1. Title: Rock Solid Protection
2. Text: Philippians 4:6-9
3. Audience: Villa Heights Christian Church, AM crowd, May 15, 2005, in the series “Praying for Loved Ones”
4. Objectives:
-for the people to understand the prayers that will offer genuine protection for the people we love
-for the people to feel convicted that they need to saturate their lives with the things that will help them be what God wants them to be
-for the people to pray, fill their minds with good things, and live out the things they know to be right to do
5. When I finish my sermon I want my audience to better understand the relationship between what the put into their lives and what comes out, and how to pray for this right intake of good things for their loved ones
6. Type: expository
7. Dominant Thought: Saturating our lives with the right things is a necessary element of having God’s peace with us
8. Outline:
Intro - For hundreds of years, Haïti has been a country plagued with unrest. It was already in some turmoil last year. Haïti continues to struggle with extreme poverty. President Aristide had left the country after a 2nd overthrow in February. As if things weren’t bad enough, Sept. 17 Hurricane Jeanne flooded the city of Gonaives and other areas, killing thousands. Unrest followed again. Our trip there had to be postponed because of random violence. Still, there are some 8 million people living in Haïti, and they can’t afford to leave. How do they manage?
Walls. Everything is surrounded by security walls. Build something, you put up a wall around it first. If not, whatever you leave unguarded will eventually disappear. Another effort to make Haïti peaceful lately has been the presence of UN security troops from several different nations, including the US. We saw them every day, patrolling the streets. Our hotel was even right next door to the US deployment. Having all those troops around helped, I suppose. It at least gave you a more secure feeling. Just like security gates. But, just a couple of days after we were home, 2 UN security personnel were killed in another city in Haïti.
There are still some 8 million people living in Haïti. How can they possibly be at peace?
Peace isn’t just the absence of danger. It’s about being able to be at ease in the midst of danger. Right now, our troops are over in Iraq, engaging the enemy, in order to bring…peace.
Peace has to do with a wholeness of being. You don’t get it by removing all conflict. You don’t get peace by running away. You get it from something else.
How can we Christians, who understand ourselves to be aliens and strangers in this world, be at peace? How can we lie down at night and sleep. It’s not by leaving this mess.
1 Corinthians 5:9-10
I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people--not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.
No, we don’t have that option. How can I have peace? And then, I’m a husband. I’m a father. Almost everyday, I say goodbye to my family members, and we’re separated for hours. Certainly, I want peace for them; not just protection from bad guys, but real peace for them. How can it happen?
Wouldn’t it be great to have a sentry, a guard, who could stand guard and protect us 24 hours a day? That’s one of the perks of being President…sorta. Those guys who are always hanging around the President – with sunglasses and with things stuck in their ears – those guys are Secret Service agents. Show any sign of threat, and out of nowhere you’ll see guns come flying out as 6 guys throw themselves over the President.
That’s one way to protect someone. I’d station one around my loved ones. I want my loved ones to be protected. But not just from physical harm. I want them protected forever.
I’d want their minds protected. I’d want them protected from wrong thinking and from worry. From wrong thinking, because that’s where every person’s downfall happens first. Lose the battle for the mind and you’ve lost the whole war. I wish there were a way I could protect the people I love from wrong thoughts. I’d protect them from worry too, because stress and undo worry are another form of pain. They affect a person’s well-being just like a disease. I don’t want that for the people I love. I want them to have peace.
The great news is that I don’t have to just wish for it. There’s something I can do. There’s a guard I can post that will protect my loved ones, and me. It’s rock-solid protection that comes in the form of commands, but they’re also a prayer that I can pray for my loved ones that deals with real peace and real protection for them. You can remember these. They go like this. If you want real protection…
I. Permeate Your Days With Prayer
II. Thrill Your Mind With Excellent Thoughts
III. Layer Your Habits With Godly Living
And if you want real peace and real protection for the people you love, then these are specific things to be asking God to help them with. Be thinking about a loved one you want to have real peace, We’re going to pause and pray for that person this morning. I want to have us all leaving convinced about the value of this protection so that it’s something we’ll be praying for ourselves and our loved ones.
I. Permeate Your Days With Prayer
I know. Worrying helps. It must, because 95% of the things I worry about never happen.
Thomas Jefferson - “How much have cost us the evils that never happened!”
When Paul says “Do not be anxious about anything…” he uses a word that can mean either good or bad concern. He’s speaking here about self-centered, counterproductive worrying. It’s the same kind of worrying that Jesus says not to do in Matthew 6.
Matthew 6:25,31
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? …(31) So do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ’What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’
It’s easy for me to stand here and tell you not to worry. After all, I’m not facing what you’re facing. And none of us really set out to worry, do we? It just kind of happens without us even trying. It’s like being addicted to smoking or something. You don’t really want to do it, but you do. It’s not good for you, but you do it. How do you stop it? How do you make worrying go away? Where’s the protection we need from worry?
One answer is what Paul tells the Philippians
Philippians 4:6-7
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
Someone has said that anxiety and prayer are 2 opposing forces in Christianity. Anxiety doesn’t last too well around serious prayer. So many of the Psalms – which are prayers – start out with a desperate air of worry and trouble and end with a note of triumph. Do you suppose that’s by chance? Or could it be that the real remedy in our lives for worry starts with permeating our days with prayer? Look at the promise in v.7. It’s a promise. The peace of God will guard you!
Another place to see this is:
1 Peter 5:7 - Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
How do you do that? When do you do that? It seems to me that the most definable way is when we go to God in prayer and say, “God, here’s what’s getting to me. I’m handing it off to You! You can take care of it better than I can! Here it is! My back hurts. I’m not sure how I’m going to make my mortgage payment. My best friend is mad at me. I’m not sure what to do about my kids.” How else do you hand all of that junk over to God? When else do you cast it all on Him? That happens in prayer.
So, I want to pray for my loved ones that they’ll learn how to make prayer a real part of their lives. I want for them to make the time for it. I want for them to learn the value of it in dealing with anxiety. I want for them to have it be a first resort rather than a last resort.
To help us get to it, I want to stop and pray for it right now. Will you do that with me? Will you think for just a moment think about a loved one of yours who’s anxious – who’s too worried about things? Let’s pray for that person and for ourselves that we’ll make prayer a regular way we deal with worry. Let’s set up some rock-solid protection against worry. (prayer)
The 2nd protection is to…
II. Thrill Your Mind With Excellent Thoughts
Garbage in, garbage out. I know you’ve probably heard it a thousand times now. It comes from computer nomenclature. It simply means that a computer will spit out right information only if right information is put into it. Put in right figures, it will give you back right figures. Put in garbage, and that’s what you’ll get back.
Our minds work the same way.
So many people are frustrated because they struggle to live right and fail. I wish every one of them would take a step back and consider what’s filling their minds. In fact, I think this may be one of the greatest hindrances to peoples’ relationship to Jesus in the Church today. What’s going into your mind? We live in the information era. We are inundated with thousands of pieces of information every day. Today, via the internet, our youth have more access to knowledge, without sound guidance on what to do with it, than ever before in history. Whether it goes there and stays or is just passing through and dropping litter on the way, there’s a ton of information entering our heads. So, I find this next verse more important than ever:
Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Could God just not think of something better to have written there, or is it possible that it’s true? What goes inside there may not be visible. It may the one place where only God can see and everyone else is clueless, but make no mistake about it – it’s real. It’s the wellspring of life. Whatever you put inside there is what’s going to come bubbling up in your life. What you feed into your mind is what you’re going to become!
Luke 6:45
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.
Feed your mind trash, and rest assured, it’s going to come out. You’ll find yourself speaking trash. Why are so many people shocked that they struggle to think pure thoughts when for hours every day their piping the mental equivalent of raw sewage into their brains?
Ill - I’ve heard more than one person marvel at how the lyrics of some music seem innocent…until you look at them. Try this: turn off the music. Get a hold of the lyrics. Read them out loud. Look at them like any other message someone might deliver to you or your children, and they take on a whole new tone. Don’t say, “Oh, they’re just words in a song.” So were the words we were singing earlier. Do they mean something, or not?!
The help Paul gives here ought to be obvious. Don’t fill your mind with garbage, instead fill it with good thoughts.
Philippians 4:8
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.
What if we were to take this and make it into a checklist to help guard our minds? How would it affect the things we watch, listen to, or read?
True, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable – anything excellent or praiseworthy?
What was the last TV you watched? The last novel you read? The last song you played on your stereo or MP3 player?
• Was it true? Did it correspond with what’s real, or did it blur reality a little more? Did it teach truth about life, or was it an effort to makes something that’s not true seem true – like, for instance, everyone lives together before they get married or 1 out of every 3 people is a homosexual? It’s just not true!
• Was it noble? Is it worthy of respect? Or was it the kind of thing that’s going to get the network that played it in trouble with the FCC?
• Was it right? Was it just? Or did it malign innocent people? Did it take advantage of peoples’ ignorance to get better ratings? Did it make the bad guy seem good?
• Was it pure? Did it promote pure living? Was it free of scenes where you had to keep changing the channels? Was it using sexuality to sell.
• Was it lovely? Did it call for people to act lovingly? Was it pleasing and agreeable, or was it just pushing the envelope because shocking is the only way to get people to buy anymore?
• Was it admirable? Was it appealing for its quality? Did it show creativity and thought?
• Was there anything about it that you could say to the person next to you, “I saw the best thing on TV. It was right on. It deserves your attention.”?
What would happen if we were to take that list and commit it to memory, and every time some form of media came up, we checked it against the list? Nothing….unless you believe that what you fill your mind with is very important. Then we would probably adjust what we’re pouring into our minds.
Right living starts in the heart. No one sins without having the thought. James 1 says it starts inside as a desire. Then, the desire matures, and it gives birth to sin and finally, death. If what you’re pumping into your mind is trash, you’re going to continue to struggle trying to live a life that isn’t.
The best protection is to fill your mind with excellent thoughts. Don’t just not put garbage into it, but fill it with excellent thoughts. Ps 119:11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Now, don’t just do that for yourself - pray for your loved ones to do the same. Pray that their minds would be guarded from Satan’s assault. To help us start on that right now, let’s pray that protection for a loved one right now. Will you think of a loved on whose mind is being assaulted by falsehood or impurity or crudeness, and will you pray for that person - for their help to set their mind on better things?
(prayer)
The 3rd protection is to…
III. Layer Your Habits With Godly Living
There’s a Peanuts cartoon with Lucy saying to Charlie Brown, "I hate everything. I hate everybody. I hate the whole wide world!"
Charlie says, "But I thought you had inner peace."
Lucy replies, "I do have inner peace. But I still have outer obnoxiousness."
Do you know anyone like that? They claim to have Christ on the inside, but everything on the outside says the opposite.
It just isn’t true. The God of peace visits you with peace when your words and actions are consistent with each other. You and I need also to layer our life habits with habits of godly living.
Philippians 4:9
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Paul was writing to the Philippians at a time when the NT wasn’t yet finished. What they learned, they learned from listening. So, Paul gave them a 3-fold plan of action regarding holy living:
1. Learn it
For us, this is the easiest part. Learning what God wants from us has really never been too challenging. We have it all around us. Still, there are some people who think there’s some point at which you just quit learning. You don’t. So, keep learning! If you read the Bible through last year, read it again in a different translation. If you memorized a chapter of the Bible, memorize the one after it. Keep learning.
2. Watch it in someone else
More than once, Paul told his friends to follow his example. That’s a gutsy thing to do, but it’s what every mature Christian ought to be able to do – to invite others to follow his example.
Have you noticed how watching someone you admire do well encourages you to do the same? We need people around us who are going to stretch us – not who are going to try to drag us down to some lower level – but who will challenge us to do what’s right in life.
Who do you have in your life like that right now? You need to be watching right living in someone near you. Then finally…
3. Do it!
Someone has said, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
It’s not just enough to know what holy living sounds like and looks like. It needs to be done in order for it to be complete.
Paul didn’t say, “When you get around to it,” or “If you feel like it.” If you want the benefits of pleasing God – in this case peace – you have to make Godly living a lifestyle.
We tend to pride ourselves in being right. We ought to be right. We know the word. We study the word. We believe that knowing what’s right matters. But it’s not enough to just know. What are we doing with it? Put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you.
So, as you pray for you loved ones one more time this morning, pray that the Lord will help that person to be a learner and doer of godly living. Will you pray with me for your loved ones too?
Conclusion:
Remember, God’s peace isn’t just a psychological state of mind. It’s an inner tranquility based on being at peace with God. God’s peace is something everyone can use, and it’s something everyone can have:
Romans 5:1
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
It’s what I want for the people I love. It’s what this church family wants for you this morning – rock-solid protection, that you need - from worry, and from temptation. Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
