Philippians 4:1-9 – The God of Peace

Text: Philippians 4:1-9
Title: The God of Peace
Date: January 22nd, 2023
Location: Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, Washington

Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. ²I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. ³And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life. ⁴Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. ⁶Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. ⁷And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. ⁸Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. ⁹Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

Prayer

Father our world is full of cares and anxiety, our nation is desperate for peace and knows not where to find it. And so I ask that You would show forth by Your Word where true peace can be found, not as the world gives, but as You give, the gracious love and joy and peace of the Holy Spirit, for ask in Jesus name, Amen.

Introduction

This is the penultimate sermon as we approach the end of Philippians, we’ll have one more sermon next week. And here in chapter 4 verse 2 we have what is quite likely what this whole letter has been leading up to.

There are two women, Euodias and Syntyche, who are at odds with one another, there is a disagreement (we are not told what it was over). And this conflict between them is threatening to undermine the unity of the church. So much so that Paul has to mention them by name for all to hear (he memorializes them in Scripture to be read unto the end of the world). Why does he do this?
If you remember the argument of the book so far, it has been a call for the Philippians to imitate the Christ Pattern.
- The Christ Pattern is at the center of this letter (Phil. 2:6-11), wherein we see that Christ being in the form of God, took on the form of a servant, and was obedient unto death, even death on a cross, and because of this God has highly exalted Him above every name.
- The Christ Pattern is all about putting things in their proper order: humiliation precedes exaltation, the cross comes before the crown, death first then resurrection.
- And this pattern is meant to encompass the entire life of the Christian, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I die daily.”
  - And the daily living out of the Christ pattern is illustrated by Paul in the examples of Timothy, Epaphroditus, and last week we saw in chapter 3, in Paul himself: Christians must count all thing as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ. We give up everything so that by all means we can attain resurrection.
So imagine we are the Philippians, and this letter from Paul has just arrived. Epaphroditus hands it to one of the elders to read for the whole congregation, and he gets to chapter 4, and everything from the first 3 chapters is fresh in our minds, and then the elder reading says, “Therefore…I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord.”
- How do you think these women would feel?
- How would you feel if your name was called out by the Apostle Paul, for not being of the same mind in the Lord?
- This is how Paul is seeking the peace and unity of the church, and there is much we can learn here if we would have the God of peace dwelling amongst us.

We could outline this passage under two headings:

Verses 1-3 address the need for peace,
Verses 4-9 deal with how to get God’s peace.

Verse 1

Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.

It’s as if Paul loves this church. He extols them with the language of family (my brethren), of intimacy (my dearly beloved and longed for), with the language of reward and treasure (my joy and crown).
Paul considered people to be the most valuable resource on earth, and these saints were his particular joy and crown.
When Jesus said to store up treasure in heaven, Paul took that as store up people in heaven. Preach the gospel, evangelize, make disciples, and when you do, you are storing up the most valuable resource there is: the human person, renewed in the image of Christ. “You are my joy and my crown,” can we say that to one another?
One of the demonic spirits of our age is this push to sacrifice the human person for the sake of the planet, to reduce carbon emissions by reducing people. As one person said, “you are the carbon they want to reduce.” And so under the guise of a climate crisis, or energy crisis, and in the name of “saving the planet,” we destroy that which is most precious in the eyes of God: human beings.
What Paul demonstrates here is one of Christianity’s chief contributions to the world, namely that people are precious, and although we try very hard to demean and debase ourselves through suicidal living, Jesus came to save sinners, to raise the dead to life. And no sinner is beyond repair if only they will turn to Christ.
- Apart from the grace of God, we would destroy ourselves, our neighbor and this planet with us.But God is gracious, and all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus, and Jesus came to remake the whole world.
- And so these Philippians that Paul calls his dearly beloved, his joy and crown, are the first fruits of Christ’s renovation of the cosmos. And you and I who have been born again, are the continuation of that remodeling project.
  - From 12 disciples in Galilee, to 2.2 billion professing Christian today, Jesus is making all things new.
Now as glorious as that is, there are still problems in the world, and problems between fellow believers.

Verse 2

I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord.

Who were these women? We don’t know much.
Both of these names are feminine in Greek, they are undoubtedly women.
- Euodias (Εὐοδίαν) is a Greek name that means “success” or “prosperous journey.”
- Syntyche (Συντύχην) is also a Greek name that means “with fate/fortunate”
- And these two women are not living up to the names they have in Christ, rather they are standing in the way of unity in the body.
- And so Paul appeals to them to imitate the Christ pattern, to have the mind of Christ, and to agree in the Lord.
We can only speculate about who these women were and what their conflict was about. But one thing we know for sure is that early in Paul’s ministry, they labored with him in the gospel.

Verse 3

And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life.

So these women are just two from a much larger group that has labored (συνήθλησάν) with Paul in the gospel. We saw back in chapter 1 verse 27 that the whole church is called to do this: “stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together (συναθλοῦντες) for the faith of the gospel.”
- So all Christians are called to labor for the faith of the gospel, and these two women were of particular help to Paul in this work.
This is a good example of what we might call “women in ministry.”
- Although women are not permitted to teach or prophesy in the public gathering (1 Tim. 2:12, 1 Cor. 14:34), women are commanded to teach other women in Titus 2, and we know from other places in the book of Acts that women prophesied privately.
  - For example, Acts 21:9 says that Philip the evangelist had four virgin daughters who prophesied.
  - We see also that at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was given to women along with men. Acts 2:17 says, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.”
  - Now we do not live in the last days like the apostles did (those ended around 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem). There is no longer this same kind of prophesying today, butwe can learn from these passages what a woman’s ministry can look like.
- Women are essential to how the gospel permeates a region. Some of you might not know this but women talk, and they spread things around. This can be for good or ill. When it’s bad Paul calls it gossip (1 Tim. 5:13) and old wives tales (1 Tim. 4:17), but when women get together and talk about the gospel, Christ, the things of God, when they get together and pray and encourage one another, that is how the gospel spreads rapidly.
  - There are many contexts where it be improper for a man to speak to and try to evangelize a woman. In many cultures today, men and women live so separate from one another, that the only way to reach them is by someone of the same sex.
- Summary: So women are an essential part of the church’s ministry, but their role looks very different than the elders and deacons in the church. Titus 2 is perhaps the best portrait we are given of what women’s ministry should look like:
  - But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: ²that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; ³the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—⁴that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, ⁵to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.
Men and women are very different, and God calls both sexes to labor for the gospel in different ways. And when this is done with the mind of Christ, it builds up the church in love. But when there is envy, jealousy, gossip, or whatever conflict arose between Euodias and Syntyche, the rest of the church suffers. People takes sides. And the church gets distracted from contending for the gospel, reaching the lost out there, because we are not at peace in here.
- So women, I charge you to embrace what Titus 2 sets forth as the emphasis and content of your ministry. Study these things, you who are older, encourage the younger women in them, teach your daughters to aspire to what is honorable in the sight of God, that word be not blasphemed.
We see also in verse 3, that Paul calls on an old friend to mediate peace between these women. To help them agree in the Lord. Sometimes you need a peacemaker to intervene.
- We don’t know who this “true companion/yokefellow” is, it might refer to Luke or Epaphroditus, but it was someone in Philippi who Paul trusted to reconcile these two women for the sake of the whole church, and he conclude verse 3 by assuring them that their names are written in the book of life.
- In other words, whatever the problem is, this is a family dispute, we are all going to be together forever in heaven, so let’s practice getting along now. This is a perennial lesson for every church to take to heart.
- So that’s verses 1-3, the need for peace. And now in verses 4-9 we are told how to get God’s peace.

Verse 4

⁴Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.

If you want peace, start with joy.
This is the tenth and eleventh time that Paul has mentioned rejoicing in this letter, joy is shot through this whole book. And if the Philippians are to be a people of peace and unity, they must learn to count even conflicts in the church as a trial to rejoice in (James 1:2).
As we will see in the next verses, one of the ways we deal with conflict is by thanking God, rejoicing in Him, and then praying about it. These are the ingredients that make for peace.
In verse 5, he says….

Verse 5

⁵Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.

If you want peace (in the church, in your marriage, anywhere), there has to be a spirit of moderation in you.
This word moderation (ἐπιεικὲς) carries the sense of gentleness or civility.
- This same word is used in 1 Timothy 3:3 and Titus 3:2 to describe the qualifications for an elder, “He must be patient/gentle and not a brawler.”
- So to possess moderation, is to not be quarrelsome. To not be the kind of person who stirs things up, provokes and pushes peoples buttons, and Paul says, “this should be known to all men.” In other words, you should have a reputation for being reasonable.
- And then he tags on to this, “The Lord is at hand.”
  - Meaning, God is near so conduct yourselves with an eye to His coming. Don’t be the kids who are fighting when Dad comes home. Resolve your disputes now, humble yourself and Christ will exalt you.
  - This is what Euodias and Syntyche must do for there to be peace in Philippi.

Verse 6

⁶Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

This is the key to dealing with anxiety and finding peace.
- 1. The first thing to realize is that not all anxiety is sinful in and of itself. There are many cares and concerns that should make us anxious.
  - Paul says in 2 Cor. 11:28, “I feel daily anxiety (concern) for all the churches.”
  - We see likewise in the Psalms countless cries for deliverance from all kinds of distress.
  - So it is not wrong to care deeply about many things.
  - However, it is wrong to keep them to yourself.
- 2. The second thing to realize is that, anxiety, or concern, is something that must be given to God. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “cast all your cares upon Him, for he careth for you.”
- Now how do this? How do we give God our anxiety?
Paul says, “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.”
- 3. This means, if you have not prayed about it and thanked God for it, you have yet to truly cast your cares upon him. You are still clinging to your anxiety and it is clinging to you. And so give it to God.
- 4. One of the most important spiritual disciplines you can ever learn is to verbally (out loud) thank God for the trial you are in.
  - That doesn’t mean you understand why God is doing what He is doing, or that the trial is good in itself. We are not calling evil things good.
  - What we are doing is walking by faith rather than sight. We are saying “thank you God for this trial, I don’t know how this is working for my good, but I trust that in some mysterious way it is.”
    - As Isaiah 55:9 says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
  - God is God, and we are not, and God is more good and more loving and more wise than you can fathom. Your job is simply to trust Him.
So if you want peace, you have to pray, and not just pray, but pray with thanksgiving to God for his mysterious goodness in all things. To do that, is to possess a true superpower in this age of anxiety.
If we do this, we can grab hold of the promise in verse 7…

Verse 7

⁷And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Notice, this peace from God surpasses human understanding. It does not make sense.
Peace is a supernatural gift of God, that he gives to those who look to Him with faith and thanksgiving.
Finally, in verses 8-9, Paul tells us what to meditate upon if we desire peace with God.

Verses 8-9

⁸Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. ⁹Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

These 8 qualities should be the rubric for our meditation. Is it:
- 1. True
- 2. Honest
- 3. Just
- 4. Pure
- 5. Lovely
- 6. Of Good Report
- 7. Virtuous
- 8. Praiseworthy
- If not, it’s going to dull your joy, kill your thanksgiving, and take away your peace.
And so fill your mind, your ears, set nothing wicked before your eyes, and meditate upon that which pleases God, and Paul says, “if you do these things, the God of peace shall be with you.”

Conclusion

When there is conflict in the church, or in your family, or between brothers, it is often a reflection of the conflict and unrest in our own souls.

And so for whatever was wrong between Euodias and Syntyche, the solution for them is the same solution for us, follow the Christ pattern:
- 1. Humble yourself before the Lord, lay aside your pride
- 2. Rejoice always, even as Christ rejoiced from the cross, and then
- 3. Pray with Thanksgiving to God, and the God of peace, promises to be with you.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.