Orange penguins and Blue Polar Bears

Can you guys do me a favour - while I’m talking this morning, can you listen really well. I prepared really hard for this, and I can see some sleepy faces. Can I especially ask that while I’m speaking you DO NOT THINK ABOUT AN ORANGE PENGUIN?

Let’s read our passage:

Philippians 4:4–9 NIV

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

There’s a lot in here - there’s stuff about rejoicing so we’ll look at that. There’s a call to let our gentleness be evident to all, so we’ll look at that. But I think the fundamental message for us today, and I think this is especially appropriate given that we’re facing a global pandemic, and we’re already living in the so-called “age of anxiety”, the fundamental message for us today is “do not be anxious about anything” so we’re going to focus on that.

How you guys doing with that orange penguin thing?

Rejoice in the Lord always

Philippians 4:4 NIV

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Let’s start with the rejoicing. Who doesn’t love a bit of rejoicing? Eeyore. But seriously, Paul is writing from jail to a persecuted church, and he’s unashamedly repeating himself. In fact, he’s repeating himself repeating himself. Chapter 3 opens:

Philippians 3:1 NIV

1 Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.

He’s not even saying it here for the first time - there’s the suggestion that this is a familiar refrain.

One of the things I try to do as a preacher is to use illustrations. That’s preaching 101. But I’ve been preaching here at THCC for over ten years, and my big fear is that I’m going to start reusing the same illustrations, and you guys are going to be too polite to tell me. Over on the Island as we’re launched our church plant there I’ve already had one person tell me he feels he knows my brothers because I use them so much in illustrations - he actually asked me if they’re real. Sometimes when I’m writing a sermon and I’m trying to find an illustration I genuinely can’t remember if I’ve used it before. So sorry to all those who have heard the same story more than once.

But here’s something I’m not sorry for - repeating the same message. The illustrations might need to be refreshed, and my job as a preacher is to do that as best I can, but my job as a preacher is not to try to find a new gospel each time I preach. In the same way, Paul repeats himself across and even within his letters, and is unapologetic about that.

There are three reasons why people repeat things:

They think the listener isn’t listening

They genuinely forget they’ve said it before

The message is important

I think from Paul’s own hand we have evidence that he’s not forgotten that he’s said this. It’s no trouble for me to write the same things to you. I will say it again. So this thing is important. This church that is facing severe hardship, these dear friends of his, really need to hear this message: Rejoice in the Lord.

Secular authorities will recommend you practice the attitude of gratitude. I’m not here to disagree with that. If you start your day by reflecting on what you have to be grateful for, I can’t see how that can go badly for you. But gratitude needs a subject and an object. What are you grateful for? Who are you grateful to? Some of my friends would answer “the universe”. I’m gonna hazard a guess that you’re here this morning because you’re at least prepared to entertain the idea that it might be God whom we thank. It’s not just rejoicing, it’s rejoicing in the Lord. Hmmm.... more on that later.

So rejoice in the Lord - so important he said it thrice.

How are you doing not thinking about that orange penguin?

V5: Let your gentleness be evident to all

I wasn’t raised in a gentle family. When I first got married Tim would tell me I was yelling all the time, and I was like “that’s not yelling, THIS IS YELLING!”. Back to those brothers (who are real), when we’re together we actually pretty much never have conflict, but we speak 6,000 words a minute probably at a volume that most people wouldn’t consider gentle.

So what does Paul mean here, and are people like me excluded from this?

I think before I answer that I want to be clear how we need to look at questions like this. If I’m reading scripture, and I’m told to be something I’m not, there are two options. I can either search the text in the original languages to try to find excuses for how I don’t have to change, or I can let God search me and be open to the possibility of change. I want us to be people who do that first and foremost - people who say, like the Psalmist:

Psalm 139:23–24 NIV

23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

However to understand what God is calling us to, I think we need to give close attention to the meaning of the words used. We can sometimes mistake gentleness for timidity, for tip-toeing around and not wanting to cause a fuss. But Biblical gentleness is not weakness, it’s strength appropriately held back. When we handle a newborn, we don’t let our arms go floppy and weak.

The word used for gentleness here is epiekes. It carries connotations of reasonableness, patience, tolerance in the classical sense, not in the modern sense of cancel culture.

So we want to live lives as believers that are reasonable. Patient.

Personally, that’s a challenge. I like to think I”m a fairly reasonable person when I’m calm, but I have these little instincts that pop up when I feel threatened. Sometimes I’ve had interactions on my bike when I’ve been endangered by someone where I’ve looked back afterwards and though: I was unreasonable there. So I’m really challenged by this passage - how can I live in such a deep place of gentleness, reasonableness, patience, that it is evident to all? It’s not saying “fake being gentle”, it’s saying “let your gentleness be seen”. So Lord, help me get some gentleness!

So don’t think about orange penguins.

Rejoice in the Lord - we know that’s important.

Be gentle to the point that others see it!

And now on to the main section of this passage, which I think is the meat of it, though it’s all connected.

v6: Do not be anxious about anything

I studied some psychology at University, and I’ve forgotten pretty much all of it, but one thing that stuck with me was this: If you want to discourage something, it’s better not to mention it. Anyone who has been addicted to smoking knows that when you see a “no smoking” sign, a few seconds later your brain goes “mmmm.... nicotine”.

How you guys doing with not thinking about that orange penguin?

A few years ago I watched a film called Supersize Me, which is about a guy who lives on McDonalds for a month, and spoiler alert, it’s not good for him. At the end of that film, I turned to my friends, and said “I could really murder a burger right now”. The psychology study I was referring to was actually about walking on grass. They found that it’s more effective to put up a sign saying “please stay on the path” than a sign saying “don’t walk on the grass”, because the latter sign just makes people go “mmm, look at the lovely soft grass”.

In other words, focus on the do, not the do not.

And for me, that sums up this passage.

Let’s look at the structure.

We have a negative command:

Do not be anxious about anything

Followed immediately by an instead, or a positive command:

in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Then we have a promise, a pretty big one:

Philippians 4:7 NIV

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

And then we have a large chunk of positive command, with a big old list that is actually used for emphasis rather than because the component parts are radically different from each other.

Philippians 4:8 NIV

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Then another positive command:

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put it into practice.

Then another promise.

And the God of peace will be with you.

Overwhelmingly, this passage is about positive commands and promises. It’s the Do, not the Do Not. Which doesn’t mean that a Do Not is bad, just that we often need something to Do instead.

I asked you earlier not to think about an orange penguin. Some of you will have been so caught up with weird slides showing grammar breakdowns that maybe you’ve not been thinking about one. Others of you will have struggled, particularly when I kept reminding you. Imagine if instead of asking you not to think about an orange penguin, I’d asked you to think about a blue polar bear. I could have shared with you this children’s book, which is about a blue polar bear. I could talk to you about science - about how the melting of the polar ice cap means that white polar bears are no longer camouflaged, so some bears are actually developing blue fur which means they’re hidden against the blue water. I could have segued into talking about my friend at University who actually had blue hair on her wedding day, and how surprisingly beautiful it was, a kind of greeny blue with lots of different shared in it, a bit like how hair would be if God made it blue. And you might have find that by the time I finished sharing that children’s book and the science of blue fur and the little detour into blue hair, that you weren’t even thinking about orange penguins any more.

The trouble with trying not to be anxious is that it’s pretty easy to be anxious about being anxious. It’s like insomnia - lying awake worrying about how you’ll survive on 6 hours sleep, 5 hours sleep, 4 hours sleep… I’ve had anxiety in the clinical sense at times, and when it gets really bad is when it gets meta, and you’re constantly self-monitoring - am I anxious right now? What about now? I feel kind of calm, or do I? Maybe the anxiety’s back...

The Bible talks about anxiety a lot, and I find that quite reassuring, as it kind of suggests it’s a common thing.

And back in today’s passage, Paul gives three positive commands, three things to do instead of the Do Not.

Pray with thanksgiving in every situation (v6)

Fill your mind with the good stuff (v8)

Put teaching into practice (v9)

This is the how.

Let’s think for a minute about how our emotions work, and what they are.

I’m often late for stuff, and the other week I got to text my boss possibly my best ever excuse for being late for something:

Hey Tony, I’m going to be late for the prayer meeting. A topless man just tried to punch me in the face and now I’m in a riot van giving a statement.

Here’s the thing. When that happened, when the guy swung for me, I instinctively reared back and he missed my face. Then he wandered off, and my legs were like jelly because the adrenaline that flooded through my body. I felt fear for a moment, then relief. Then I called the police because the guy obviously needed help!

Emotions are not sinful, and nor are emotions a sign of mental illness. In fact, emotions are often the appropriate, healthy response to what is happening. We all have emotions - and when we say that someone lacks emotions, it’s actually more the case that they suppress their emotions, rather than that they don’t have them. If you want to understand a bit more about the latest science around understanding human emotions, I recommend the kids movie Inside Out. Anger, joy, sadness, fear and disgust.

It is mentally healthy to be sad that people across our world are suffering with Coronavirus. It is healthy to be angry about the exploitation of children by drug gangs in county lines. It is healthy to react in fear when someone tries to punch you in the face. But one of the things that can happen when we’re not well mentally is that those normal emotions get out of control. That fear response that’s meant to help you dodge a punch in the face floods you even when there is no danger present. Sadness overwhelms in the form of depression that doesn’t lift. The Bible speaks to our emotions. It has plenty to say about how we can deal with them in Godly ways, not suppressing them, but expressing them in ways that don’t mar His image in us, the image of the God who wept at Lazarus’ tomb.

So there are the everyday emotions that we all have, and then there are conditions where those emotions get beyond everyday proportions.

There’s a lot more I could say about this, but if you’re struggling with anxiety in an overwhelming, long-term sense like I was, then I would really like to encourage you to have help from someone who knows how to help. I do believe that there is help for you in this passage, and I also believe that sometimes the roots of anxiety as a disorder rather than an occasional feeling lie in trauma that others can help us to deal with.

Having said that, when anxiety flares up now, the things I’m sharing with you today, the truths in this passage and elsewhere in scripture really do help, and I haven’t even got to the most powerful bit yet.

So those are the practical commands in this passage, to recap:

Pray with thanksgiving in every situation (v6)

Fill your mind with the good stuff (v8)

Put teaching into practice (v9)

The Happiness Hypothesis

Now pretty much all of what I’ve said so far would be helpful to a secular person. In fact, one of my favourite non-Christian authors, whose name I can’t pronounce is a guy called Jonathan Haidt who is an atheist from Jewish origin, and he wrote a book called the Happiness Hypothesis which basically reviewed teaching from major world religions about how to have a healthy mind. A lot of the kinds of things we’ve talked about this morning would be in there, and would be in your average “how to self-care” piece. Practice gratitude. Live in a reasonable way towards others. Focus on what’s positive. But those of you who were paying attention earlier will have seen the breakdown of this passages includes two related promises:

Philippians 4:7 NIV

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

and

Philippians 4:9 NIV

9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

God will be with us. The God of peace will be with us. For me, this is the ultimate antidote to anxiety. God will be with you.

And that’s really the story of the Bible - God with His people.

Early on in human history, he chooses a random guy, Abraham, and from him builds a nation.

This nation are enslaved in Egypt, and then delivered out of that slavery with amazing miracles. Now during that time, in one sense the presence of God was with them. They were led through the wilderness by a pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night. But none of them were able to see God’s face. When He came to Moses to give Him the words of the law on the mountain, the others were told that to even touch that mountain would be dangerous to their lives - the gap between the holiness of God and the unholiness of people was deadly.

Then later in the great story we read of how a tabernacle (a big tent) and then later a temple of stone were built. In that temple was a place called The Holy of Holies. It was the place where God’s presence lived with His people.

The Holy of Holies was the innermost part of the temple, and only the High Priest could go in there through the giant curtain, and only once a year. When he went in, a rope was tied to his leg so that if he should happen to die, the others could drag him out by the rope, otherwise they’d die too.

That was how it was. God was with His people, but the holiness gap was deadly to them. In some ways it’s a bit like the way we keep nuclear materials in a giant, leadlined box. You want the stuff in your power station, but it’s so, so powerful it has to be contained for your safety.

But despite all of this, God kept saying through the prophets that He was going to come and be with the people. And also that at that point, He was going to do what He’d promised all along, and bring all the nations to Himself too.

And then came Immanuel.

Immanuel is one of Jesus’ names. The name Jesus is a Greekish Latinish Englishish of Yeshua - which means God saves. Immanuel means God with us.

So we know that Jesus came to live on earth, and in that sense God was now with us. But how was the holiness problem dealt with? How can the nuclear fuel suddenly be out in the world safely?

I want to fast forward through Jesus’s life to the moment of His death. On the cross, there was an eclipse for about three hours. Then at the end of that time, Jesus cried out in aramaic which was the language He spoke.

Matthew 27:46 NIV

46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

And then, He died.

Matthew 27:50–51 NIV

50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split

Jesus experienced the utter forsakenness of God, and in doing so He ended the need for a separation from the Holy of Holies.

You may think God has abandoned you. One thing my mental breakdown taught me, and this is a real gift, is that my feelings aren’t a reliable guide to reality. I can feel scared when there is no danger, and I can feel happy when I should be grieving. I can feel abandoned by God but He hasn’t abandoned me. Jesus experienced that total separation, and it is finished.

Immanuel - God with us. The story of the whole of Scripture, from the garden to the temple to the cross to the church, and one day to the new heaven and the new earth.

If we are in Christ, which simply means to put our trust in Him, the God of peace will be with us. And whatever we go through, whatever trials we face, He will be with us. He has never abandoned His church. He has never broken His promises.

So to wrap up, let’s remind ourselves of the deeply practical wisdom of this passage.

We’re to rejoice always, no matter the circumstances.

We’re to live lives of gentleness, reasonableness even, to the point that it’s visible.

We’re to pray, a lot, and in a lot of ways.

We’re to focus our attention on the good stuff. Let it fill us first.

We’re to live out the stuff we’ve been taught.

That’s so practical. We can do that. It doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but there’s a lot there that we can do.

But the real heart of this is the presence of God - the double promise of the God of peace being with us. If you are anxious today, I want to encourage you to seek out others you can share that with. I want to encourage you to apply all the practical stuff I’ve just covered. But most of all, I want you to know that God is with you.