Examples of Kingdom Living
Phil 4:1-7 Feb 20, 2011
Intro:
(Brian McLauren, “Jesus and the Kingdom”, video V00248, http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&pid=V00248)
Living as citizens of the Kingdom of God really is a different way of living from that of the dominant culture around us. We’ve been seeing that in the book of Philippians, and this morning in chapter 4 we see more examples of what that looks like.
Phil 4:1-7 (NIV)
1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!
2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.
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.
Example #1: “stand firm” (vs. 1)
Chapter 4 begins with more of the deeply affectionate language with which Paul addresses his friends in Philippi, “whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,… dear friends…”, and right in the middle are these two little words, “stand firm”. Most of us in the last week or two have had to walk across an icy sidewalk – we know that feeling of not being on solid ground, of the danger of falling, of having to grasp an arm or a fence or a railing, or of trying to shuffle around as best we can without ending up on our butts. That is life in a winter city like Edmonton. But it is not life in the Kingdom of God, where we are not on icy, slippery ground but instead we stand on the truth that we are loved, forgiven, and accepted in Christ. That is why Paul says, “stand firm in the Lord”. That is a strong foundation. That is a solid rock. That is a place where we can plant our feet, firm, unmoving, unshakable – in the Lord. Because Jesus isn’t going to move. Jesus isn’t going to pull the rug out from underneath us. And so when the things of life come against us and try to push us around, we can stand firm because we know to whom we belong, we know we are loved and saved, our identity is rooted in Jesus, and we with joy serve Him and His Kingdom.
How different is that than the world around us! Always searching for the next thing to make us feel pleasure, always jumping around to find the next thing that might work, always ditching something old for the latest newest thing. The Kingdom of God is rooted, and “stands firm”.
Example #2: working through conflict (vs. 2-3)
The second example of Kingdom living is in verses 2-3. It is obviously specific to the church at Philippi, and some conflict between two women who were most likely leaders in the church, and Paul commands them to work it out and be united once again. As I thought about this as an example of living in the Kingdom of God, I came to realize how radically different that really is from our present culture of disposable relationships. Today, what do you think would happen if there was a similar conflict in many churches? How about friendships? How about families even?? I think that most times, our love is so shallow that we tend to just ditch relationships in conflict and walk away. But such is not the way of the Kingdom of God. In God’s Kingdom, the work of communication, understanding, compassion, letting go of pride, putting others ahead of ourselves – all the skills of healthy relationships are present and lived out. If you are in a situation of conflict, heed Paul’s words pleading for reconciliation.
Example #3: Rejoice (vs. 4)
A couple weeks ago we talked about this idea of “rejoicing”, and did a little exercise that demonstrated how “rejoicing” even in the midst of difficulty is powerful and “safeguards our faith”. Paul comes back to that here in this repetition of the command to rejoice. And again, we have this phrase “in the Lord”. The kingdom of this world schools us in seeing the world and our lives in the negative – the problems, the crimes, the tragedies, the struggles, the pain, the things that don’t go our way, the things we don’t have. Our culture has perfected the complaint, the ability to see the negative, cynicism and sarcasm abound. But the Kingdom of God is different – we are to be characterized by “rejoicing in the Lord”. The difference is mostly in where we locate our understanding of life, and again the phrase “in the Lord” is the key: are we focused on the problems which are everywhere? We won’t be rejoicing. But if we locate our understanding of life in the Lord, we see life through Jesus’ eyes, we see God at work, we see God with us in it all, and then we will rejoice.
Example #4: “Let your gentleness be evident to all” (vs. 5)
This next example is truly counter-cultural. Where does our society celebrate gentleness? It is more often seen as a sign of weakness. Our culture values competition, efficiency, productivity, forcefulness, asserting your rights and fighting for what you want. Paul commands the opposite, the way of gentleness. And if we think for a moment of how we want to be treated, we see why. Imagine for a moment that you did slip on the ice and broke a bone. You go the ER, and the path forward is relatively straight forward: a doctor comes, looks, orders an X-Ray, sets the bone, and then puts a cast on it and sends you home with a prescription for pain. Now, let’s think of two possibilities: in one, the doctors and nurses and technicians are only concerned with efficiency: they are abrupt in speech, they take you for the x-ray are cold and technical “yes it hurts to hold your arm like that under the machine but that’s the way it has to be so I can take the picture;” the doctor comes back in a hurry and says “yes you broke it” and takes it kind of roughly and then sort of slaps the cast on without saying anything else. Any questions you ask are answered abruptly. In the second, the people caring for you are characterized by gentleness. The nurses and doctors speak softly, the X-Ray tech says “I’m sorry, this is going to feel uncomfortable for you but we’ll do it as quickly as possible so that we can see what is going on”, the doctor comes back and says, “yes, it is broken, but we’ll put a cast on, take care of the pain, and you should heal quite well. The ice is terrible, I almost slipped this morning…”, and then takes your arm gently, answers your questions and encourages more. Which scenario do we prefer? I’m glad to tell you that when I visit with people in hospital, almost always the stories I hear resemble the second example, because most of our care givers live this out.
So if we want to be treated with gentleness, as the people of God living as citizens of heaven we must model this to the world around us. To the harried cashier at the grocery store. The fellow employee who is not as competent as the rest and as a result is often treated poorly – not that we compromise the quality but we address the person with gentleness. To the person with whom we are frustrated because they have just made a mistake and now we are going to be inconvenienced for an extra 2 minutes. Gentleness is not about shying away from what needs to be done, it is about doing whatever it is with a softness that recognizes the shared humanity and that connects us to one another rather than distancing us.
Example #5: Prayer instead of Worry (vs. 6-7)
The last example in the passage hits a pretty big nerve: worry. It is phrased as a command, but not just a “do not do” something, instead Paul says “do this instead”, and concludes it with a promise.
Let’s start with the alternative, prayer “in every situation”, and recognize the breadth of prayer here as not just bringing a shopping list of requests to God to handle the circumstances around us and provide all our needs/wants so we don’t have anything to worry about. Prayer is, rather, our time in conversation with the God of the Universe who loves us and wants to talk with us. So instead of “can you fix this… please take care of that… please heal the other…”, it is about a conversation with God about all the things going on in our lives. A two-way conversation, speaking and listening. In this context, we can speak all our thoughts, label all our feelings, articulate our concerns, and then listen for God’s answer. And those words that God speaks in response are the words of life and of power and of peace.
This, I think, tends to be the missing part for us. Sometimes we do turn to prayer at the difficult times, and make our requests, and then end the prayer and walk away hoping to see the situation change and expecting to have some peace while we wait for it to change – after all, isn’t that the promise of vs. 7? But if we haven’t listened for God’s response to our prayer – if prayer has been a monologue instead of a conversation, how can God get through to us with words of peace? When prayer is our last ditch attempt to deal with a difficult situation, instead of a regular discipline (“in every situation”), characterized by a focus on God and the good things he is doing (“with thanksgiving”), it doesn’t tend to make a huge difference.
Let me try to put it this way. Our relationship with God is not analogous to a relationship with some rich uncle, to whom we might run when some dire financial need arises and ask for help, and from whom we only want the $$ and not any words of how we might manage our lives better to avoid future financial crisis. Yet sometimes that is how prayer seems to be, and then we feel ripped off if God doesn’t bail us out. Instead, our relationship with God described like a good parent, and prayer in this passage is like the ongoing relationship and conversation about all of life – the good parent will listen and guide and help when needed, even speaking words we need but might not want, and stepping in to help when that is what is best for us. And when the “good parent” is the God of the Universe, and our conversation is ongoing about all of life and how to live and what decisions to make and how to understand our lives and our experiences of life, THEN we are living in the Kingdom of God, we are transformed from the inside by the perspective and the words of life God speaks constantly to us, and we live “life to the full”.
I like this analogy of God as the good parent, of prayer as regular conversation and interaction within this relationship, because of how it shapes our understanding as children of God. How it keeps us responsible for our decisions. How it changes our effort from “trying to figure out what God has decided we should do (with the hope we don’t blow it!)”, to seeking wisdom and guidance from God about our choices. However, the analogy doesn’t work if we see it as us as independent adult children and God as nothing more than the wise advisor with resources to bail us out. I think it would be better for us to understand ourselves as teenagers in the relationship – making many decisions on our own but still under the authority of our parents, but hopefully mature enough to talk, listen, accept guidance, and follow through.
So, in that context, let’s return to Paul’s command: “don’t worry about anything”. Doesn’t that seem less daunting in the context of a regular, interactive, living, ongoing, conversation through prayer? I love what Paul does here for us! He doesn’t just give us some really hard command, “stop worrying!”, he gives us a better alternative: carry on an ongoing conversation with your loving heavenly Father about all of life. Then you won’t slip into worry.
Worry focuses us on the negative, on the worst-case scenario, on imaging all the really bad things that might happen. But how can we do that if we have the kind of prayer life I’ve been describing? Living with that kind of worry is debilitating, it brings death, it breeds all kinds of misery around a whole bunch of things that probably won’t happen anyway. Can you see how much the kingdom of darkness would love something like that, how it sucks the life out of us and puts our ability to live in “rejoicing” to death?
And the solution is not “hey, just don’t do that…”. Any of you who struggle with worry know that isn’t helpful at all, it just adds guilt and with that comes condemnation and then that gives you one more thing to worry about. A pretty bad cycle, wouldn’t you think??
The solution Paul commands is clear: “but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
So to all of you who worry, here is your assignment. Cultivate a deeper prayer life. You probably don’t need a lot of books or seminars or instruction on prayer, though there are lots in our library that would be helpful. Most of us just need to do it. Practice it. Live it – not read about it.
Conclusion: (vs. 7)
The last word in the passage is also the last word for us today. Philippi was a garrison city – a whole bunch of Roman troops were stationed there and thus the city was very well guarded. During the time of Paul’s writing, there were really no threats to the city of a military nature, there was a strong army presence which would also ensure order and peace and little crime. So when Paul writes of “the peace of God… guard(ing) your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”, they would have thought of that Roman presence. There was nothing to fear, because the army was near. If you were following the passage you might have noticed I skipped one phrase at the end of verse 5, “the Lord is near”. I wanted to save it for now, because it binds the whole passage, all the examples of how to live as citizens of heaven in the middle of our culture, into one. God is near, and His peace will function like the Roman guards who were near in physical proximity. And this peace, God promises, will be our experience as we maintain the prayer life we have just talked about. It might not make sense when the circumstances around are chaotic, but the centered heart, which “stands firm in the Lord” (vs. 1), that finds unity and reconciliation “in the Lord” (vs. 2), that “rejoices in the Lord” (vs. 4), which through prayer shares everything with the Lord, the heart centered “in the Lord” will be fully and completely alive, no matter what. As we obey the instruction in the passage, we can claim the promise in the passage: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
