“Whatever…”

A Sermon based upon Philippians 4: 1-13 

By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin 

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership 

June 2nd, 2019 

“Whatever” is a very useful word in the English language.   

You can use it as a pronoun: “Do whatever you like”.   

You can use it as an adverb: “I received no help whatever.    

Or, you can use it like many youth :“Yeah? Well, whatever!”   

In today’s text, Paul uses the word ‘whatever’ 6 times in one verse. That’s a lot of ‘whatevers’.  Giving his best advice for training your thought life, Paul writes: Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil. 4:8 NRS).   

Do take time to think?  In our fast-paced lives, we don’t have much time left to stop and think, and that can be dangerous.   The other day, Teresa and I were on our way to Statesville, when a car came out of the merging lane, speeding up and moving toward us without looking to see if anyone was already there.  They expected me to move, but didn’t see that right beside me was an 18-Wheeler.  I barely had space to get out of the way.  It was a close call, simply because someone wanted to get where they were going, without thinking about what they were doing.   

How many things; unfortunate things happen, how many missed opportunities go by because we don’t the take time to think things through.  We’ve all seen those funny videos where a person does something stupid, almost breaks their necks, then the comment goes, “What Were They Thinking?”  Well, the truth is, they weren’t.  That’s the point.   

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING,  (Phil. 4:6 NRS) 

Paul wanted the Philippians to know, that it is not only important to think, but it’s also  important to choose the best things to think about.  But before you can think clearly, he goes on to explain how we need to have our minds and hearts clear and confident.  Before we can think about the best things, we need to get all the negative things out of our minds.  This is why the first move toward more positive thinking is, as Paul recommends:, “Don’t worry about anything!”   

How much negativity in our minds is rooted in hidden anxiety, fear, and worry?  These days, we certainly see people holding grudges longer, holding opposing opinions stronger, and speaking in ways that are sharper, coarser that are increasingly more negative.  Just think about how much more profanity and more violence you have to put up with if you watch a movie.  A pastor friend of mine recently sent a note to our peer group about a movie we should all see.  He told us that the movie has an incredible moral message, but, he also warned: you’ll have to listen to a lot of bad language!   

Why do you think there is such an escalation in violent, coarse, negative, and offensive expression in our culture and society?  Could it be that underneath the rise of all this negativity could be the increasing anxieties associated with the increasing worries of our times?  We certainly have a lot more to be worried about, don’t we?  Terrorism, Money, Politics?   We have so much info, so many new resources, and so much more to connect our minds to that our daily lives, even at home and away from work.  We can become so inundated with thought and activity that our minds are overwhelmed and over stressed.  

Even young minds are being negatively impacted, so that today’s computers and cell phones are being loaded with technology to help parents monitor their children’s ‘screen time’.   People today are connected to just about everything that happens everywhere, and have access to so much information that both little and even big minds and souls cannot process it all.  We need more and more ‘down-time’.  We need more and more time away; more and more time to disconnect, and more and time to refocus and renew our spirits or we could face physical, mental and moral breakdown. 

If 2000 years ago, Jesus told his listeners, ‘don’t worry’ and ‘do not be anxious about your life’ how much more do we need to heed his advice in a world where we know so much more to worry about? 

What is the ‘front line’ for the battle against all the fear and negativity in our world?  Jesus, Paul, and even most any spiritual, moral, or psychologist will tell you that the best place to start the battle against all the negativity in our world is in our own mind and heart.  Listen to what psychologist, David Ropeik said in Psychology Today.  He said this without referring to religious faith at all: 

     “Stress is probably one of the biggest risks we face. The more worried you are that you might get sick, the more likely it is that you will, or if you do get sick that you'll end up sicker, or even dead, from an illness you might have survived if you just didn't worry so much. The more worried you are about the health of your heart, the more damage you do to your heart. The more worried you are about losing your memory, the more your memory fades. The list of damage that worry can do, because of the biology of stress, is long and scary. Which means that not worrying more than we have to may be the best thing we can do for our health. 

How does Ropeik know all this?  He continues: “We have Dr. Robert Adler to thank for bringing modern science and medicine around to what people have known intuitively for a long time; "If you don't relax you're going to worry yourself to death."   These  clinical findings were brilliantly summarized in an entertaining and informative book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Zebras don't get ulcers because when they are under attack, they either run, or get eaten. They don't worry or stay stressed.  We get ulcers, and suffer a lot of other serious damage, because we do worry and we stay stressed. It’s even better to get eaten by a lion than to worry about it. 

That’s a funny way to put something that is very serious.  Worry is something Jesus and Paul seriously warned us about long before their was psychology. Speaking to us with the voice of our creator, Paul said: “Don’t worry about anything!”  How do we do that, especially when there is so much more to worry about?   Well, controlling worry begins in your thought life.  This is why Paul advises that the best way into your thought life in through your prayer life.  He told the Philippians: “….in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”   

If you look closely, you will discover, that the right approach to prayer, which is the best approach to controlling your thoughts, is that prayer is much more than words or asking God for specific things. Prayer is mostly about trusting God, even trusting God in advance of getting what we might pray for. This is why Paul says we approach God ‘with thanksgiving’ even before we ask for anything.  In other words, how we approach God in faith, with trust and an attitude of gratitude and thankfulness, all of which happens in your head and heart, is just as important for our sanity and we’ll-being as the answer we may, or may not receive.   

For this reason,  many Christian psychologists have given the mind-bending work of prayer a neutral, secular name, in hopes of getting the value of daily prayer across to a secular age.  Prayer starts as positive, healthy, self-talk.  If you practice thinking and talking more positively to yourself, they suggests, people can begin to learn what it means to trust and talk to God.  Clean, positive self-talk is a necessary alternative to the all the negative, self-critical voices many people carry around in their heads. 

KEEP ON DOING THE THINGS…  (Phil. 4:9). 

Still, all the positive thoughts we could ever have, don’t really help us, unless we intend on, and end up putting them into action.  This is why a Paul told the Philippians to ‘put’ these thoughts ‘into practice’ so that ‘the peace of God comes’ to us (vs 9).  This means our best actions flow from our best thoughts, and that good thoughts, are only as good as they become the actions of our lives.  Without putting our thoughts and prayers into practice, we can’t keep worry and negativity from creeping back in. 

Years ago, the State of Brandenburg Germany started an experiment in social ethics.   They decided to cease mentioning any reference to a personal God in their state sponsored religion classes.  Instead of teaching about faith they would only teach about secular, ethical and moral responsibility.  Once I asked one of the teachers how well this was working.  His answer to me was that it wasn’t.  Without any kind of personal faith and without someone to follow and or imitate, no moral teaching, no ethical standard, no lofty ideal really worked.  When faith or morality was no longer personal; no longer actually being lived before them, it was no longer teachable, and no longer possible for students to learn. You have to actually see how the good, the right, and the just is lived, and works in practice.  The thought can’t just be an idea, but it must be lived, and even the best thoughts must be put it into practice.  

Is it any surprise that this Paul who ‘think on these things’ and put these good thoughts into practice, also said elsewhere, “imitate me, as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1)?  And is there any surprise that at the center of our faith is a living Lord who says, ‘Follow me!’ (Matt. 4:19)?  But what does this man, in our lives, and in this church.  Can we chose to do ‘whatever’ we want, or is the ‘imitation of Christ’ just as important to our own practice of the faith, as it has been to Christians throughout the centuries?   

Recently, my wife and I went to Cary, to learn about a particular type of ‘practice’ of doing church, called ‘Dinner Church’.  We’ve been involved in church fellowships, Wednesday evening dinners, and many other types of ‘food’ distribution ministries, but this was a ministry that was actually trying to copy and recover the practice of Jesus and the early church.  It was a way of participating in Christ’s rescue ministry all centered around sharing with others around the table of God.  It all started when a pastor in Seattle called his dying, declining church together to pray about what they could do that would reach out to hurting, marginalized people, like Jesus did; like the early church did.  They decided to stop everything else, except for Sunday worship, and they focused on three things the early church did to involve themselves in Christ’s rescue mission: music, a meal, and a message.   

As a result of providing a place for anyone to come to their church to have a meal and  to hear a Jesus story once a week, now that one dying church, not only has 13 new congregations, but that one church has sparked a new, fresh expression of doing, being and practicing faith in a secular age. How did it happen?  It happened because a group of people got together, not just to come to church, but they wanted to follow Jesus, to do what Jesus, and a church should do; which is what Jesus called us to do: to ‘do this unto the least of these’.  They came together to put into practice the rescue mission Christ called the church to do, not just talk about. 

I HAVE LEARNED TO BE CONTENT (Phil. 4:11 NRS) 

Perhaps the best thing about good, positive thinking, is that it will lead us to having the kind of clarity and confidence, that becomes positive and compassionate activity in our lives.  This actual practice of faith is how we come to find the peace and contentment we all need.   

Isn’t it interesting, that Paul did not say he was ‘content’ with everything that was happening to him, but that he ‘learned to be content’.  Peace and contentment is not a given for us in this world, but it can be ‘learned’ by us, through how we put our best thoughts into the best actions, so that when the day comes, when life no longer gives us what we want or need, we can still have ‘enough’.   

I heard a marriage counselor once say that the way the best marriages works, and continue to work, is because couples have learned to do good things for each other now, so that when the difficult day comes, which will come in all relationships---when these hard times come, the relationship can weather the storm because it has a lot of ‘thoughtful’ love and actual good deeds done for each other, that are now stored in the heart of that relationship, which can be used as reserve to get them through the hard places.  The couple, the relationship, and even the church too, that doesn’t have these good, loving thoughtful reserves, will find it almost impossible to hold things together. 

Isn’t it the same way in our personal lives?   People who have a reserve of good thoughts, good works, and positive actions throughout their lives, have reserves of contentment stored up for the day when the difficulties and darkness threatens.  Unfortunately, people can get so stuck on feeding themselves, focusing on getting through each day, or just doing our own thing, that we might overlook the importance of stopping each day to think the best thoughts, and to do the do the right things that will store up contentment and peace to weigh against the darkest days.  

Isn’t this what Paul means when he says, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (4:12-13).     

How can you have the emotional and spiritual strength you will need to get through whatever happens in your life?  It all starts, with what goes on in your head; what kind of thought you put into your ‘head’.  Fulfillment and contentment in life does not come from just doing ‘whatever’, but it starts by thinking the kind of thoughts that are ‘pure’, ‘honorable’,  ‘just’,  ‘pleasing’ and is ‘commendable’ and then acting on these good ideas.  An great old Chinese Prover, puts Paul’s wisdom for life in humorous, but specific terms: “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap; if you want happiness for a day—go fishing, if you want happiness for a year, go inherit a fortune; but if you want happiness for a lifetime-go help someone.” 

This is the only kind of ‘whatever’ that will lead to living your ‘best life’.  Amen.