It is my honor to preach the final message
from Paul's Holy Spirit inspired letter to Philippians, chapter 4. How would Paul end a letter like this, how? How? What would he say? We looked at so many majestic themes, such
a display of God's glory in doctrine and theology for the church, such pastoral admonition. But my honor is to preach this text and to
speak about thinking like a Christian. Thinking like a Christian, how unusual is
it that this is strange language to so many Christians? The false gospel of moralism means that there
are a lot of Christians, or those who believe themselves to be Christians, who believe the
question is always, "How do you act like a Christian?" Now the New Testament makes that clear that
is never the wrong question. It's just not the first question. The first question is, "How do you think like
a Christian?" The recovery of a concern for the Christian
worldview became necessary because of the acute crisis of biblical Christianity in the
modern age. So, even as you might say in retrospect and
various other moments of church history, there was a lot of attention to how to think like
a Christian, it was not usually in the period from the medieval era to the modern age. It was not generally a sense of emergency
in which over again some other reality, some other dominant worldview, Christians had to
think about the Christian worldview. It's not unprecedented. In fact, the first precedent is New Testament
Christianity as recorded in the New Testament. That's the first, the first emergency for
the church to try to think through what it would mean to think as a Christian. That was the first emergency. The second emergency was the fall of Rome. And with the fall of Rome, with Rome as it
turns out providing so much of the intellectual certainty for those who were the citizens
of the Roman Empire, even those beyond the Roman Empire, for whom the Roman Empire was
the great fact. The fall of the Roman Empire was a great crisis,
in which there needed to be an answer, "How do we think as Christians?" And the greatest, the most majestic of those
answers was of course Augustine's great work The City of God. It then comes to the great flower of the Reformation,
when not so much Luther, but Calvin in the Institutes of The Christian Religion responded
to another kind of emergency with thinking through what it would mean for a church to
be Reformed and for the gospel to be the gospel, for Jesus Christ to be Lord, and that God-centered
obsession that was Calvin as displayed devotionally, theologically, doctrinally, doxologically
in the Institutes of The Christian Religion. Why do we now use this language? Why do we speak of thinking as a Christian
in a way that our grandparents or great grandparents probably never felt the urgency? It is because we know that urgency. It is because the dominant worldview around
us is increasingly the worldview of a post-Christian, secular age. It's because an antagonistic antitheism and
a very toxic secularism now mark so much of the world around us and when we think as Christians
about thinking as Christians, one of the things we have to recognize is that if we do not
think carefully as Christians about thinking about thinking as a Christian, we won't think
like Christians, we won't be Christians. We won't. It requires concerted, dedicated thought. It requires a comprehensive consideration
of the question, "What does it mean to think as a Christian?" Modernity, the modern age with its challenges,
didn't just arrive in the twenty-first century. It didn't just arrive in the twentieth century. It arrived earlier, especially in Europe. And especially in the nineteenth century,
there were those in both the European context and the British context who were trying to
think this through in a way few Americans did. In the European context, you had someone like
Abraham Kuyper in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, who became actually
the prime minister of the Netherlands for a relatively brief time, but was trying to
think through what a Christian worldview, as we would say, borrowing from the German
worldview that emerged in the cultural crisis of Germany in the nineteenth century, as to
what would that look like. In the English-speaking, someone like James
Orr was asking many of the same kinds of questions, trying to think about a Christian view of
God and the world. It was really in the United States, more in
the 1940s and 50s, that evangelical Christians began to ask some of these questions. They began to talk about the Christian worldview,
borrowing that concept from others and inheriting this concern from people such as Orr and Kuyper. Francis Schaeffer began speaking about the
comprehensive Christian worldview just the time I needed him when I was a teenager in
the 1970s. And I was trying to find out, figure out…I
was looking for a guide, I needed someone to be able to put together in a comprehensive
way what I was struggling to try to understand, and along comes Schaeffer talking about a
Christian view of culture and a Christian view of art and a Christian view of politics. Christian, Christian. Not just as held by Christians, but Christian
as the determinative modifier. So that the Christians look at politics differently
than non-Christians, Christians look at history differently, Christians look at economics
differently, Christians will look at art and all the artifacts of culture, Christians will
look at the family in a different way than others, all rooted in the fundamental reality
of the Christian worldview that grows out of Scripture, a theological worldview. As we think about modern Christianity, I think
the figures who probably contributed most of this would've been Schaeffer in the '70s
and then after that the massive contribution of R.C. Sproul to the development of the Christian
mind and the very heritage and existence, the mission of Ligonier Ministries to take
all objects of knowledge and submit them to Christ and submit them to Scripture. And here we are today in the year 2018, and
we fully understand that if we do not operate out of an intentional Christian worldview,
if we don't think as Christians, then we will not possibly live as Christians. And it's just not a matter of our faithfulness;
it's a matter of our public witness and the integrity of our witness, even our communication
of the gospel as well. And furthermore, we understand as Christians
that if we do not inculcate in our children and in our children's children the disciplines
and the biblical knowledge necessary, the Christian thinking fundamental to thinking
as a Christian, then they will not be Christians. My honor is to direct us to Philippians chapter
4, beginning in verse 2. I'm going to read the entire passage, as is
my charge, all the way to the end of the chapter in order that we would hear it together as
the Philippian church would have heard it at the conclusion of the reading of this letter. The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul writes: "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. 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. I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at
length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you
had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for
I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how
to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned
the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens
me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in
the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me
in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for
my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit
that increases to your credit. I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus
the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours
according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and
ever. Amen. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those
of Caesar's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with
your spirit." It's hard to imagine how you would end an
epistle like this, how the Holy Spirit would inspire Paul to conclude a letter like this. After all that's already been said, what do
you say now? Well, we should be very thankful that what
Paul speaks of here speaks directly to the question of how we would think like Christians. It doesn't start there, at least not apparently,
"apparently" being the key word here. Look at verse 2. It's another pastoral admonition. In this case he's entreating two women, Euodia
and Syntyche, to agree in the Lord. The context here is unknown to us as to what
the disagreement might be, but the disagreement was by two women amongst them and may appear
to both be faithful Christian women. Paul doesn't side one way or the other in
the dispute. He just commends them, entreats them to agree
in the Lord. Now what we know as background to this is
sufficient from knowing the Apostle Paul, as he writes elsewhere. We know that this cannot be an issue of truth,
it cannot be an issue of doctrine, not of any doctrine because Paul is not going to
take a "get along and go along" position when it comes to doctrine. He's not going to say, "Just find a way to
agree, find the lowest common denominator." That's not Paul, and that's not Christianity. We know it really can't be a crucial moral
question because in the same way the Apostle Paul is really, really clear about biblical
morality. He's really, really clear about what is required
of the Christian. He speaks of this with amazing candor. So what must it be? Well it must be something we don't need to
know, or we would know. It must be something in which you could have
two goodhearted, faithful, convictional Christian women who disagree, but need to agree in the
Lord. That's important for us to understand. There are times when we need on issues that
are not of doctrinal importance, where truth is on the line and where morality or ethics
is not on the line, where both our witness and our conduct before the Lord would be in
question, there are some questions in which we just need to agree in the Lord one way
or another. And the servant here, his "true companion"
and that probably is Epaphroditus, who had interceded in such a way to help to bring
about this kind of agreement. You know, this is what's really interesting. The Catholic charge against Protestants is
that we keep splitting up. We do. I love the way one of the Puritans put it. He said, "We have many fractured and fissiparous
sects." Fissiparous, yeah that's us. We do that at times. And by the way if we do it over truth, that's
the right thing to do. If we do it over doctrine, that's the right
thing to do. If we do it over a consistent Christian conduct,
then that's the right thing to do. But sadly, at least the landscape of Protestantism
is indeed sometimes littered with the schisms and divisions that should never have happened
over things nobody can even remember. Now, we don't have to go into the false claim
of unity in the Roman Catholic Church. I will take our fissiparousness over the falsity
of the Church of Rome, but that doesn't mean we sometimes should not be embarrassed by
the disputes that divide us. When I was a college student preaching in
Alabama, I was preaching in a rural association. That's where you preach when you're a college
student, generally. I was preaching out in the boondocks where
it was…here's my favorite, there were three churches that are all linked to something,
I know not what links them except history, and I can write the history even though I
have no idea of the particulars. Here are three churches out of the twenty-one
in a Baptist association in Alabama. Okay? Follow. "Harmony Baptist Church," "New Harmony Baptist
Church" and "New Harmony Baptist Church Number Two." Okay, so there's something horrifying about
that. First of all, if you have harmony, you don't
have new harmony unless you've had disharmony between the first harmony and the new harmony. And what kind of disharmony must have come
in between Harmony, New Harmony, and New Harmony Number Two? All right. And I'll just go out on a limb and say, "I
really doubt this was a serious doctrinal issue." And one of the things we do come to understand
here is that this is not extraneous to the consideration of the Christian mind. Remember what Paul had written in Philippians
chapter 2, even in that great Christological passage, "Have this mind in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus," and speaking there of our proper humility following the example
of Christ. What is our humility compared to the humility
of Christ in the incarnation all the way to the cross? One of the things we see here is that there
is a pastoral urgency, not just a cultural urgency, not just a chronological urgency
as we're living in this post-Christian, secular age. There's a congregational urgency to the Christian
way of thinking. It should, if we are actually developing a
Christian mind together, it should be unitive. It should be unifying. That's something else you see in this, as
the Apostle Paul writes. It says here, "Rejoice in the Lord always;
again I will say, rejoice." And you say, "Well, isn't that a bit abrupt?" I mean, he's dealing with a pastoral problem. Now, he's dealing with rejoicing. Well, I want us to think about this for just
a moment. It turns out that one of the great gains amongst
many Christians, gospel-minded Christians in our generation is that we are thinking
much more clearly and intentionally, and I even believe faithfully, about the Christian
worldview, about the Christian mind and about thinking like a Christian. That's great gain. And we need to understand that essential to
that gain has been understanding what it means to cogitate, to reflect, to analyze, to make
judgments, to discern, to distinguish on the basis of the truth of God's inerrant and infallible
Word. The total comprehensive truth claim of Christianity
applied to every dimension of life. And a part of that necessary gain for us has
been even learning an intellectual apparatus, which is necessary for the development of
the Christian mind and understanding of reality and understanding of truth and understanding
of how we know, its ontology, its epistemology. All of this has been necessary, and many of
the gains in our thinking by means of the Christian worldview has come by understanding
truths, revealed truths of God within the context of a comprehensiveness of the Christian
truth claim, and to understand those truths and to define those truths and as necessary
to defend those truths in order that on the basis of truth, we may make true judgments
and we may analyze and know truly and speak truly and accurately and faithfully to whatever
question may come to us, whatever dimension of life we might address. That's gain. That's undeniable gain There's also been gain in the Christian mind
in that we have learned how to fit the Christian mind, how to situate the Christian mind within
the great unfolding narrative of Scripture with creation and fall and redemption and
new creation, such that we begin to understand that we are thinking about how everything,
everything that exists, all of creation, the entire cosmos, and we ourselves and all the
questions of right and wrong, and all the questions of truth and untruth. This is all placed within our understanding,
history certainly, but not only the past, not only the present but also future within
that narrative structure of creation and fall and redemption and new creation. That has been great gain. But here is the question I want to ask you,
is it possible, is it possible to think like a Christian and not be a Christian? And the answer is yes. So actually, I want to play with my title
just a little bit. I'm actually far more concerned, not with
thinking like a Christian, as with thinking as a Christian. There is nothing wrong with thinking like
a Christian. As a matter of fact, we must think like a
Christian, but it's just not enough. We actually have to think as a Christian. We're actually not satisfied that people think
like Christians. The Great Commission was not "Go and encourage
people to think as Christians," but to be Christians, to trust Christ, to faithfully
follow Him, to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded. So the great gain we have from Philippians
chapter 4 in our understanding of the Christian worldview, we're going to see there are several
dimensions of this great gain, is that the Apostle Paul begins the Christian worldview
in his consideration in this passage what it means to think as a Christian, morally,
even attitudinally. As we look to this passage, I want us to think
about what it means to assume the attitude of the Christian mind, the attitude of the
Christian mind. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will
say, rejoice." Do we really take that seriously, you know,
what it means to think as a Christian means first of all to rejoice? I don't think this word even comes naturally
to us, except at Christmas. You can't have a decent Christmas card without
"Rejoice." Angels talk that way. We know it's the kind of language, "We rejoice,"
I mean let's just admit we consider it odd if people talk this way, men maybe particularly. I was always, as a boy, trying to take the
measure of how my dad was coming home. It's an important thing to know. It's a survival technique for children. You just kind of have to know what's the attitude. My dad was a hardworking Christian man, and
I could tell when things have gone well and I could tell when things went poorly. Now the good news was he got happy when he
was around us. That was really important. But you know, just when he got out of the
car how did that door close? You know, as a boy you learn these signals. Was it just a satisfying click or was it a
slam? Okay, alright. If my dad had come in and I'd said, "Hey dad. How was your day?" and he said, "I'm rejoicing
in it," I would have wondered who this was. This is not the kind of language. And as matter of fact, we don't even use the
"joy" vocabulary very much. But the Bible uses it a great deal. The Bible repeatedly, both the Old and New
Testaments, as they are rightly translated, but just take the New Testament. The "joy" vocabulary is huge and the reason
we're so easily bought off with happiness or disappointed when we're not happy, I will
just tell you when I look at the New Testament and I look at the Apostle Paul, I think there's
a great deal of evidence that he wasn't always happy. But he was never without joy, even held in
Caesar's captivity. Joy, even struggling with that thorn in the
flesh. Joy, even facing his death being poured out
as a drink offering, joy. And of course, we're told that that joy is
made possible only because of Christ. We should use this language more often. But very pointedly here, we should understand
that the attitude of the Christian mind is one that begins in rejoicing, and it's on
the basis of who God is and what He has done for us in Christ, on the basis of the gospel,
on the basis of the atonement, on the basis of the promise of salvation, on the basis
of the assurance of things to come we're to rejoice. We can face anything. You realize that there are a lot of Christians
right now who are trying to hunker down because "we got to think as Christians because the
world's coming at us," which by the way it is. That's not a misunderstanding. It's just the wrong attitude. I mean if it's up to us, we're doomed anyway,
right? That doesn't mean we're not to be faithful,
but it does mean at the end of the day we're not up to this. The prince of darkness grim will win, but
for the fact one little word shall fell him, "Christ." It's not Al. It's not you. It's not me. The little word is "Christ." That's what we have to realize. We rejoice because Jesus Christ is Lord, and
that's enough. The attitude in the Christian mind begins
in rejoicing, and that rejoicing produces something that Paul mentions next, "reasonableness." Reasonableness, and this isn't just rationality. This is reasonableness as an attitude. It's very, very clear in the context here. This means being reasonable with one another. That turns out to be really, really important. Let your reasonableness be so famous about
you that it's known to everyone. "The Lord's at hand." There's that eschatology, the Lord's at hand. "Do not be anxious about anything." Now, wait just a minute. Back when I was preaching this morning from
Philippians chapter 2, I pointed out that reasonableness and anxiety are right there. I mean rejoicing and anxiety are right there. You see it in chapter 2 verse 28. This is about Epaphroditus. "I am the more eager to send him therefore
that you may rejoice at seeing him again and that I may be less anxious." It's one of the problems with not reading
something like the epistle to the Philippians in one sitting. You will miss the fact that the Apostle Paul
admits in chapter 2 he has been anxious, only in chapter 4 to say, "Don't be anxious about
anything." And you know what's going on with the Apostle
Paul? He's preaching to himself. This is how the Holy Spirit has inspired Paul
in this honesty in chapter 2. He's been anxious. We can understand that. We can understand the context of his anxiety. But by the time he gets to the end of the
letter, it's "Be anxious about nothing." The Christian should not have an anxious mind. The Christian should not be marked by an anxious
heart. Why? Not because we are up to this, but because
Jesus Christ is Lord. Christ is more than sufficient for these things. And thus, why be anxious? What does that do for us anyway? Does Jesus ask Himself -- anxious about how
tall we are? Solve that. Anxious about the number of our days? Try that. What good does it do to be anxious? And it's because the Lord is at hand, because
the consummation of all God's promises is coming, it's coming assuredly, "Don't be anxious
about anything, but in everything…don't be anxious about anything, but in everything
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." The exercise of the Christian mind, what is
that? Cogitation, analysis, discernment, discrimination,
judgment? Yeah, all those things are part of the exercise
of the Christian mind but thinking as a Christian, as it turns out, is demonstrated in prayer. This is humbling to me. It's very humbling. It's convicting to me because I so often think
of the Christian truth claim and thinking as a Christian, developing a Christian mind,
I want to rush to thinking, concluding, discerning, judging, discriminating, when actually we're
called to pray. How do we think as Christians? Well, evidently it's not going to come but
by prayer. We've heard that before. We heard it from Jesus. It comes only by prayer and prayer here defined
as both supplication with thanksgiving, the two of them together. So supplication, we make our requests known
to God. But thanksgiving, we're already thankful. We're already filled with gratitude. We make our requests known to God, and "the
peace of God, which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus." So what is the conclusion? What's the product? What's the result of the Christian mind? Christian thinking, yes. Christian faithfulness, yes. Strengthening of the church, yes. Edification of the church, yes. Demonstration of the church's public witness
and its credibility, yes. Being able to raise our children in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord, yes! But it turns out that the fruit of thinking
as a Christian, beginning in the attitude of rejoicing and then in the exercise of prayer,
ends up with the product of peace, peace. That's another language we don't use too often,
not in this sense. Here we are told that peace, that the peace
of God which surpasses all understanding, let's just take that seriously for a moment. It is beyond our intellectual reach. No apologies for failing in any sense to develop
the Christian mind. No apologies for seeking to understand Scripture
thoroughly and to apply it consistently. No apology. That's Christ's command. But at the end of the day, the peace of God
will surpass all understanding. It's not achievable, measurable, or even retainable
merely by the intellect. It's a peace of God that passes all understanding
and knowing that it's a protective peace, the peace of God. It's the gospel, the reality of Christ. "The peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." We need our hearts and our minds to be guarded. We need a guard over our hearts because we
cannot serve as the guardian of our own hearts. We need a guard over our minds. Yes, we want to develop discernment. We want to think clearly, all of that by God's
command, by the demands of faithfulness. Yes, but at the end of the day we can't guard
our own hearts. We can't guard our own minds. We are not sufficient for this. In chapel to students just a few days ago,
I preached a message that was really on my heart to preach to them. I'm not going to preach it here to you given
the constraints of time, but I did tell them that as a child I was terrified by sleep,
terrified by sleep. I was a child with lots of big questions and
just lots of huge concerns, raised by wonderful faithful Christian parents whom I must've
driven crazy. But as a child I was afraid to sleep. Because how could I hold myself? How could I keep myself, myself? Maybe if I fall asleep, I will cease to be. I know who I am when I'm awake and I can think
and I can do and I can watch myself thinking and doing and I can know I am alive. But if I sleep, maybe I'll simply cease to
exist. Of course, sleep wins. Sleep wins, and amazingly enough I would wake
up. That's why I love that hymn, He Will Hold
me Fast. Here's the good news of the gospel. We can't hold ourselves even for a second,
but He holds us eternally. He will hold me fast. When I can't even keep my eyelids open, He
will hold me fast. And by the way, when my eyelids are open,
they are only open because He is holding me fast. And we can't guard our hearts, and we can't
guard our minds. As much as we are called to the disciplines
of the Christian life and to the full embrace and glorying in Christian truth, at the end
of the day the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, it will guard our hearts
and minds. How? In Christ Jesus. But there's more here about thinking like…thinking
as a Christian, and in many ways this is the most surprising. What follows is within the context of the
New Testament what is most surprising, and in the context of many considerations of the
Christian mind what is also most missing as with what came before in this passage. Let's just look at the text again, "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." Think about these things. What's really, really interesting is the rhetorical
sophistication of this part of Philippians chapter 4. Again, this Paul who says he's is not going
to depend on human rhetoric and he doesn't. He's not seeking to be persuasive merely by
using human rhetoric, but he will use human rhetoric in order to display, by the Holy
Spirit, the truth the Holy Spirit means to communicate to His church, and this is an
exercise of rhetorical brilliance. It is also an in-your-face to the Greco-Roman
culture. It is a confrontation with that culture that
the early church found itself emerging within and over against, it's the Apostle Paul redefining
virtue ethics for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Greeks and the Romans, they defined those
things to which we should aspire as virtues and, by the way, by God's common grace many
of those virtues really are virtues. We should be thankful for that. And should be thankful for the virtues, the
biblical virtues, the virtues are rooted in God's own character. We should be thankful wherever they appear. Romans chapter 1 makes it very clear that
God has revealed even His invisible attributes in the things that are seen. So you wonder, why is there an appreciation
for beauty just about everywhere you find human beings? Why is there a yearning for peace? Why is there love? Why is there a quest for justice? Why is there even a knowledge of good and
wrong? Where…why, as you find human beings, do
you find them everywhere moral creatures? Why? Well, the problem with the ancient Greeks
and the Romans was not their concern for virtue. It was their lack of an understanding of how
virtue exists, and how it is secured, and how it is to be measured, and how it is to
be emulated. It's a huge problem when you put all of that
together. They really had no explanation for why the
virtues exist. And part of the problem with the virtue ethics
of the ancient world is that the virtues just kind of existed out there as if they were
just hanging on their own. And of course, they developed within both
the Greek and the Roman polytheism. They developed all kinds of different mythology. Remember how you were tortured by this in
junior high school. Edith Hamilton, thank you very much. You remember all these, and you know, the
problem is they could not, with a straight face, really make a direct connection between
their idolatrous deities and the virtues. So they got them all mixed up, which is just
another reason you were tortured in middle school or junior high school or high school,
trying to think through the Greek and Roman mythology. And so, one of the things that by the way,
New Testament scholars will note in looking through the New Testament is how throughout
most of the New Testament there's an avoidance of anything close to virtue ethics. There's very little use of this kind of ethical
format. So, what's the Apostle Paul doing? The Holy Spirit has inspired the Apostle Paul
to say, "Here is how a Christian thinks. This is the focus of the Christian mind." This is what it means to think like, as a
Christian. We understand the virtues far better than
the Greeks and the Romans because we don't ground them in themselves or in some kind
of foibling, fumbling mythology. We understand that the virtues are the virtues
because of the infinite perfections of the one true and living God. And we understand that every human heart has
at least some yearning for those perfections, those attributes. But here, the Apostle Paul says we as Christians
should think on certain things. And you'll notice "what's true, what's noble,
what's right, what's pure, what's lovely, what's admirable." Now, we could take months to discern exactly
what the differentiation is there. But even just hearing the words, there's enough. You get a pretty good idea of what the Apostle
Paul's doing. "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever
is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely…lovely, and whatever is admirable." Do you want anything less than all those words? Think about the opposite of all of those words. By the way, think how a confused, hedonistic,
humanistic society begins to actually have an appetite for the opposite of all of these
words. It turns out that the Christian church does
not live by a virtue ethic in which virtue is self-defining, but it turns out we do live
by a virtue worldview and by a certain virtue ethic that is grounded not in a human understanding
of virtues defined in and of themselves, but rather the attributes of the one true and
living God which, by His grace to His glory, He's revealed particularly to the saints. We're to think on these things. Here's one of the problems. Here's why many Christians don't rejoice as
a natural disposition of heart. This is why many Christians are not marked
by the peace of God that passes all understanding. It's because many Christians are not thinking
about the things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. Some of you are thinking, "Do you ever listen
to this podcast called The Briefing?" Yeah, so what do I have to keep doing? People say, "Well, how can you talk about
all that stuff?" It's because I spend far more time, by God's
grace, thinking about that which is true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable. And only then, only then can the Christian
approach the world as it is, and the headlines as they come, and the issues as we must address
them. But if we spend most of our time, if most
of our intellectual energy, if most of our Christian thinking is devoted to the problem
rather than to the gospel, to Christ and to the Word of God, then we're going to be in
big trouble. It's a good warning to us. And the Apostle Paul didn't say, "Don't worry
about those things in terms of dealing with them," don't engage. He does this. He certainly makes very clear that at the
end of the day, the most important thing for the Christian is thinking on certain virtues
which are grounded in God Himself and revealed to us. That which is true noble and right and pure
and lovely and admirable. "If anything is excellent," that's a loaded
word. That's one of the least expected words in
the New Testament. "Excellent," where does that come from? Well, here the Apostle Paul uses it in the
gospel context to say it's going to be infinitely higher than any human standard of excellence. It's going to be excellence that is going
to be grounded only in the excellence of Christ. And by the way, this is an interesting issue
how the rhetoric changes from "think on these things, true, noble, right, pure, lovely,
admirable," but then "if anything is excellent, if anything is worthy of praise, think on
these things." The Christian worldview is inherently theological,
you know that. It's inherently moral. It does apply to every single dimension of
life from politics and economics to aesthetics. It's comprehensive, it's the truth as God,
it's all-encompassing and comprehensive. It's going to take all of us thinking together
to think as Christians, so it just throws us back again upon the local church, upon
the communion of the saints. It's going to take every bit of Scripture,
it's going to take every word of Scripture. It's going to take prayer and then again,
as I said in the morning's message, the ordinary means of grace, the preaching of the Word
of God. Because here's the most amazing thing, no
one said it better than Luther, you know, Christians are made by the preaching of the
Word of God in a way that Christians do not know, and which is even greater than what
they heard. Because what they heard with their ears, that
is the necessary means. But what the Holy Spirit does in the heart,
conforming us to the image of Christ, it's even beyond the words. It's one of the reasons why I tell the parents,
"Read the Bible to your children, especially when they don't understand it." I don't mean any less in the future, but I
mean there are people who say, "Look, they don't understand language." You don't have any clue what the Holy Spirit's
doing with those words in that heart invisibly, when they don't even understand the polysyllabic
words. Let it take root in their hearts. Well, once again Paul ends on a pastoral word. You see this in the verses that conclude the
chapter. Paul's rejoicing that that they've revived
their concern for him. He gives words of appreciation. He makes very clear that in every circumstance
he's learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. "I can do all things through Him who strengthens
me." That's not prosperity theology. That's not a "name it and claim it." That's an assurance that what Paul does by
the faithfulness of Christ is secured in Christ, and he can do all that he's ordered to do
through Him who strengthens me, guards my heart and my mind. He recites a bit of what the Philippians know
about his ministry and the kind ministry of the Philippians to him when he was in Thessalonica. And then he says, "My God will supply every
need of yours." He said, "I can do all things through Him
who strengthens me," and "My God will supply every need of yours." Just put it together, "according to His riches
in glory in Christ Jesus." Think about that, "My God will supply every
need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." Prepositions are always so important. You'll notice it follows, it's not just that,
"My God will supply every need of yours." It's "Every need of yours according to His
riches." But not just His riches, "His riches in glory. His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." My goodness! It's a Holy Spirit inspired chain of logic. Once again, it ends in Christ, Christ Jesus. And then what you would think would be the
end of the letter "To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen." It's not quite the end. The Holy Spirit prompted Paul to write, "Greet
every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you," notice these words,
"especially those of Caesar's household." Boom! Wow, seriously! It's like the Philippians, they're going to
be very thankful that he didn't stop with "Amen." Keep going, keep going, "among the saints,
with Paul" who greet them, are members of the household of faith in Caesar's household. Oh, my goodness! You read about that, and you say "Well, obviously." Not obviously. This is how powerful the gospel is. The gospel is in Caesar's household. Caesar is worried about barbarians. What he should be worried is Christians. The gospel, the gospel has invaded even Caesar's
household. "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with
your spirit. To our God and Father be glory forever and
ever. Amen." The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with
your spirit. May we not be satisfied with thinking like
Christians. In some sense, cultural Christianity is what
happened in our country. People thought like Christians, but weren't
Christians. And here's what we discovered. People who think like Christians but aren't
Christians don't think like Christians for long. They begin to think like anti-Christians. I love old books, that's no secret. I got some new old books when I was here. And here's one that grabbed my heart so much
that I had to go back and get it when I didn't buy it. I had unbuyers remorse. I went back to get it. It's The Remains of John Brown, Minister of
the Gospel at Haddington. It's also one of the very first books ever
published from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "Printed and published by Cramer, Spear and
Eichbaum at the Franklin Head Bookstore in Market, between Front and Second Streets,
Pittsburgh, 1810." Alright, so this is how John Brown ended his
last communication. This is back when ministers used to leave
"remains," meaning "last words." These are the last words of John Brown to
his fellow ministers. "If your labors appear to have little success,
be the more diligent and dependent on Christ. Never mourn as they that have no hope. Let not the eunuch say 'I am a dry tree.' Jesus hath said, 'I will pour water on him
that is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit on thy seed and my blessing
on thine offspring.' A seed shall serve him, the whole earth be
filled with his glory. The kingdoms of this world shall become the
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Believeth on the testimony of God Himself. Believeth on the testimony of all His faithful
servants. And if mine were of any avail, I should add
it that there is no master so kind as Christ, no service so pleasant, as profitable as that
of Christ, and no reward so full, satisfying, as permanent as that of Christ. Let us therefore begin all things from Christ,
carry on all things with and through Christ, and let all things aim at and end in Christ." And I love the last word of his last word,
finis, "the end." All is Christ, and all is well. To God be glory forever and forever. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, we are so thankful for Your letter
to the Philippians, through the Apostle Paul and to us and to all your saints till Jesus
comes. Father, may we be not only those who think
as Christians, think like Christians, but may we think like Christians because we are
Christians, may we think as Christians to the glory of Christ and to the edification
of this church and to the extension of the gospel until Jesus Christ our Lord shall come. Amen.
