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This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible because it is very simple. The link for the song is from Seeds Family Worship, which I've talked about before. I HIGHLY recommend their material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R840tDIWKvU

For discussion purposes with your kids, I am going to share a sermon I wrote on this passage. If it helps, give it a quick read and speak with your students about what it means to "think about such things"!

Look at the Book

The passage we are studying today is one of my favorites in all the Bible. I have it memorized because of a couple of songs that I taught my children when they were younger. There’s also a little trick for Philippians 4:8 that I learned when I was a student pastor many years ago. Just remember TRNP LEAP (pronounce it “turnip leap). It’s an acronym for:

True

Right

Noble

Pure

 

Lovely

Excellent

Admirable

Praiseworthy

It’s not in the order of the verse, but it helps you remember the meat of it. Let’s get into it!

Philippians 4:6-9

6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

Worry – Many translations say “Do not be anxious about anything…” Have you ever worried, or been anxious? I would imagine so. It seems to be the standard of living for humanity. God realizes this, and so does Paul. Anxiety is like a disease and we are given the prescription. “Pray about everything.” It reminds me of a hymn I’ve sung in church for years:

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known.
In seasons of distress and grief,
My soul has often found relief,
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare,
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!

Anxiety/worry is just fear about the unknown. Either I trust God or I don’t. If I do, then how I feel doesn’t matter…only what I do. Let me give you an example. I love to rappel. I can do it Swiss (rear-first) and Australian (face-first). I’ve been doing it since I was a teen. One of my favorite things to do when I’m with teens is to tell my belay (my safety) to let me go, and go down the tower in one leap. I stop myself just before I reach the bottom. I trust the ropes, I trust my skills, and I trust the process. Regardless, no matter how many times I do it, I still have fear at the top of the tower. I just have to act on what I know. As an aside, how did I overcome my fear that first time? I chose to trust the people teaching me.

So what do we do? Don’t live in fear, tell God what you NEED (not want, not desire), and thank Him for everything that He has given. When we remember ALL that God has provided, it reminds us that He is watching over us. Think about it. The fact that you woke up this morning is a matter of thanks. Once we do those things, God will grant us the peace that passes understanding. It really comes down to what I want to embrace. I can hang on to my fear and anxiety, or I can let it go and embrace the peace God has for me.

TRNP LEAP – So how do I let my fear, worry, and anxiety go? By fixing my thoughts. In the same way I can focus my eyes on something, I can focus my thoughts. Most people’s thoughts are wild and untamed. Think about it this way…when you pray in silence, do you find your mind wandering all over the place? Do you find it hard to fix your thoughts on your conversation with God? I do. I have ADHD, and my mind is like a cage of squirrels. It takes conscious effort for me to fix my thoughts on things above. I will tell you that it gets easier with practice. So what do we fix our thoughts on?

True – When we hear the word “true”, we all probably think about something that is factually correct. The word in Greek literally means “not hidden or forgotten.” Truth is more about remembering and uncovering than it is about discovering. When people come to me struggling with something, I always tell them to remember what they KNOW. So what do we need to remember?

  1. God is God and I am not.
  2. Truth does not bend to fit my wishes. There is no “this is MY truth.” Facts don’t care about your feelings and things are true whether you like it or not.
  3. I can know the truth. Some things are true and some are not and I can learn the difference.
  4. Truth is relational. In fact, truth is a person…Jesus Christ.
  5. Truth must be revealed to me. God wants to let you in on the truth.

Right  – You might think of your “rights”, like in the Declaration of Independence. My daughter and I went to see the original Declaration of Independence, as well as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights recently. The thing is that the rights guaranteed in these documents may be “inalienable” or given by God, but they don’t always come to pass without the intervention of a higher authority. Think about the 13th Amendment granting equal status to black people in America. They were equal before, but the reality of those rights to slaves in the United States didn’t come to pass until an authority forced people to recognize them, and then it took nearly another 100 years for many of those rights to come to full fruition. This is what Paul is talking about. The word he uses implies an authority that enforces what is right and causes us to think about that authority. I do not trust the US Federal Government, but I do trust Yahweh. When I think about “right”, I think about the embodiment of right…God.

Noble (honorable) – The word here is derived from a word that means “to worship.” It is literally “someone worthy of worship.” Worship is about focus. I can focus on my fear, worry, and anxiety; or I can focus on my God. I cannot do both. If I know God’s character and meditate on that, then my life will never be the same.

Pure – The word here generally describes ritual purity in a religious sense, but it is never used by Jesus. In the rest of the New Testament, it is used to describe the virginal quality of a bride and the inner purity that you would expect in that relationship. You cannot be “mostly” a virgin. Think about your life. You cannot be “mostly” sinless. The things you watch/read/listen to cannot be “mostly” holy. What do you think on?

Lovely – The word here is the idea of something that would make a friend smile. I often see something and share it because I know it will make someone smile. In fact, I have a whole group of people on Facebook who follow me because of those types of things. So, what are you doing to make Jesus smile? Do your thoughts and actions please Him?

Excellent – What it doesn’t say is “the best of the best.” It’s easy to compare myself to others. There are better speakers, better singers, better guitar players, better officers, better chaplains, better followers of Jesus than me. In fact, in every possible way, there is someone better than me. That can get overwhelming until I understand that God shaped me in a particular way for what He needs ME to do. I am excellent (or at least can be) in that regard. I have exactly as much excellence as He needs, and I can dwell on that! I can also dwell on the excellence He has placed in others and dwell on that rather than my perception of their shortcomings.

Admirable – The word Paul uses here comes from two words: one meaning “good” and the other meaning “to bring to light by speech.” Think about being in a dark, dark room. It is so dark you cannot see your hand in front of your face. Suddenly, someone strikes a match. In the midst of the darkness, it consumes your entire attention. It is your sole focus. This world lives in darkness. Some of y’all live in some of the darkest parts of a dark world. The world celebrates darkness. It talks about darkness and spreads darkness. Paul calls us to focus on things that bring light. He calls us to bring that light to dark places.

Praiseworthy – What is worthy of praise? And whose praise? The word Paul uses is “praise given in return for benefits received.” It is recognition of a job well done…”Well done, good and faithful servant.” It is the praise of the only one who matters. What makes our work praiseworthy? Other passages using this word can shed some light:

Romans 2:29 – praise comes from God, not from men

Romans 13:3 – praise results from doing good

2 Corinthians 8:18 – praise is tied to the gospel

Ephesians 1:12 – praise is attributed to those who trust in Christ

Ephesians 1:6 – praise ultimately belongs to God

I am a people-pleaser by nature. One of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn was that I could please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but I can’t please all the people all of the time. I finally decided I would please God to the best of my ability, and everyone else could lump it. This has made me wildly unpopular sometimes, and has caused some intense persecution. I don’t like the pain, but I endure it because I care more about God’s applause.

TOOK

This puts us in the last verse of the passage, which is really the summation…our big takeaway. In verse 9, Paul basically tells them to copy the way he does this. He tells them to follow his example. In 1 Corinthians 11:1, he says for the Christians to follow him in the way that he follows Christ. Can you imagine setting yourself up as an example for others to follow? Turning to the people around you and telling them that the life you live following Jesus is worth copying?

Well, it should be. That is what we should be striving for. This is one of the things I love about the stories of the saints. They are people we can look to and copy their way of living. I just finished reading a book about the life of St. Martin. His life was truly remarkable, and I want to follow Jesus like he did.

For me, I try to live a life of reckless abandon in my pursuit of Jesus. I don’t always do it right, and I am honest about my mistakes. However, one of the greatest blessings to me is when people tell me that the way Marilyn and I follow Jesus is an inspiration to them. When people see Jesus in us, then we know we’re doing it right. May it be so with you as well!