Thoughts

8 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. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

8 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. 9 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 Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Notes

“You aren’t what you think you are but you are what you think.” DA Carson quoting a colleague.

These are such lofty verses. They fit into a larger context, of course. Paul has been talking about where the peace of God comes from. Last week we talked about the kind of prayer that leads to the peace of God. It is practiced prayer, learning to come as a supplicant before the King who has the power to grant your supplication and as a child before his father who has the desire to grant your supplication, tempered, of course, with a higher wisdom that is for your good. We come with supplication and thanksgiving. And this kind of prayer, when practiced, produces peace.

The verses from this morning build on that. It has to do with another kind of practice. It’s the practice of what you do in your mind, what you put in your head. And this too is important to experience peace.

Think of it like this: life is filled with all kinds of uncertainties. And as the years roll on, it seems that there are more and more of them. What was certain a generation ago, is not so anymore. For example, fifty years ago most people who went to work for a corporation could plan on retiring from that same corporation. He was a company man, and officers took interest in him, not just from a work perspective but from a health and family perspective. And the same was true from an employee. He had loyalty to his employer and would often go above and beyond to look out for his interest. That’s faded away. Layoffs are normal—even expected in today’s corporate environment. There is little loyalty from employer to employee. If they can find a way to do the work cheaper, that’s what they'll do. At the same time, workers have little loyalty to their employers. If they get a better offer, they disappear, even to the point of leaving their employer in a hard place.

According to Forbes magazine,

“Millennials were three times more likely than non-millennials to change jobs in the last year, and 91% don't expect to stay with their current organizations longer than three years.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2017/12/28/the-new-reality-of-employee-loyalty/#51a5adee4cf3 accessed 10/26)

Instability at work and thus, one’s future.

But there is more instability happening as well. It exists in the moral sphere. What was once societally accepted as right and wrong has shifted. For example, sex outside of marriage was shameful from a societal perspective a half century ago. That has eroded over the past few decades to the point that it’s considered wise to know if you’re sexually suited before you get married. To get married without knowing that would be foolish. That’s the new societal standard. Homosexual lifestyles were not long ago considered not only wrong but a mental disorder. Now it is celebrated. Even your physical gender is no longer a stabilizing influence. Everything is up from grabs. Society says gender identity is a thing found in the mind and heart, not the body.

So you see, instability is on the rise all around us. Tim Keller uses a helpful analogy for this.

The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive Peace in Church and Heart

A physical fact: When you get into a highly unstable environment, if a vessel wants to navigate a highly unstable environment, it has to have strong stabilizers within. Airplanes and ships have stabilizers to counteract the turbulence that comes in the air or the water. The more the turbulence, the more important are those stabilizers. In airplanes the back fins are mainly their stabilizers. Evidently, the vertical fin is what keeps you from bobbing around right to left, but in particular the horizontal rear fin is what keeps you from bobbing up and down.

The more turbulence in the external environment, the stronger, more effective, the internal stabilizers in the vessel have to be. That would mean then there has never been a place, never been a time, more than modern Western secular societies the individual will need more deep, strong, effective internal stabilizers. Most people, most places, most times did not have to face what we face because there were all sorts of external props that kept down the external turbulence.

One of those stabilizers we talked about last week: prayer. Another important stabilizer is grounded thinking.

What you put in your mind.

The first and most obvious application is just what the text says. Think about good things.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

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.

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.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Php 4:8). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

This is common sense but not common practice. Instead we find ourselves drawn into critical, angry, despairing, thoughts. We tend to focus on what’s wrong with the world and we become cynical. It isn’t hard to see how this contributes to an unstable environment. When you harbor these thoughts it leads to frantic thinking. The environmentalist hysteria is a prime example with predictions that the world is going to end in 12 years. Listen to Trump haters and you would conclude that our country is going to fall apart in less time than that.

Why does the news cycle continue to feed these thoughts? Because it brings people back again and again.

It feeds a powerful emotion and becomes quickly addicting. This is why the news focuses on stories that “outrage” you. It is also why we easily get addicted to pornography and other things that are the opposite of what is true, honorable, just, pure. lovely, commendable and excellent.

This is why the news feeds on negative stories, fueling people’s anger, mistrust, and cyncism. It feeds a powerful emotion and becomes quickly addicting. This is why the news focuses on stories that “outrage” you. It is also why we easily get addicted to pornography. What we don’t realize is that it’s killing you. I heard it compared to what ranchers would do to wolves in Alaska to decrease the population in an attempt to save their animals. They would take a knife and plunge into a dead animal so that the blood would soak the knife; let it freeze, and do it again and again until the knife and a thick layer of frozen blood on it. They would take the knife and embed it in the rock so that a wolf would smell it and lick it. As the wolf licked the frozen blood from the knife, eventually the knife would slice the wolf’s own tongue and suddenly the blood was fresh. In a frenzy the wolf would lick the knife until its tongue was shredded. Eventually the wolf would bleed to death. One less wolf. That’s what filling your mind with the opposite of these things will do.

What we don’t realize is that it’s killing you. I heard a story once about ranchers in Alaska. To decrease the population of wolves in an attempt to save their livestock they would take a knife and plunge into a dead animal so that the blood would soak the knife; let it freeze, and do it again and again until the knife and a thick layer of frozen blood on it. They would take the knife and embed it in the rock so that a wolf would smell it and lick it. As the wolf licked the frozen blood from the knife, eventually the knife would slice the wolf’s own tongue and suddenly the blood was fresh. In a frenzy the wolf would lick the knife until its tongue was shredded. Eventually the wolf would bleed to death. One less wolf. That’s what filling your mind with the opposite of these things will do.

How do I know? Because you were designed to reflect the creator who is all of those good things that Paul describes. He is instructing you to fill your thoughts with qualities that reflect the God in whose image you are made. The best examples of such are the meditations you find in the Psalms. is a lengthy set of meditations on the law of God which point us to the character of God and all that is good and true and honorable and pure and lovely.

The ultimate picture of what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise is Jesus Christ who selflessly gave his life so that you might live.

To varying degrees you can find these in the world as well. Paul encourages the Philippian church to watch his life. You can find excellence in the work and the lives of people around you. Give thought to the wonders of good engineering design, spectacularly built homes, beautiful works of art, well built cars or equipment, carefully accomplished service work. It’s there all around you if you will look. And when you see it, ponder and appreciate it.

This simple instruction provides you a guide as to what you choose to watch or listen to. Does your TV watchlist reflect shows that fit these characteristics? Does your music?

How you process what you see

Now, of course, you can’t eliminate all things that don’t fit this list of attributes. In fact, until you reach heaven or Jesus returns you won’t find anything that reflects them perfectly. This means that we must learn to process what we see.

When you watch a movie or TV show, listen to music, or participate in social engagements, you can practice this teaching by learning to discern what is good from bad, right from wrong in them. What part of the story lines up with truth? Where does it stray? What kind of world has the author created? Where is it beautiful and what makes it beautiful? Where does it create tension in you from what you know to be true?

To make this evaluation we have to know what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. We have to have something against which we can measure and evaluate what we see. For that, we turn to Jesus Christ and the metanarrative we find in the Bible.

The metanarrative of the Bible is simpler than you think. It’s the grand story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. You were created in the image of God. This is the heart of your identity. You were made to reflect the character of God who is the embodiment of these qualities. But we are also fallen, separated from God. Thus, a curse has fallen upon mankind and the earth. It’s the great dilemma that is desperate for redemption. As much as man might try to redeem himself, self-redemption is part of his problem, for it is a masked way of remaining independent from God. But there is redemption and it is found in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He did what mankind could not do. He lived the life we should have lived and died the death we deserved to die, voluntarily and self-sacrificially. In so doing, he purchased our redemption. And the end goal of that self-sacrifice is to bring about the full restoration of God’s Kingdom. It is to make way for the glory of heaven to come to earth. This story is the ultimate measure of every other story.

If we don’t get this, if we don’t cling to real truth, then we’re lost. And you can’t say that your truth is different from my truth and that’s okay, as society would have us believe. Here’s why that doesn’t work. When you say, “my truth is different from your truth” you’re saying that our origins are different. You’re saying that “image” in which you were made was different from the image in which I was made. Or your saying that you weren’t made in any particular image and thus free to find one for yourself. These two truths are incompatible. Assuming you are right, however, does not help you toward stability. You’ve just lost something solid upon which to build your life. Jesus called this building on a foundation of sand.

TV and movie stories often assume something about our origin, or at least about our identity (which points to an origin). They pose a problem the characters must face (the fall), and develop a story that wrestles through this problem (redemption). Where does it line up with Biblical story? Where does it stray?

When a show talks about identity, it will get some things right. What are those things? Where you see it, celebrate it! Consider it. Appreciate it. Where you see it wrong, understand why and choose not to fall into rooting for the wrongness as the author and producer intend.

What is the problem identified? From what do the characters need to escape? This is the author’s view of the fallenness of our world. What do they get right? What do they get wrong? The same exercise can be applied to redemption (how the fallenness gets solved) and consummation (where does the “fixed” world look like according to the author?)

Where your thoughts take you

Your thoughts are important. In Romans Paul shows us how we are to be transformed—by the renewing of your mind. This is how you renew your mind. You cast out what is not true, not honorable, not just, impure, unlovely, etc. and focus on what is good.

Paul shows where this leads—right thinking leads to right living. One preacher put it this way,

“You aren’t what you think you are, but you are what you think.”

This is why Paul exhorts them not only to think about good things, but to practice what they have learned, received, heard, and seen from Paul’s own life. How did Paul get to a place in his own life where he could invite others to follow him? He practiced thinking of good things, of Godly things. This is important, particularly in the unstable world in which we live.

English Standard Version Chapter 7

7 Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

7  in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

What Defiles a Person

14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

What the Jewish leaders failed to understand is the point of the law, the spirit behind the law. The law was a reflection of the character of God, not a means to God’s approval. Building safeguards around the law in order to keep it, the so-called traditions of men, brought the very thing the Pharisees sought to avoid. They didn’t need clean hands, they needed a clean heart. They didn’t need a clearly defined code of behavior, they needed a renewed mind.

That’s what thinking of what is noble, beautiful, honorable, commendable, and excellent helps to do. It reveals what is right in situations, unstable situations, when there are no particular dictates on behavior. When I was young I wished the Bible would simply tell me what to do in my particular set of circumstances. Instead, he invites to think on noble things and as we do and our minds are renewed, we can discern what Jesus would do.

Why this brings peace

Practically speaking, this brings peace because that’s what doing good does. Following Jesus doesn’t earn you a place in God’s kingdom, but it does reassure you that Jesus has been at work in you and that brings peace of conscience. When we are assured of walking in the way that Jesus would have us walk, it reminds us of the presence of God and the consequent care and provision of God and becomes an internal stabilization of the heart and mind, thus producing peace.

“You aren’t what you think you are but you are what you think.” DA Carson quoting a colleague.

Think about such things… reminds me of the code of chivalry in the medieval period. The history of how that came about and its impact is fascinating.

How often do you practice this? Do you think about good things? When you go home today and have lunch with one another, ask, “what have you thought about this week that was true? that was honorable? just? pure, lovely, commendable? excellent?” Ask, “what have you learned and received and heard and seen in me?”

“Be transformed by the renewing of the mind.” What goes on in your head is paramount for renewal, and in this context it leads to an understanding of what they had seen in Paul. He exhorts them to practice what Paul practiced and these thoughts were key to that. Such thoughts produced the man, or were reflected in the man and the same is true for us.

How do you know what is true?

What is true of you?