Even though, by many standards, the world has never been better or, at least, more comfortable, we still find ourselves in a strange place. We have electricity, refrigeration, modern medicine, and antibiotics. People no longer die from simple infections. Diarrhea is a nuisance rather than a leading cause of death. For the first time in history, obesity is a greater threat than starvation. Those things should never cease to amaze us!

And yet, at the same time, we are in what many call a mental health crisis. And that isn’t an exaggeration. Surveys show that almost one in four U.S. adults have experienced some form a mental health condition. Depression and anxiety account for a significant portion of those conditions. Nearly 20% of adults have been treated for depression or anxiety. And perhaps most tragically, for anyone under the age of 30, self-harm is now one of the greatest threats, for suicide is now one of the highest causes of mortality.

Of course, we don’t need statistics to tell us that something feels off. We all know it. Ignoring or denying what so many are clearly struggling with isn’t helpful.

But thankfully, the problem is not uniquely modern. Previous generations called it various things, but they still knew the battle. Christian is locked in a dungeon by Giant Despair in The Pilgrim’s Progress. Charles Spurgeon was open about his recurring battles with deep depression. And there is a well-knowing story about Martin Luther that during one of his depressive episodes, his wife Katy came dressed for a funeral. When Luther asked who died, she replied, “Well, since you are acting as though God is dead, I assumed it must be so.”

So, this is not a new or unique struggle. And here is the even better news: Scripture does not leave us without help. In fact, it gives us a solution that is nearly 2000 years old.

The words come from the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul. He wrote them from prison, after a life a beatings, stonings, and other various afflictions. Paul suffered more than most of could ever begin to imagine. And now he was in prison, in Rome, waiting for trial and probably execution.

And yet his epistle to the Philippians is called the epistle of joy. Over and over again, Paul speaks of joy, and most importantly, he models joy. Paul did not simply endure prison. He rejoiced in his imprisonment.

Although he had every reason to be, Paul was not consumed by anxiety or despair. Instead, he displayed deep, resilient hope.

Thus, Paul models what we clearly need. And in Philippians 4, Paul tells us how to resist anxiety and despair and how to fight for joy. In verses 4-9, he gives us seven commands: rejoice, rejoice, be reasonable, don’t be anxious, pray, think, and practice. Think of these as the Apostle Paul’s guide to mental health.

REJOICE // VERSE 4

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.

This is both our first and second commands. Rejoice and rejoice.

The Greek word chairete was a commonly used greeting, virtually the equivalent of hello. But it means rejoice or be glad.

But Paul is not using it as a frivolous greeting. No, this is a command. Rejoice. Be glad. And not only when the circumstances are favorable and when gladness comes naturally.

Rejoice always. At all times. In every circumstances.

There is a never a moment in life where the Christian cannot rejoice in the Lord.

Interestingly, some of Paul’s language in these verses contrasts subtly with one of the most popular philosophies of his day: Stoicism. Indeed, we know that he debated with Stoics in Acts 17. And this is worth noting because Stoicism is making a comeback today, which I completely understand. If I were not a Christian, I likely would have embraced Stoicism because there is much in it that I find admirable.

Contrary to popular usage, the Stoics were not anti-emotion; they simply sought to keep themselves from being governed by their emotions. Their core idea was that you can’t control your circumstances, you can only control yourself. So stop worrying about what you can’t change and work on mastering yourself.

As far as it goes, that is a fairly helpful insight. The problem is that Stoicism can really only teach us to grit through the afflictions of life, while counseling us not to get too attached to the good times.

Paul offers us something far better. Something that paganism simply cannot achieve. Do not merely grit your teeth through affliction; be glad. Be joyful in the midst of trials.

Of course, this is not an artificial happiness. Many within the word of faith movement wear glued on smiles and shallow cheerfulness because they are afraid to show a “lack of faith.” But joy is able to walk hand-in-hand with lament. Just look at Jesus. Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him. His sacrifice was a bitter, excruciating sacrifice that He made for us with joy.

And that is the essence of biblical joy. It is rooted in the Lord, knowing and trusting that He will make all things right in the end.

REASONABLE // VERSE 5

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

This is the third command. Reasonableness is a tricky word to translate. The NIV says gentleness. The CSB says graciousness. The KJV says moderation. Others suggest forbearance or mildness. When virtually no translations can agree, you know that English lacks a word that precisely fits.

The word is epieikes, and Aristotle describes it as justice that goes beyond the letter of the law. It is the ability to apply the spirit of the law when applying the letter of the law actually would be unjust.

Jesus is a perfect example of this when He “breaks” the Sabbath commandment by “working” (that is, healing others). Jesus did so to show the Pharisees that their legalist holding to the letter of the law had led them into violating the greater matters of the law.

Of course, Paul is not applying this to a courtroom but to everyday life. The idea is to be marked by a spirit of gentleness and fairness that comes from a willingness to consider another person’s point of view, even when you believe that they are wrong. It is, as one translator said, being ready to meet someone halfway.

And isn’t that precisely what is missing today?

While I think that reasonableness is a fine translation, it can be a bit misleading. You see, we tend to think of reasonableness as being logical, but epieikes is far more than cold logic. But neither is it unchecked emotion. Instead, it is the perfect balance of the two. It is the union of logic and empathy.

This is important because both, by themselves, become unreasonable. You cannot reason with someone who purely driven by emotion, and their ungrounded empathy becomes dangerous. It is the mercy without justice that becomes unmerciful, as Lewis put it. Likewise, pure logic becomes unhuman and ultimately insane. Chesterton rightly notes that the poet only wants to get his head into the heavens, while the logician wants to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that inevitably splits.

Biblical reasonableness is the integration of both. It is being willing to meet someone halfway and see things from their perspective without abandoning the truth.

Paul is a wonderful example of this as well. He says that he became all things to all people, that by all means he might save some. From anyone else, that would sound like fickle compromise. But Paul’s scars testified to his uncompromised grip on the gospel. His convictions were absolutely firm… on eternal things. With everything else, Paul was far more flexible than most Christians are ever comfortable being. When he was with Gentiles, he gladly lived like a Gentile. When he was with Jews, he gladly lived like a Jew. And that wasn’t two-faced or deceitful. Things like food laws simply didn’t matter to him. Neither did cultural customs. Paul was laser-focused on the gospel.

If eating pork helped him reach Gentiles, he would eat pork. If abstaining from pork helped him reach Jews, he would abstain. For Paul, the supreme question was: will this make people more receptive to the gospel, or less?

We should be like Paul. Reasonableness grows out of placing the gospel uncomprisingly at the center of your life. If we make that the only real hill that we will die on, it frees us to see everything else through reasonable, level-headed eyes.

Be like Paul. Hold onto the gospel with a death grip, and everything else with an open hand.

THE LORD IS AT HAND // VERSE 5

Paul then adds a grounding truth: The Lord is at hand.

Is this spatial or temporal? Does it refer to the Lord being near us now, or to His coming soon?

Probably both. The Lord is near; He is with us. The Lord is near; He is coming soon.

Both of those truths fuel the commands that Paul is giving us. If the Lord is present with me and coming to judge and make all things right, I do not have to battle for my rights nor do I need to claw at others to make sure that I have my appropriate portion in this life. My eternal inheritance is secure in Christ. I have treasure that no thief can steal.

That security frees us to be reasonable with all people and glad in all circumstances.

DO NOT BE ANXIOUS // VERSE 6

Verse 6 then gives us the fourth command:

Do not be anxious about anything

What is anxiety? Particularly, what does Paul mean by anxiety?

The word is Greek is fascinating. It is made up of two parts. The root is the verb for thinking or remembering, and it is given a prefix that means a portion or a division of a whole. Thus, the idea is that anxiety is a divided mind. It is having your thoughts pulled in several different directions at once by things that you are worried about, so that you are fragmented and unable to rest. Of course, we could certainly be anxious about one thing. But the image still stands because that one thing would be keeping us from being able to focus on everything else.

Anxiety, therefore, is the direct opposite of peace. The Hebrew concept of shalom is being whole and complete. It is security that all is well and shall be well.

Understood that away, anxiety is a factor that everyone encounters. Because we tend to only talk about clinical or severe anxiety, we might think that it is only a problem that some people face. But while some may face debilitating anxiety, everyone faces anxiety in some form to some degree. We all know what it is to have our minds scattered by various concerns so that we are without peace. Scripture gives us this command precisely because anxiety is something that we will each wrestle to various degrees.

Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything.”

Anything? And how exactly are we supposed to do that?

PRAY TO GOD // VERSE 6

Thankfully, Paul tells us how to fight anxiety with the fifth command:

but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Here Paul tells us how to combat anxiety. Notice that he is not promising a quick fix, but this is the solution: pray. Whatever is producing anxiety in your mind, take it to God. Bring your needs to Him in prayer.

And do so with thanksgiving, which ties back to rejoicing. Thanksgiving is not an optional bonus that makes our prayers extra-effective. That’s not how prayer works.

According to Romans 1, failure to give thanks to God is not a small sin; it is a root sin. It is pride expressed through our lack of gratitude for what God has already done and continues to do. Failure to give thanks to God is a core sin, for which God gives people over to much more blatant and obvious sins.

Thus, Paul told the Thessalonians to give thanks in all circumstances. If we truly believe that God is sovereign and that He providentially working all things for the good of His people, then there is no situation in which thanksgiving is impossible.

There is also great beauty in the language that Paul uses at the end of this verse. When he tells us to make our requests known ‘to God,’ Paul could have expressed that idea in a few different ways. Particularly, he could have simply made God the indirect object of the sentence (with the dative case for fellow grammar nerds): τω θεω. But he instead wrote προς τον θεον, which is the same phrase used of Jesus in John 1:1 to say that He was ‘with God.’

Why does that matter?

In the first case, we might have been tempted to think of giving our prayers to God like sending a letter by mail. We are thankful for the privilege of corresponding to Him, but there is clearly much distance. Paul chose, however, a phrase that implies proximity and closeness. Thus, we should not think of prayer as sending our requests by spiritual mail. No, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, we are spiritually seated with Christ in the heavenly places. So, when we pray, it is as if we turn and speak to our Father who is right beside us.

Is that how you think of prayer?

THE PEACE OF GOD // VERSE 7

Verse 7 is not a command; rather, it is the result of our prayer to God:

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Notice that the result of prayer is the very thing that anxiety robs from us: peace. Also note that Paul is not promising that God will grant our every request. That isn’t the point of prayer. God is not a genie to summon. Rather than getting what we want from God, prayer aligns us to the will of God, giving us peace in whatever circumstance He has ordained for us. It is a peace that is beyond comprehension.

And it will guard our hearts and minds. God will set His peace over us like a military garrison to watch and defend us. The Philippians would have understood this well because Philippi was a Roman garrison, where soldiers were stationed. If anxiety is the mind in chaos, the peace of God is stationed to keep things in order.

Have you experienced that? Have you experienced moments when you should have been overwhelmed and anxious, but you were not? Have you felt that peace that defies explanation?

That is what God alone can give. So, replace worry with prayer, and God will give you peace.

THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS // VERSE 8

The sixth command:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Now, we could spend much time unpacking each of those qualities that Paul mentions, and that would be a worthy endeavor. But for now, the core idea is simple: think about good things. Set your mind on what is true and beautiful and worthy, not on things that are corrupt and destructive.

“Think” here carries the idea of careful, deliberate consideration, somewhat like working on a math problem. This is not passive thinking. It takes effort and focus.

This kind of thinking does not happen by accident. It must be developed and practiced. And doing so is difficult. Just look at the news. Everything around us screams that this is the end of the world, that World War III is right around the corner, that nothing has ever been this bad!

And that feels true, doesn’t it? Especially after doomscrolling.

But didn’t Jesus tell us to look for wars and rumors of wars and natural disasters to show us that the end is coming?

Wait, no. Jesus actually says that those things are not the end. Those are just normal occurrences in our fallen world. We cannot control them.

So, stop dwelling on them. Bring your requests to God and think about good and noble things. After all, what you consistently think about is what is shaping the condition of your heart. If we spend two hours learning about current events but only fifteen minutes in God’s Word each day, should we really be surprised to find ourselves anxious and without peace?

Think, then, about these things.

PRACTICE THESE THINGS // VERSE 9

This brings us to the final command:

What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me–practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Notice that now Paul does not say the peace of God but the God of peace. We will have the peace of God because the God of peace will be near us. And in His presence, what should make us anxious or fearful?

Paul ends by simply telling us to do these things. Put them into practice. We should not be hearers of the Word only but doers.

Do you want to fight anxiety? Do you want to be free from despair’s dungeon? Then do these things.

We should follow Paul’s example. After all, look what he says in verses 10-13, where he begins by himself rejoicing:

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

That word content, in pagan philosophy, normally meant self-sufficiency. But as we will see, Paul has transformed it to mean resting in Christ’s sufficiency.

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

This is true resilience. Paul knows how to face any situation and still be at peace. In other words, Paul achieved what the Stoics were striving for. But this is a peace and tranquility that is rooted in far more than self-control alone. It is the peace of God from the God of peace.

You see, Paul’s not-so-secret secret is Jesus. He could endure hunger or plenty, riches or poverty, through Christ. And that is no small thing. Agur, in Proverbs 30, prayed for neither riches nor poverty because riches would tempt him to forget God and poverty would tempt him to steal. But Paul could live at peace in both.

And he wants us to have the same peace. And we can. Paul was not super-human. James tells us that the great prophet Elijah was man just like us. There was nothing inherently special about him, except that he trusted in God.

This thought more than any should stir us to learn and learn from church history and Christian biographies. We should strive to imitate the saints that have gone on before us. We should stive to trust Christ like they did.

And we should practice what they practiced.

IN CHRIST JESUS

But do not miss the essential component to everything here: Christ.

Paul weaves Jesus through everything. Rejoice in the Lord… The Lord is at hand… in Christ Jesus… I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

If we are not careful, we can turn Paul’s words into a kind of self-help program. And to be honest, if you follow these principles, you will likely experience real mental, emotional, and physical benefits.

Science is increasingly discovering that spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation, fasting, giving thanks, etc. have significant physiological effects on the body. It should come as no surprise to us that doing what God commands has physical benefits. After all, God created the world in wisdom. There is an order to the cosmos that anyone with eyes to see can walk in.

Indeed, Jesus already told us that this would be the case. In Matthew 6, He tells us not to worry about physical needs like food or clothing. Instead, He says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” That is the key. Focus on first on God’s kingdom. The Lord will handle the rest.

That is what Paul is modeling here. The goal is not to be free from anxiety so that we can do whatever we want. The goal is to have the peace of God, which is eternal, never-ending peace.

And it is only found in Christ. If do not know that peace, today is the day to trust Him, to confess Him as your Lord and Savior.

And if He is your Lord and Savior, the Lord’s Supper is a visible proclamation of the peace we have in Him. In our study of the Leviticus, the central of the five main offerings was the fellowship or peace offering. And both names work because communion and peace go together. You cannot have communion without peace.

And the Lord’s Supper proclaims peace in two directions. The cup, representing the blood of Christ, declares our peace with God, and the bread, representing the body of Christ, declares our peace with one another. That is why we also call it Communion because it is, both vertical and horizontal communion.

So as we come to the Table, we come with prayer and thanksgiving. We confess our sins, knowing that He is faithful and just to forgive us. And we cast our cares upon Him. We set our minds on what is supremely excellent and good and praise-worthy, which is God Himself.

May this visible sermon before us press these truths deeper into our hearts. That we are secure and at peace in Christ.

And in that, we rejoice.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• The sermon discussed how modern comforts (electricity, medicine) haven’t necessarily led to modern peace. Why do you think increased physical comfort often results in increased mental anxiety?
• Paul’s command to “rejoice” is different from the Stoic idea of simply “gritting your teeth.” How does “rejoicing in the Lord” change the way you face a difficult circumstance compared to just trying to be “tough”?
• We defined “reasonableness” (epieikes) as having a death-grip on the Gospel but an open hand on everything else. In what areas of your life (politics, preferences, traditions) do you find it hardest to be “reasonable” or to meet others halfway?
• Paul uses a word for anxiety that implies a “divided mind.” Where in your life do you feel most “divided” or “pulled in different directions” right now?
• Paul says to bring requests “with thanksgiving.” How does the act of remembering what God has done change the way you ask for what you need?
• We noted that prayer isn’t “spiritual mail” but turning to the God who is near to us. How does that change your motivation to pray throughout a busy day?
• Paul tells us to “think” (deliberately calculate or consider) on what is true, pure, and lovely. What are the “corrupt or destructive” things that currently take up the most real estate in your mind? How can you practically “evict” them this week?