll see the footnote in the ESV says it could also be translated gentleness. This Greek word translated reasonableness is tough to convey in a single English word. Its meaning is not primarily intellectual, it doesn't mean being good at at logic or something like that.

Instead, the sense is more like, if you're trying to make a deal with somebody and they're driving a hard bargain, you might say to them, Please, let's be reasonable. That's what's going on here with this Greek word. The sense of the word has to do with being fair or being better than fair. It has to do with being yielding, kind, forbearing, giving more than you demand. In a word, being gentle.

It's about being more concerned to be fair to others than whether they're being fair to you. My mom has taught me a valuable trick for resolving children's disputes over treats. Let's say there aren't enough cookies to go around. Maybe two children will have to split one. Okay, then comes the debate over who gets the bigger half.

So here's my mom's genius solution: One kid cuts the cookie, the other kid chooses the halves. Works every time.

The gentleness that Paul commends here says, Here, you take the bigger half. That kind of spirit, Paul says, should pervade our every interaction. We should be known to everyone as having that type of generosity, gentleness. The kind of edge and border between us and other people shouldn't be one we police to try to sort of keep them off our turf, but rather a side of generosity, of giving. They come into our presence and we are a benefit and a blessing to them.

That's how Paul is saying we should relate to all people. So what is gentleness? Just to meditate a little more deeply on this virtue that we all need. Gentleness is love guided by self-control, applying just enough strength to serve someone in a way they will receive.

How can you grow more gentle? Gentleness grows in the soil of grace. It comes from knowing that someone infinitely holier than you has treated you better than you deserve. It comes from knowing that someone infinitely more powerful than you has not only made up for all your worst weaknesses but pledged himself to strengthen you and to use his infinite power to bring you into his eternal kingdom. Gentleness comes from realizing that So often your words are doing less good than you think and more harm than you fear.

Only a gentle person can turn the flood of what they think needs saying into the trickle of what the person before them can actually receive.

Often the difference between rupturing unity in the Church and repairing unity is this: Do you speak with more force than you need to or less than you could? Gentleness is not the opposite of strength but it's wise application. I haven't swung a golf club in maybe 25 years. It's kind of a personal streak or record I suppose I'm trying to maintain. But I know enough about golf to know this: no golfer would use their driver when they are five feet from the tee.

No, wait, what's the thing that goes in the cup? Five feet from the cup? The flag? What's it called? The pin.

The pin? The pin. Five feet from the pin. Should have asked an expert before trying this illustration.

No golfer will pull out their driver five feet from the pin. Use a putter. It's just the teensiest little tap. Anything more and your toes, there's no way it's going into the cup or hole or whatever it is.

So here's my challenge for you. In any conversation with any church member or for that matter, representative at the DMV or person you're on hold with or whatever it might be, learn which club the conversation calls for. Use the full range, and if you're missing a few, figure out how to cultivate those.

My wife, Kristen, recently offered a wonderful example of this gentleness toward who else but me. A couple of weeks ago, she was hanging out with a couple of friends one evening, sharing with them some fears, some challenges, some difficulties, and they were helping her process those fears and difficulties. And Kristen and I debriefed the conversation the next night, and Let's just say that I was not as sympathetic as those couple of friends were. Perhaps I offered more accusation or criticism than sympathy. My lack of sympathy dragged us into a conflict that lasted most of the evening.

I asked Kristen's forgiveness, which she granted, but it was clear I was still not really seeing the big picture. Thankfully, the next day we got to go out to lunch together, we had a very good conversation, and actually, what made it such a good conversation in God's kindness is that Kristen, very humbly and gently, just let off with a series of open questions that let me share about what I was thinking and the sort of priorities I was so concerned to protect when I was not really listening to her very sympathetically. So we had a great conversation, we made a lot of progress, the weather was sunny and nice again, And then, I went away for a week, sat together for the gospel. I saw 20 of my best friends and had 20 in-depth searching conversations. I came back home after T4G with a little more perspective.

I said to Kristin, you know, sweetheart, that fight was 90% me and 10% you. And she just said, Good.

I'm glad you see that.

So I think we made still more progress, but what I'm especially thankful for is that Kristen did not dunk on me. She did not spike the ball in the end zone. There was no told you so. It was just gentleness, which the Lord knows I need. How can you make peace?

Be gentle. How can you be gentle? By taking your bearings from the gentleness that God has shown you in making peace with you through Christ's work on the cross. Point four, cast your cares on God. How can you find peace?

Cast your cares on God.

Paul exhorts us in verses six and seven 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. Here's Paul's point in a sentence. Swap your anxiety for God's peace through thankful prayer. I'll say that again.

Swap your anxiety for God's peace through thankful prayer. Do not be anxious about anything.

Isn't that a little unrealistic? Maybe a little inhuman? I think it would be if you're looking for the solution to your anxiety in yourself. But if you look to God, it's a whole other story. God is so big, his love is so deep, his commitment to you so total, his grace so sufficient, his power so perfect.

That nothing can finally harm you. And so you can and should be anxious for nothing.

It's important to see that Paul is not saying we can live an utterly burden-free life. It's inevitable that cares and concerns for ourselves and others will weigh on us and wear on us. Using the same Greek root that he does here, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:28, and apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. And he's not confessing this as a sin. So feeling some weight of care is inevitable and not only inevitable but even commendable.

Again, using a form of this same Greek word, in Philippians 2:20, Paul commends Timothy for being genuinely concerned for your welfare. So here in Philippians 4:6, Paul assumes you will have circumstances in your life that bring you anxiety and he tells you what to do with those anxieties: cast them on the Lord in prayer. We'll get to that in a moment but first I want to say just a bit more about the line between godly care and ungodly anxiety. A few contrasts. Godly care leads to godly action.

Ungodly anxiety leads either to inaction or to foolish action. Godly care leads you to do what you can, even when all that you can do is pray. Ungodly anxiety causes you to be obsessed with what you can't do or to be obsessed with what you can do nothing about. Godly care acknowledges your dependence on God UnGodly anxiety grows out of the illusion of independence, the illusion of self-sustaining self-sufficiency.

Godly care flows from faith, hope, and love. UnGodly anxiety flows from unbelief. As one commentator put it, worry can be the delayed symptom of a practical atheism. That grows from persistent neglect of prayer and an addictive belief in self-sufficiency. So what does Paul tell us to do with every cause of anxiety?

Turn it into prayer. Turn your anxious list into a prayer list. Turn every care into a prayer. Whatever weighs on your heart the heaviest, pray about it first. Prayer is a spiritual bench press for getting the weight of anxiety off your soul and every rep in prayer will spiritually strengthen you.

So often our anxieties trick us into just kind of letting them hang around all the time. So often we're seemingly content just to sort of let them keep us company. We let anxieties float around like dark clouds that obscure our vision and chill our love and weaken our resolve to obey. But brothers and sisters, prayer is a brisk spring gale that blows the clouds of anxiety away. Paul says, In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Supplication simply means asking God for what you need. Don't let a deceptive shame keep you from bringing your requests to God as if they're too small for him to be bothered by. Don't think, God is too big to care about my little problem. Brother, sister, it's precisely because God is so big that he can care about all your problems. And anyway, all our problems are small in his sight.

No problem is big to God. So whatever is weighing you down, whatever is in danger of suffocating your faith, get it off your chest through asking God to help you, to deliver you, to act for you. To transform you. Get the weight of your anxieties off your shoulders and into God's omnipotent hands. Instead of letting your problems keep you from praying, let your problems keep you praying.

If your anxieties are so many and so kind of jumbled together that it's hard to even pray about them, I would encourage you to literally make a list. Drop some bullet points. It doesn't matter if it kind of repeats or loops on itself. Put down those anxieties one by one, and then pray through one by one, and tick each one off as you go. And don't just ask God, but thank him.

That's the other crucial ingredient here in Paul's anti-anxiety prescription, thanksgiving, prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving re-centers your heart on who God is and on what he's already done for you. It reminds you that he is good now and he's doing you good now, even in the midst of whatever hardship you're suffering through. Thanksgiving reminds you that God has already given you far more than you deserve and he has far more still to give. Paul gives us here not only instruction but also a promise that goes with it.

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

Paul promises this peace as the divinely ordained response to your casting your anxieties on God in prayer. Paul says that by praying with thanksgiving, you can and will sink the biggest stones of your anxiety in the infinite ocean of his peace. What is this peace? Spurgeon put it very well. It is the unruffled serenity of the infinitely happy God, the eternal composure of the absolutely well contented God.

And Paul says this peace will guard your heart. God's own peace will become a, as it were, peacekeeping force set up within your soul to guard and garrison your heart and mind. Keeping all enemy thoughts at bay.

This peace passes all understanding. Paul means that it is so great, so rich, so deep, so full that it goes beyond anything you can ever explain. This peace is not merely the absence of conflict but the presence of a right relationship enjoyed to the full. This peace is not dependent on circumstances but on the God who wisely rules all circumstances. This peace depends not on what you can do about your problems, but on what God has done, can do, and will do.

My Father's care is round me there. He holds me that I shall not fall. And so to Him I sing. I leave it all.

So often, when you're weighed down by anxiety, what you find yourself most striving for and clamoring for is answers. Why is this happening? What's going on? When's it going to end? What can I do about it?

Who's going to help? You want answers. But answers are not what you most need. And answers are not what God promises here. Instead, he promises a peace greater than any answer.

And even if you do sometimes get some of the answers you're looking for, they don't always help. They can spawn more questions or they can add more weight to your stack of anxiety. Often, searching for answers is a symptom of a quest. For control.

But praying with petition and thanksgiving is the opposite of seeking control. Prayer is an assault on control. Prayer is the ultimate declaration that you're not in control and that your peace comes from trusting the one who is. If you're not a believer in Jesus, We're glad you're here, you're welcome at all of our public services. My question for you this morning would be this: what would you give in order to gain a peace that passes understanding?

And in your view, who or what could make such a peace possible?

Point five: Contemplate and copy all that's good. Contemplate and copy all that's good.

This is how Paul wraps up this portion of the letter in verses 8 and 9 before he gets into kind of corresponding with the Philippians about their gift and then wrapping up the whole thing. So in some ways, this is his last main exhortation. Verses 8 and 9. 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.

Two main points in these verses. First in verse eight, Paul exhorts us to occupy our minds with, to devote our attention to everything that is good and makes us good. Second in verse nine, he exhorts us to put into practice the cross-shaped life that he himself and every godly Christian models for us. We'll start with verse 8. When God's peace takes up residence in your heart and mind, what does it direct you to?

What trajectory does it set you on? It takes the shape of continually contemplating every type of good. The point of Paul's wide-ranging list here is that all truth is God's truth and all goodness in this whole created universe is a reflection and a refraction of God's own goodness. Every good created gift, from beautiful weather to trees blossoming to seeing ponies in a field in Chincoteague, is a refraction of the pure white light of God's goodness. And the diversity of all those things shows the purity and the fullness of the good original.

All truth is God's truth. All goodness shows His goodness. So we should love all of it. We should devote our minds to all of it. One of the most important fronts in the fight for holiness is the battle for your attention.

And that battle has escalated to an all-out war in the past few decades of technological advance and with the rise of social media, for example. Some anxiety is self-inflicted. If your reflex upon waking up each morning is to put a glowing screen in front of your face from which pours a continual stream of misery and suffering and unrest and vitriolic debate from around the world, you shouldn't be surprised if you are filled with a nameless fear. I'm just so anxious and I can't put my finger on why. There's something I wish I could just figure out why I'm so anxious all the time.

You become what you behold. If you behold truth and goodness and beauty, you will become true and good and beautiful. If you behold a fear inducing spectacle of constant disaster, you will become anxious. What do you consume with your eyes? What spectacles compete with Christ crucified for your time and attention?

Think about the last few TV shows and movies you've watched. How well do those pass Paul's eight tests? True. Honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise.

Paul's telling you to devote your thoughts, your mind, your attention to whatever passes these tests because what you contemplate becomes what you copy. Whatever you fix your mind on will draw your words and actions and habits after it. So what can you do positively to saturate your mind with what is true, honorable, just, and pure? What can you do to fix your attention day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute on what is lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise? One simple encouragement I'd give you is to memorize scripture.

It could be a verse, it could be a whole book. The need to repeat it will help you pay attention. And I at least have found that the repeated exposure to the same words helps me meditate. Then once you get the verse or chapter or book off the page and into your heart, you carry it with you wherever you go. It's ready at a moment's notice.

If you memorize scripture, you've got it at your fingertips when you're stuck in traffic or when you get bad news over the phone. Or when you're tempted to visually consume something you shouldn't. Scripture always passes all eight of Paul's tests. Then in verse 9, Paul reminds us not merely to think but to do. And he reminds us of the help that godly examples provide.

He says, what you have learned and received and heard and seen, and heard and seen in me. Practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. So Paul's reminding the Philippians that they've not only heard him preach, they've seen him practice. He lived among them when he brought the gospel to them and founded their church. They had access not only to his teaching but to his whole life.

They could see the fit between what he said and what he did and he could appeal to that with confidence and a clear conscience knowing how he lived among them.

Paul delivered to the Philippians not only the gospel, but the pattern of a life conformed to the gospel. As Calvin commented, the first thing in a preacher is that he should speak not with his mouth only, but by his life and procure authority for his doctrine by rectitude of life. So pick your pattern wisely and put it into practice. If you're looking for a model in your career, consider is there a mature believer who's walked those steps before you for five or 10 or 15 more years? Don't just look to whoever is the most successful and has climbed the ladder the highest and farthest.

Look for somebody who's godly, whose priorities are in the right place. Who's faithful to their family and ask them what it's looked like to walk those steps in that career. When you're thinking about your friends, who you most give your heart to, who you most give your time to, who you most give your affection to, obviously there's a place for deliberately investing widely and think about how to serve people who are in a more difficult place. But when you think about your kind of inner circle, those people you most entrust yourself to, are you looking for people who embody the character of Christ in his selfless, sacrificial giving. Like Paul's teaching on prayer in verses 6 and 7, this exhortation also comes with a promise.

Practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. Paul's saying that if you live a cross-shaped life, if you embody his own pattern of voluntarily suffering for the sake of the gospel, The God who is himself perfect peace will bless you with perfect peace. When you walk in the path of humble, self-forgetting obedience, you will have not only the peace of God but the God of peace. You will enjoy rich, sustained fellowship with the God who is able to fully bless because he is himself fully blessed.

In January of 2009, right after I completed our church's pastoral internship, I started working for Nine Marks, assisting Jonathan Leeman with editorial work. And I well remember one of Jonathan's first professional lessons to me. I was helping to edit some material and work on stuff on our kind of website architecture. And I remember I kept hitting these little logistical snags, you know, oh, come up against this, what do I do? I don't know, go ask Jonathan.

And after about two or three of these, Jonathan said to me, don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. His point is that even if I didn't have the authority to make some sort of far-reaching decision, I would grow more by thinking of the problem all the way through. I'd serve him better by kind of looking at it from every angle, weighing the pros and cons and saying, well, here's what I think we should do. Don't bring me problems. Bring me solutions.

What does the gospel bring you? A solution to sin, a solution to conflict, a solution to sorrow, A solution to anxiety and a solution to the fundamental question of what is the good life and how can you actually live it? How can you get all this? By trusting in Christ, fixing your heart and mind on Christ through prayer, patterning your life on those who image Christ, and by resting in Christ, amid all of life's fiercest battles, strong in thy strength, safe in thy keeping tender, we rest on thee, and in thy name we go. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this promise that you yourself will be our perfect peace. Father, we pray that you would enable us to depend on you more deeply and constantly so that we would experience more of this gift of peace, that you are so generously offering us. Father, we pray that you would grow in us a reflex that whenever something causes us anxiety, we would turn it over to you in prayer. We pray that we would be a people who help each other do that so that we would know your peace and help others know it too. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.