Untitled Sermon

Turn with me to Philippians chapter 4. Philippians chapter 4. On our excursion through the book of Philippians, we finally made it to chapter 4. We're going to look at the first, well, we'll read through the first nine verses. We're only going to look at verses 8 and 9 today. Paul says in chapter 4, verse 1, Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for,

my joy and my crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends. I plead with you, Odia, and I plead with Syntyche, to agree with each other in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, loyal yoke fellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always, and I will say it again, rejoice.

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,

whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. And 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. We have been looking at, in Philippians, learning to rejoice in the Lord. And there's a lot of stuff going on, a whole lot of things that are going on in the world right now, in which we better, know how to rejoice in the Lord.

I don't know how your week was this past week. I don't know how stressful it was. It was probably fairly stressful. This was Halloween week. And it is, I don't know that it's necessarily called a holiday. Satan and his demons don't take a holiday. They don't go on vacation anywhere. But the recognition of their activity is heightened. There's an opening that is there for them

to oppress as never before. And so there's a lot of demonic activity. Satanic oppression that goes on right around Halloween. And you probably experienced some of it in some way in your family or job or school or whatever. More so. Things are really happening. Things are really coming down. I don't know how many, anybody see the six lights that went across the sky,

according to the paper, reports in the paper this past week? I don't know. There was seem to be a, I couldn't tell whether it was Wednesday evening or Thursday evening that that was seen. But reports here in Arc City and from people in Winfield, the police officers in Winfield, several police officers in Winfield, police officers saw it. And then there was in the paper about,

I think it was on Friday or Saturday, of someone in Sudan who even saw it. But there were evidently six cylindrical, golden globe-like ball things that were moving through the sky. And they were in single file and they would kind of dip down and come back up. And they were seen by a vast amount of people from a lot of different areas around the area. No trails, no blinking lights.

And then suddenly they just disappeared. They disappeared. And that's when they contacted McConnell. And of course McConnell said, there's no military activity going on in that area. And so what was it? So who knows? You know, is it just some swamp gas that kind of oozed up there and it's natural phenomenon, totally explained by natural phenomenon. Is it a secret military experiment that's going on

and there's secret military whatever's flying around this way? Can we fly them all in single file? That's a trip, huh? Keep them all together in single file? Or is it UFOs? Do you believe in UFOs? Unidentified flying objects? I sure do. I really do. I don't believe they're from another planet. I believe they're demonic. I believe that Satan and his angels manifest themselves

according to the word of God as angels of light, coincidentally enough. Jesus told us in the last days, we are going to see signs in the heavens. As I mentioned before, this last few weeks in Jerusalem, over Jerusalem, the skies of Jerusalem, there's been more UFO type activity than ever before in recorded history in that area. Why? Well, it's because we're in the last days.

It's because these things are coming down and we're seeing these signs, the signs of these things in the heavens. There's a new book out by Tex Mars. I don't know how many of you have read Tex before or not. He writes on prophecy. He's like Hal Lindsey in notoriety and all, not quite as well known as Hal Lindsey, but he has a new book out called Lucid, L-U-C-I-D.

It stands for Luciferian ID, Luciferian Identification. He's talking about the smart card. You've heard about the smart card some already. It's being introduced into us gradually, but by the turn of the century, by the millennium, by the year 2000, it is, they want to have it instituted, and every nation of the world, it's a card that will have all of your pertinent data on it on a microchip on the card, including fingerprint scans and retinal scans in your eye.

A retinal scan of your eye will be on that, so that it's absolutely impossible to duplicate. Only one thing they haven't mentioned yet, and they will, is that you could lose the card, so they need to put it on you somehow, and that's coming. But they talk about how they're gonna, from infancy, as soon as a child is born, before it goes home from the hospital, if it's a boy and it's gotta be circumcised, it'll be circumcised. Retinal scan, fingerprint, and the number will be issued.

And it's, we're that close. And you can look at this stuff and focus on that stuff and go, wow, you know, that's really scary. What's gonna happen? Are we gonna go to a concentration camp or what? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't think so. I think the Lord's coming back before then. But are you able to experience the provision of His peace

in the midst of this? That's what we're looking at here, rejoicing in the Lord in the provisions that He's given us. He has provided for us. Just as we sang in that worship song this morning, His divine power has given us everything we need from Peter's epistle. Everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.

He's already given us everything we need. But we can tend to get focused off on other things and fail to experience the peace that He has provided for us. And that's what we're looking at in these first, really, six, seven verses is the provision of His peace. And that's what it is in your bulletin this morning. And if you have been with us and you remember

that the next break is verses eight through 13, a provision of His presence. And we're doing verses eight and nine. These really interlock. They really kind of overshadow one another. As we move, there's not like a distinct, okay, we're gonna recognize the provision of His peace and then a provision of His presence and all that. They're interwoven. You can't experience the provision of His peace

without experiencing His presence. It says you know the presence of the Lord that you experience His peace. You can only have peace in this world through Jesus Christ. Not just knowing about Him, but realizing and dwelling in the midst of His presence. And so that's what we've been looking at so far in the first seven verses of chapter four in the idea of overcoming our circumstantial Christianity,

overcoming that area where things get us down and then we get up and then we get down and then we get up, but seeking to maintain a consistent walk by rejoicing in the Lord, learning to rejoice in the Lord. That's what the book of Philippians is seeking to teach us. And so in chapter four, the first seven verses, learning to rejoice in the provision of Christ's peace for us. And in these first seven verses, we've seen so far to realize that peace.

Verse one, we need to stand firm. Therefore, dear brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown, this is how you should stand firm in the Lord. Standing firm in the Lord in the midst of these last days, in the midst of the things that are coming, whatever it is. I guarantee you after this week, things will not be the same. We've been kind of going along status quo,

you know, kind of making it along and things haven't really changed. Things are gonna start changing. Things are changing radically and quickly. So count on it, be ready for it, but be ready to stand firm in the Lord. And he's told us in the first three chapters, everything we need to know to be able to stand firm in the Lord, to realize the blessing of his peace.

Secondly, in verses two and three, we saw the need for unity and understanding in the body of Christ. We need each other. We cannot allow division among us. We need to work at maintaining that unity between us because we desperately need each other as God moves us. He moves through us as his body. And especially in these last days, especially in these trying times,

to be a Christian is going to be anathema by the world coming up soon. You can't say the word Christian now as a result of all of this recent campaigning without being associated with some radical right-wing mafia group, you know, Christian. Oh, you're one of them, you know. And it's just part of this move against Christ, against his church right here in the last days.

And so we're called to stand firm. And to do that, we need to maintain the unity among us, to seek to have that same mind as Christ that Paul talked about here with Euodia and Syntyche. Then thirdly, we saw that there's a need for us, verses four and five, to rejoice, to continue to rejoice. Paul says again, verse four, "'Rejoice in the Lord, and I will say it again, rejoice.'" I told first service the same thing.

It is not wrong to remind yourself of that. And that's how we, one of the ways we're going to learn to do it is to remind ourselves of it when we come into those trying, challenging circumstances to just say out, you know, rejoice in the Lord. Yeah, you know how it is. You've been through those maybe this week and something's happened. And if you've been in the studies,

it stays kind of fresh in your mind when those things happen. Rejoice in the Lord. Yeah, right, rejoice in the Lord. Go ahead and say it out. Even if initially you're saying it kind of sarcastically. Yeah, rejoice in the Lord. Just say it. Remind yourself of it as you hear it. I went out this weekend to just change a light bulb on the back porch light. And you know Fry's motto.

You never just do anything. There's no such thing. You know, why don't you just take the trash out? Or why don't you just go change the baby's diaper? Or why don't you just go feed the dog? Or why don't you just go mow the lawn? There's no such thing as a just doing anything. There's never anything you just go do. And so I went out to change the light bulb.

And never, we haven't changed it since we've moved into this house. And we're there and I went to do it. And of course it wasn't one of those that you just do something and change the light bulb. And you know, it's got one of these, it's things on top of it. And I don't know. Hanging lights, you know, suspended lights and porch lights have these little things on top of them.

And I don't know why they put them there. And beyond that, I don't know why they make them unscrew. Because they don't do nothing, you know, when you unscrew it. You just unscrew the top part of this. Or if you got one of those hanging lamps, you know, and you unscrew the top part of this or the bottom part of this, it doesn't do anything. You just get this bottom part

or this top part of something that's in your hand. Doesn't open anything up, doesn't release anything. It just, you got this ornament in your hand. So I had to screw that thing back on the top because it didn't open up anything. And I finally was moving the thing around and it was wanting to come open. And I looked and there was a screw that was holding the lip of it down over on this side.

So I just went to get a screwdriver, came back out. It was a Phillips head screw. So I had to go back and get another screwdriver. And I came up and I started to try and unscrew it. And of course, I don't know how long it had been in there, but the first couple of times around and that little head was stripped clear out and it wouldn't go around for nothing.

And so I spent an hour changing a light bulb. I finally had to get a screwdriver and wedge it up underneath that and take a hammer and chisel the top of it off and take some vice grips and, you know, and I did. I said, rejoicing the Lord, rejoicing the Lord. And I needed to do that because the Lord really spoke to my heart and showed me that that was some alone time that I had with him.

It was some alone time I wouldn't have had any other way. I was out there standing on top of the dog house, trying to get this thing. And I was talking to the Lord. And I realized that finally, the Lord called my spirit and he made it humorous to me finally. Got the light bulb out and back in, you know, and the little light is still all in one piece. I didn't get to the point where I go, well,

you know, and unscrew the light and take it out and screw it back in. Rejoice, go ahead and say that in the midst of those circumstances, because God has a reason for what he's doing. You may not understand it at first, but as you just, as we learn to rejoice in the Lord, we come to realize, and that was, that was a special time that I had with the Lord that I wouldn't have had. An alone time with the Lord that I wouldn't have had any other way.

And letting him teach me through that particular experience. So we need to rejoice. We need to be rejoicing. And then fourth in that section, verses six and seven, along with these to realize the peace of God, we saw that we needed to pray. And see, all of that's related. All of that happened as I was just trying to change a light bulb. I was talking with the Lord, I was communing with the Lord

and his peace came upon me. And we need to do that. That has to happen. And those, see, those are things that the enemy seeks to do is to distract us. Remember we talked about the word anxious, be anxious for nothing, means to be distracted, means to distract. And so when we're anxious about something, we've been distracted from our focus on the Lord. And that's what the enemy wants to do.

And so we're to realize that the Lord is near. He's right here. I mean, we talked about how that could relate to the rapture, but more of that had already been taken care of in chapter three. This is more the realization of his presence. The Lord's near. So just commune with him and don't be anxious. Don't be distracted in all things, but in all things with prayer, worship and supplication,

presenting those requests to God with thanksgiving and the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. We talked about that. There's another thing to do here in verse eight, to realize the provision of his peace. And that is we have to think on these things. We have to think on these things. Look at verse eight.

Finally, brothers, 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. Wonderful verse. We'll talk about that in a minute. How wonderful this verse is. We are to think about such things. I want you to stop for just a second and think with me about this past week.

We have had virtually no time to think this past week. I mean, again, apart from that light experience with me, I haven't had any time to just think, to just stop and think. Advertising, television and radio advertising, but especially television advertising where you can sit and look at a picture. It comes so fast. The changes, the optical changes are so fast

and advertisers have studied all the psychology of the working of the eye and the mind and all this stuff. And they know how fast they can change. They know how fast to process information so that you can't really think about it. You just acknowledge the information is there. You just kind of process the information. You want to have an interesting thing to do this week

is either while you're watching TV sometime this week, either realize how you're watching it or better yet, watch if you're watching with family members or friends, watch them watch TV. You know, the main thing is over. You've gone from maybe 2020 into a commercial and the commercials have been wonderful, haven't they? And the flash is on and you just find each other sitting there kind of remember Simon and Garfunkel song, sounds of silence.

Hello darkness, my old friend, you know, it just epitomizes the way information is being thrown at us in advertising. There's not time enough to really stop and think, hi, I'm Tom Park. And if I got a deal for you, you know, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash. Boy, I want to go get one of them. You know, I haven't had time to process and think about

expensive, you know, debt, can't pay. Oh, that's okay. No problem. We'll figure out a deal. If you've been canceled by the, you know, by bank, if a bank wants to incarcerate you, it's no problem at all. And you're going, oh, all right. Yeah, that's okay. You know, don't really stop and think and reflect on it. Your daily schedules, our daily schedules, everybody's busy.

Everybody's busy. Even if you happen to be one of the 7% of mothers who stay home. You're busy. I mean, there's not a not busy schedule. We've got these places to go and things to do. And if you've got family, you've got to have them to softball, or basketball, or soccer, or the play, or we've got to go to this thing. We've got to go to that thing. I've got to go to this meeting.

And I've got to go to this training seminar. You know, your job is technically advancing so quickly now, no matter what your job is, that you have to go to retraining every so often, and go to school to be retrained, to know how to do to keep up with what you're supposed to be doing. And then there's diversity education so that you can accept everything in the world except Christianity into the workplace. And you've got to go through all of that kind of training.

You don't have any time to think. It's just continually moving along, keeping the pace going. If you do have any alone time, time when you're just alone, you may tend to fill it with tapes or TV, a bunch of tape. You just dropped off the kids at soccer practice, and now you've got to drive for 40 minutes or so to go somewhere else and put in a tape. And the problem with this is we're

failing to be able to discern the still, small voice of God anymore. God told Elijah he's not speaking in a whirlwind. He's not speaking in the earthquake. He's not speaking in the fire. He said, come to the front of the cave. He showed him all of this, and it says, and God was not in the earthquake, and God was not in the fire, and God was not in the whirlwind.

Then he heard a still, small voice. You see, the only way we hear the still, small voice of God is if we have time to think, is if we have time to set our hearts upon him, to focus on him. And because we don't, we are robbed of learning to hear his still, small voice. We're just too busy. We don't have time to think. Fast food restaurants drive up windows. Why don't we go to different ones a lot?

It's because not so much that we like the food at the ones we patronize. It's we know the menu already. You pull up into a new restaurant, and you're like, oh, we're going to a new restaurant, fast food drive-thru. And you pull up, and there's this huge board, right? And you're looking at it, and they say, welcome to. Can I take your order, please? And you say, well, yeah, I just need to look at it.

OK, fine, speak whenever you're ready. In about 20, you've got 20 seconds. Are you ready yet? Yeah, well, do you have a small order of this? Yes, we do. That'll be $0.89. OK, well, wait a minute. What do you want, you know? We've got to move. We've got to move. We've got cars behind us. You don't have time to think. You don't have time to process. Everything is that way.

And because of that, we are surrendering our thought processes to others. We are letting other entities think for us. The media. I mean, surely, the media tells us the truth. Surely, the media will tell us everything we want to know about a particular situation. All we've got to do is watch and get this little sound bite or read this little blurb in the paper.

And surely, that's everything we need to know about whatever it is. And so we're letting them think for us. We're letting them tell us the conditions of the country, or the candidates to vote for, or how we should think in this particular bond issue, or whatever. We're letting media tell us what to do, because we don't have time to think about it. We don't have time to research it.

We're letting politicians think for us. I mean, there's going to be such a... You talk about a letdown or a weight release. Wednesday morning, there will be this huge weight release in this country, because we finally got our elections over with, and they can go run the country. They can go think for us. They can go deal with Iran and Bosnia. They can go deal with the problem in the streets.

They can go deal with crime. They can go deal with welfare. We'll let them think for us where that's concerned. We let pastors think for us. Well, if my pastor's not freaking out about it, it must be OK. Or my pastor says this is what's going on, so this must be what's going on. Instead of taking a word of God and looking at it and going, is that what it says?

What he said it says? Does it really say that? We let pastors direct our spiritual walk. When pastors are just supposed to be instructors, teachers, not icons. There's only one icon. That's Jesus, Colossians chapter 1. He is the icon. He's the image of the invisible God. It's him we look towards. But we tend to let our pastors formulate our theology instead of letting the Lord do it.

We let teachers think for us. And God bless teachers. I love teachers. I'm not down on teachers at all. But we've restricted them. Teachers are to teach us how to learn, how to think and discern and research. But we've dumped on them so much garbage and paperwork, and you've got to do it. I do all this kind of discipline. The discipline takes up more than 50% of their time

that they have to teach. Plus, we get them all this stuff with QPA that they have to log and outcomes-based education. They have to log all these outcomes and all this stuff that's supposed to be good. It's not like we've had all this stuff for 2,000 years, and now we finally found the answer. They don't have time to teach kids how to learn. They just dispense the information.

They just are forced to disseminate this information. And we let them think for us. Calculators. You don't have to know how to do math anymore. You just have to know how to run a calculator. You don't have to. You don't have to know how to figure out the volume of a cylinder. You just have to know how to do the program on a calculator. x squared plus y squared equals z squared.

Well, how do you do an x squared? Well, you punch the square thing over here, you know? How do you do a square root of a number? You punch the whole thing with a little square root sign around it over here. You just got to know how to run. We let the calculator do the thinking. Computers. Programming the computers to think so fast, you don't have to think. You just have to know point and click, right?

Point and click. Where do I want to go? I don't know point and click. I'm on the internet. What am I going to do? I don't know point and click. You know, I'll go somewhere. Everything is geared to let something else think for us. We're too busy. And listen, busyness, busyness, and not thinking, not taking the time to think is a satanic deception. Busyness and not taking time to think is a satanic deception.

Don't think about the consequences. This is the time. Now's the time to buy. You got to purchase it now. There's only one day left. Don't think about consequences. Don't think about debt. Oh, I really love you, and if you really love me, now's the time to consummate our love affair in this wonderful sexual relationship. Don't think about the consequences. Don't think about pregnancy.

Don't think about venereal disease. If it feels good, do it. Don't think. Thinking seems to be a waste of valuable doing time. You finish doing what you're doing, and you've got time. And what do you do? I got to be doing something else. Surely there's something else I got to be doing. You know, I've got things around the house to do. When I finish study time, which should be special time, and it

is. It's study time. Study. That just to spend time with the Lord where I'm not preparing for a study, I don't have a whole lot of time to do that, unless I take the time. Because I finish studying, and what have I got to do? Well, I've got light bulbs to change on the back porch. You know, I've got stuff like that. I've got to do something. So thinking time seems to be robbing me of my doing time.

So when you just stop to think, just to set your mind on the things of the Lord and not do anything, you can feel guilty. That's from the enemy. The thinking time is robbing you of doing time. Matthew chapter 6. Don't turn there. It's the Sermon on the Mount section. Matthew chapter 6, verses 26 through 28. Jesus is talking about this very thing about not being anxious for anything, not getting

unnerved about what's going on in the world, what's going on around you. In NIV it says, look at the birds of the air. They neither toil nor spin. Their heavenly Father who knows their need provides the food, provides for them. And then it says in NIV, and see the lilies of the field. And it compares them to God has arrayed them in such a way that not even the splendor of Solomon can compare with the lilies of the field.

In King James, that word is consider and it probably more accurately renders the word in the Greek because you don't just look at, I mean, we look at things all the time. We look at each other, you know, maybe we don't really communicate with each other. We just look at each other. But to consider something means to think about it, to think about the birds of the air and how God takes care of them, how he not only designed them, but that he cares for them.

We had some geese fly over last night, two bees, two different sections of geese. And just to watch them and you're watching and I did consider that I stopped and thought about them. How did they know where they're going and who picked him to be the head goose, you know? They seem to fly around and over here and then fly back around like maybe they're lost, you know, you need somebody else to drive for a while or something.

But consider those, think about those things and think about the flowers. How many times do you do that and think about it in relationship to God's provision? Or do you only think about it when you run across Matthew chapter six? You see, we don't have time to think or we're not taking the time to think. We're not taking the time to spend with the Lord to consider all that he's done.

Satan doesn't want you to do that. He wants you to be anxious, distracted from God, worrying about the things. God wants you to think. He wants you to remember what he's done. Hold your finger here, Philippians. Go back with me to the hundred and third Psalm, Psalm 103. I went through this this week in devotions and it just, it's ministered to me all week. The hundred and third Psalm, Psalm 103, I'm going to start with verse one while you're

turning, so just listen and pick up with us as we go. Praise the Lord, O my soul, all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Don't forget them, remember them, think about them, consider them, praise the Lord. That's something we're to do all the time. We've talked about that. If we don't take the time to do these things.

To learn how to rejoice in the Lord. These are things you're just going to run across in those little books that they sell. We mentioned this last week for, you know, during times of despair and you flip to times of despair and it's got all these verses listed and you read through the verses. Those are the only times you'll consider these things unless it becomes a habit in your life.

Don't forget all of his benefits. And then down from verses, from verse three on down through verse 18 are 15 benefits that God lists. 15 benefits of the Lord. Verse three. He gives all your sins. I need to remember that there are so many times I'm going to screw up. I'm going to do something willfully that I know is wrong, Lord, and I hate it. And I, how can you love me after I've done that?

He's already forgiven all my sins and heals all your diseases a second. It's God who brings the healing of everything. You have a cold and you get better. God healed you. It's God who brought the healing. You have surgery and you heal. It's God who brought about the healing. It's God who gave, gave the surgeons the skills and the technology to be able to do the surgery.

There now it's been in the paper within the last couple of weeks, even several articles about how doctors are realizing and they associate it with homeopathy and nature type therapy that you need. If you have a religious affiliation, it helps in your healing. I mean, they're coming close to say, God's involved. but they're recognizing that god's involved and that those who have a religious affiliation and pray heal quicker and tend to gain strength more rapidly than those that don't it's god who heals all our diseases who redeems your life from the pit anybody in the pit this week he's going to redeem your life from there he's redeemed it from hell if you if you've called on him in the name

of jesus you know who jesus is and have come into that relationship with him and if you've been in the pit this week and just circumstances he's going to pull you out of that he's promised to he's going to bring you through that and he crowns you with love and compassion verse four he satisfies your desires with good things how many desires have i had lord that have been rotten desires and yet you've satisfied those by bringing good things maybe things i haven't even thought about i was going to destroy my life and didn't think i had the things that i needed and you brought this into my life a good desire a good thing satisfied it with that good thing i need to

remember that you see it's when we forget that that we doubt the lord god wants us to remember on and on and on and on 15 things in that song that god you wants us to remember he wants us to think it's the enemy that doesn't want us to think back to philippians chapter 4 whatsoever things are true verse 8 whatsoever 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 that is a well-known verse a well-known known passage of scripture probably not well memorized but well no i know where that is philippians 4 8 yeah whatsoever things are are true and and lovely

and just if there's any virtue any praise think on these things that's right i'm supposed to think about good stuff positive thinking let's lump it all into positive thinking and that's that's philippians chapter 4 verse 8 let me ask you what do you what do you see when i when i read through that what do you see in your mind it's just one of those it's one of those verses again it's in that book of when i'm in distress i flip to this chapter and it says this verse philippians 4 well i love that verse yeah i love that verse i love that verse i love that verse i love that verse that's that really ministered how does it minister to you what do you see when you read that verse i

mean picture what do you picture in your mind because that's what you're supposed to think about this is an admonition this is something we are supposed to do whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right pure lovely admirable excellent and praiseworthy what do you picture when you hear that verse how do you remember all the characteristics and when are you to think all these things is there a special time is it only when i'm in distress and i got to find that book because i got to find the scriptures that i read when i'm in distress is that when we think the scriptures that i'm in distress and i got to find the scriptures that i read when i'm in distress

let me let me put a parenthesis here and give you a little something that will maybe help you remember the characteristics themselves of philippians 4a this i did not get this from a commentary this is in nobody's notes so blame me for this one this is my fault on this one okay uh i want to give you a little mnemonic hook on how to remember philippians 4a you have had mnemonic hooks in all of your learning um i don't maybe you've not heard this one how do you know what the five great lakes are you remember the little acrostic mnemonic homes h-o-m-e-s somebody asked you where the great lakes h-o-m-e-s huron ontario michigan erie and superior just by memorizing

homes you have a little mnemonic hook you can hook onto that and remember the five great lakes if you've taken music before music theory music appreciation and you've had to learn how to read music or you've played an instrument before and had to learn one of the things first things you learn is how to read the notes on a staff and in the treble clef the first thing you learn is the number of the lines on the staff egbdf how do you remember that every good boy does fine and the little spaces in between the lines f-a-c-e how do you remember those because it spells face well bass clef how do you remember well bass clef is gb dfa well how do you remember that well it's

great big dogs fight animals and the little spaces in between are a c e g well how do you remember that well because it's all cows eat grass or all cars eat gas we have little mnemonic hooks that we put on everything so we can remember those mission links that we made доступ to class values we're going to read the things we made them don't really care about do we have any questions if you're remember how to do it. I want to give you a little mnemonic hook. Again, this is just a sideline, but I want to help you remember this because we're told to think on this, okay? Think on these things, and I don't want you walking out of here going, yeah, whatsoever things are kind of good and

lovely and something else, and I got to think on that, and forget it. I want to give you something so ridiculous, just like I don't know how many times you saw the pizza commercial this week with the guy talking to Max the dog and remembered about talking to the Lord. I want to give you something so ridiculous that you'll remember it when you leave here. Jerry Lucas, former basketball player, developed a scripture memory, memorized the words decades ago, and he talked about if you can, the best mnemonic hooks are those that are ludicrous, you know, that are so outlandish because you remember things that are outlandish. Okay, here we go. How to memorize these eight

things, okay? The nine raccoons prayed, lifting all 18 paws. Okay? The nine, and picture the raccoons all standing in the shape of a number nine, okay? The nine raccoons prayed, lifting all 18 paws. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If there's anything excellent, if there's anything praiseworthy, think on these things. See,

each one of those letters is the first letter of what those words are that we're to think on. Now, when you talk about Philippians 4.8, you're going to picture raccoons praying, okay? But you'll be able to remember the characteristics that he asks us to remember, to think on, whether you have the word right there with you or not. The nine raccoons prayed, lifting all 18 paws. Okay, now we'll move on quickly. That's something to begin to picture where that's

concerned, to remember each characteristic. I'm going to give you something else to picture to see this verse when you're to think on these things. But quickly, quickly, let's look at these characteristics. There are eight characteristics listed here, eight things that he wants us to think about. He didn't just write these things to fill up the bottom of the

page on his scroll. Oh, I'm coming to the end of the scroll. And I've got this space left. I need to write something else. How about whatever is true and whatever is noble? No, these are important things for us to do as Christians. Whatever is true, the word whatever there, and here's something really that you'll want to write down because you'll want to remember it to tell all of your friends, is a relative adjective.

But relative adjectives signify importance. They emphasize the value of the noun that they modify. And so here, whatever is signifying that this is important. This is whatever is true. Whatever is true. All of these characteristics that Paul laid out here are valuable for us to be able to think about. These are things the enemy does not want you to think about. He doesn't want

you to be aware of these things. So you just get distracted and be all tied up and tense and worried and just seeking to move on what you feel and let others think for you and just trust them. And he's dangling us around like a marionette on a string. Whatever is true. The word true, there is a combination in the Greek of the negative word not and the word to forget. The

word not and the word to forget. It means something open and honest, not hidden, not forgotten. Truth as opposed to lies. When somebody lies, what do they do? They're deceptive. They're hiding something. They're forgetting something. Were we involved with selling missiles to Iran? I don't remember. But when something is true, it's open and honest. This is how it is. You know you have

what you have when you see what it is because this is true. Jesus declared himself to be the way and the truth. It didn't just mean that he was the source of all truth. It meant that he was open and honest. Everything he said was, that's it. You see it. He was seeing me. Philip has seen the father. He was revealing. He was open and honest. And our lives need to reflect that characteristic. We

need to live in such a way that when people are around us, there's no question that we're not being deceptive. We're not being dishonest. We're not holding anything back. This is us. We're not trying to put on any kind of airs or fronts. This is us. This is noble. Whatever's noble. Maybe in your translation, you have the word honorable. That emphasizes the seriousness of purpose. The seriousness of purpose. The word could be

translated serious or grave or reverent. And it means a serious dignity in what you're doing as opposed to a careless flippancy. In other words, how many things do you do during the day that are purposeless? You just kind of have a wild hair and I want to just do this, you know? And there's kind of a, sometimes we can do things that we don't want to do. We can do things that we don't want to do.

We can do things with a flippant, arrogant attitude, a rebellious kind. I'm just going to do this because I just want to do it just to see what it feels like. No purpose. I want to drive 110 miles an hour because the speedometer only goes to 85. I just want to do it. There's no purpose in it. I just want to do it. And those are the things that usually kill us or get us in trouble. Nothing

that God does is done without purpose. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If any of you are here today and you were born with some kind of a deformity, you were born with some kind of an impairment, that was not purposeful. You were born with some kind of a deformity. You were born with some kind of a purpose. That was not just a lacking and just a result of sin. Yes, I believe that since

the fall, we have been degenerating, not evolving. We're not regenerating. We're not getting better and better in our physical. We're just learning more and more powerful ways to kill ourselves. We're degenerating, yes, as a result of sin. But God, who oversees it all, could, within that genetic makeup in the womb, he could have changed it all around so you could have been

born without whatever. But he allowed it. He let it go for a certain reason. He let it go for a purpose. It has purpose. God does not do anything without purpose. Jesus, when he came, he had one purpose, and that was to go to the cross. And he fulfilled that and rose from the dead. That was his purpose in coming. God is purposed in everything that he does, and so we should seek to

follow him in that example. Whatever is noble, our lives as Christians, as his called, need to reflect his purpose. To be worshipers and to tell others about Jesus. To be worshipers and to make disciples. To be worshipers and to make disciples. To be worshipers and to make disciples. To be worshipers and to make disciples. That's our purpose. And everything in my life I do should

reflect that. Whatever's right. Whatever's right. This word emphasizes the state of being right and refers more to conduct. A right conduct as opposed to wrong conduct. Now, how do you know what's right and what's wrong? That's what they're trying to do is teach values today. How do you know what's right conduct as opposed to wrong conduct? Well, it builds on the word noble that went before.

There's a purpose. There's a purpose that centers in what God has intended, and so I seek to do what's right related to that purpose. Jesus, when he was here, did everything that was right. How did he do that? He said, everything I do, I see my Father do. I only speak what I hear my Father speak. He was focused on a Father. So that everything that he did, he did what the Father said and what the Father did.

That's what we're to do. That's what Paul says for me to live as Christ. I want to have the mind of Christ. Chapter 2, Chapter 3, I want for me to, my greatest goal is to know him, to know Christ. So that's our focus. And then whatever's noble, whatever has that purpose of Christ's calling will cause me to do whatever's right as far as my moral conduct is concerned. Whatever's pure, fourthly, whatever's pure. The word is from the root word translated

holy or holiness. Literally means, as we've already seen in Philippians, to be set apart unto, to be set apart unto. Jesus was separated unto the Father. He was separated from sin. He was without sin. He lived here and he moved among the sinful, he did not partake of that sin. He was separated unto the Father. His life was focused on the Father, not on sin. If there's a problem that we can have as Christians, it's focusing on

the sin, especially other people's, instead of focusing on the Lord, instead of focusing on Christ. Whatever is pure, whatever is set apart unto God, Lord, help me to focus on whatever sets me apart from the sin, not the sin itself. Jesus, when he went into the different places, when he went into Zacchaeus' house to have lunch, the tax collector, little guy, climbed the sycamore tree, remember that, spent the afternoon with him. At the end of the afternoon, Zacchaeus came out and it said he was rejoicing and he said, I'm going to give four times as much in repayment to those that I've cheated, to those that I've stolen from. I don't think Jesus, when he went

in, said, Zacchaeus, you sinner, you swine, you squatty little runt, you're going to burn. I'm going to squash you. And Zacchaeus goes, oh, I'm rejoicing because I'm going to get back four times as much. Zacchaeus spent time with the Lord and the goodness of God, the compassion of God, the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God brought Zacchaeus to his knees. How could, how

could God, who is so omnipotent, so awesome, love me? And Jesus said, he does. And I'm here, I'm here to show you that. Zacchaeus was busted because of God's love and repaid. I don't see, the only time Jesus focused on the sin of action was with the religious people, was with the Pharisees and the Gentiles. Why? Because in their religiosity, they were keeping people from knowing that wonderful

relationship of the Lord. It was the only ones he condemned. They brought the woman in adultery to him. He didn't go, you shameless hussy, confess your sin. Where are your accusers? They're not here, Lord. Well, then neither do I accuse you. Go and sin no more. That's it. End of story. End of subject. Whatever is pure, Lord, separate me unto you in that way so that I focus on you and

not to sin. Whatever is lovely. That's a beautiful word in the Greek. It's the word, uh, prosphaleos. One of the words for love, phileo, which is the friendship love, the brotherly kind of love, and the preposition toward. So we are to think on that which is towards love, that which is towards a friendship rather than anger and bitterness and strife and envy and contention. What is it,

what button is it in your life right now that Satan can push? What is it if I mentioned it right now? Is it, is it a former husband and wife? Is it former job situation? Is it a former husband and wife? Is it a young man or a young woman? Is it a evildoer? Would it be a young man or a young woman? That's the button Satan's going to push in the midst of that. We're to think on

those things that are toward love in that situation, toward friendship in that situation, or to forget the past. Remember chapter three, forget the past, press on towards the things that are ahead. Whatever is admirable, whatever is admirable moving quickly here is from the root word to speak well, to speak well. And it's tied into the one right above it with lovely. Not only

toward love, but now you are to speak well, to say things that are good and encouraging, not critical. Brothers and sisters, you have got to control your tongue. James tells us that. Paul's telling us that here. Jesus told us that. We have to do it. You can't let yourself be critical. Chapter two, that you might do all things without grumbling and complaining. It's your

responsibility. It's the balls in your court, and he has empowered us to do that. Here he says it again. Whatsoever things are admirable, speak well, not critical, not grumbling, not complaining. Seven, if anything is excellent, if anything is excellent. Here he's emphasizing moral goodness, which is all connected with all of the above six things that he's listed. These six characteristics,

he says, he's more or less summing it up and saying, if anything is excellent, if there's any moral good in something, which is all of this, then think on these things. Listen, these are the values that need to be taught in school. There's only one problem with it. They all fall into the same trap. They all fall into the same trap. They all fall into the same trap.

Focus on Jesus Christ. And apart from them, you have nothing. Apart from him, you can't realize these values. Oh, we can put them up on a board and we can go to values training classes and diversity training. And you need to get along with each other on your job. And here you need to be loving towards one another. You need to think good thoughts towards each other and not

say these terrible things to one another. Only one problem with that fallen man can't do that. We don't have the ability to do that. The things I want to do, I don't. The things I don't want to do, I find myself doing, Paul says in Romans chapter 7. Because apart from the spirit of God, we can't do nothing. We can't do that. These are the excellent things. These are the things that we're to focus on, but they've all been booted out of

our society. There's a new book that's out that's published by Focus on a Family. It's written by a fellow named Alan Crippen. It's called Reclaiming the Culture, How You Can Protect Your Family's Future. And in it, he writes, quote, just something really brief here. In the past 30 years, there has been a 560% increase in violent crime, more than a 400% increase in illegitimate births,

a quadrupling in divorces, a tripling of the percentage of children living in single-parent homes, more than a 200% increase in the teenage suicide rate, a drop of 75 points in the average SAT scores of high school students. He says, we are at or near the top in the world in rates of abortion, divorce, and unwed births. We lead the industrialized world, in murder, rape, and other violent crimes. And in elementary and secondary education, we are at or near the bottom in achievement scores, end quote. Why? Why do we have so much

crime in the streets? Well, it's because we need a million policemen on the street. Let's go from 100,000 to a million. Let's put a million new cops on the street. It's not going to change the fact that there's going to be this violent crime increasing. What changes it? The focus on Christ. When people come back to think on things that are excellent, which are all these things listed,

that's why you can go to all the values training you want. It's not going to change a whit. It's as you, as a Christian, think on these things. And if anything, finally, he says, is praiseworthy. That just means a commendable thing. And here's the picture. Here's what we get to. How do I picture this verse? J. Vernon McGee, in his commentary, says that this is the shortest

biography in the Bible on Jesus. He is the one who is true. He is the one who is noble. He is the one who is right. He is the one who is pure. He's the one who's lovely. He's the one who's admirable. He's the one who's excellent. He's the one who's praiseworthy. So I am to think on him. Then remember the nine little praying raccoons so you can remember all the little characteristics when you have time to think about it, okay? But think on Jesus. Let your

heart and mind be set on him. When do I think about him? When am I supposed to think about him in that way? Only when I got to go grab the book that says, when in distress, these are the verses you look at. No, every minute, every instant. He's just said again, chapter one, verse 21, for me to live as Christ. Chapter two, I want to have the mind of Christ. Chapter three,

I want to know him. Chapter four, think on these things. Think on Christ. No matter what the situation, you see, no matter what the situation, it's excellent. Why? Because he's in it. He's in the midst of it. He's there with me. It's worthy of praise. Why? He's there. I'm focused upon him. I can make it through this particular situation. Think on these things. Let's close. Flip over to

Hebrews chapter 12. Go to your right. Go to your right to Hebrews. We go through Thessalonians and Timothy. If you go to James, you've gone too far. Go back. Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, verse two. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him. Wait a minute. Who for the joy set before him. What does that mean? It means he knew what the results were going to be. He knew what

was going to come. He fixed his eyes on the joy that was set before him, on what the promises were, that he would go to the cross, yes, but there would be the resurrection, and then there would be the fellowship for the people of the earth with God forever and ever. So who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame. He didn't focus on the cross. He didn't focus on

the cross. Get simony. What was get simony? It was a time where Jesus wrestled in prayer. Why? Because the enemy was pushing the cross button. Got to go to the cross. Got to go to the cross. Got to go to the cross. Got to die. Got to die. Got to die. What was Jesus wrestling to do? Focus on the father. Focus on the father. Focus on the father. If there's any other way,

let this cup pass for me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours. Not my will but yours. Focusing on the father. So much so that he sweat great drops of blood. Why? Because he was keeping his thoughts from the cross. Focusing on the father for the joy that was set before him. That's what Paul tells us to do in Philippians 4. Think on these things. Let's stand together.