Sunday message · Defiant Joy series
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Message Summary
Nearing the end of Philippians, Pastor Phillip Santillan preaches Philippians 4:2–9, whose verse about worry has made stores like Hobby Lobby a lot of money. Phil has sat with people who had verse 6 on their wall and still could not sleep, yet he does not blame the verse. Paul did not put it on a wall by itself: it is the back half of a conversation about two people who could not get along.
At a luncheon for Mission Minnesota church planters, Phil watched two veteran pastors go at each other over women in ministry. Believers have always disagreed; the question is how to navigate disagreement. Paul urges Euodia and Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Being named in a letter read to the whole church signaled friendship, one scholar notes, since enemies went unnamed. Yet Paul, who had the authority to settle it, takes no side. Why not?
Verse 4 commands joy, twice, from a man in chains facing a possible death sentence. Verse 5 adds graciousness toward everyone, a word for kindness where retaliation is expected. Phil invites listeners to simply decide to live this way, then delivers the bad news: “You can’t decide your way into peace any more than you can decide your way into sleep.” So amid impossible commands, Paul states something true: the Lord is near.
Verse 6 says to bring worries, out loud, to the one who can give peace. Verse 7 is not a command but what God will do: his peace will guard, a military word for a garrison, and Paul wrote it under guard himself. Settling the women’s argument would have fixed nothing. “Instead of handing them a verdict, what Paul does is he hands them a person.” By the end of that lunch, the two pastors were celebrating each other’s new believers, agreeing in the Lord without settling the issue.
Yet a person can pray and still lie awake fighting their own mind. So in verse 8, like the TV detective Columbo turning back at the door, Paul adds one more thing: dwell on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and commendable. Told not to think about a red door, everyone does. “Your mind doesn’t go where you tell it. Your mind follows what has a grip on your heart.” The answer is not trying harder: the work continues but stops being what a person trusts for peace.
People get stuck holding on to being right, yet only Jesus had grounds for that, and he let it go for people who deserved nothing. Underneath worry, Phil says, is a belief that Christ is not enough, and if something in a listener objects, that is not guilt but the Spirit leading toward repentance: not trying harder, but turning. Lives change more by beholding the Lord than by deciding (2 Corinthians 3:18). Phil, who still loves to be right, urges anyone feeling an amen to pray, “Dear God, I repent. Help me to have my affection set on you.” As he did for the two women, Paul points to a person: the Lord, who is near.
