Latest / The Daily Word / June 14 – Think on These Things
Transcript
- Cory Barnes: Well, hey there. Welcome to another Daily Word podcast. It is Pastor Jenny here and it is June fourteenth. We are at the end of Philippians, a very short letter, only four chapters long. So we are in Philippians chapter four, as Paul kind of writes out just his closing thoughts, says this in the portion I'm gonna read, an exhortation, encouragement, and prayer. And so So that's my encouragement for you and for us today to be both hearers and doers of the word, to think and meditate on that which is true and good and to practice these things so that the God of peace will be with us today, that we can walk in the full ⁓ joy and peace and goodness of God. Let us pray. Lord, we come before you and we thank you that your promises are are good, that your word is good, that you are true to who you are. I thank you, Lord, that you have given us instruction, that you've shown us a pathway here. Lord, ⁓ I pray for anyone who may be stuck in a secular mindset of negative thinking, Lord, for any strongholds that are keeping ⁓ people, keeping any individual from being able to meditate on I want share with you today verses eight through nine. So Philippians four verses eight through nine, Paul writes this Finally, brothers, and we could say sisters, 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. First of all, the goodness of who you are, on your faithfulness, on your love, on all that is true and good in you. But Lord, also just on the goodness and truth of your word, ⁓ Lord, and even on the truth of the situations that they find themselves in. Lord, we break off those strongholds in the name of Jesus. Lord, we ask your Holy Spirit to come in and do the work that only your Holy Spirit can do. But Lord, you are inviting us. Think about these things. I'm gonna pause right there. Today, at this point so far. I don't know if you're listening that to this in the morning, afternoon, maybe it's in the evening, before dinner, before you go to bed. What have you found yourself thinking about today? Maybe stretch it out. What have you found yourself thinking about over the last couple of days? Maybe even the last week. Is this what you found yourself meditating on? ⁓ that which is true. That's what he starts with. What is true? What is honorable? What is just? What is pure? What is lovely? Commendable, excellent, worthy of praise. Think about these things, he says. us in to also lay those things down, to take those thoughts captive and to grab a hold of these very specific, tangible things. Help us to realign our thinking today. And as we do that, would you help us to take what we've learned, take what we've received and heard, and to walk those things out, to practice them in all we do, so that not just your peace, but Lord, you would be with us. Statistics are pretty clear that this is not the culture we live in. We are surrounded by a lot of information and with a lot of information comes a lot of negative. ⁓ even when we have positive information, for every ten things positive that we're told it only takes one negative thing to outweigh the positive. God, your word says that the God of peace would be with us as we do these things. So we trust you. We trust your word when it tells us that. God, thank you for being with us. We love you, and it's in your name we pray. Amen. And so when Paul writes this exhortation, this encouragement to the Philippians, this isn't just a, hey, think about doing this. No, this is like, hey, you need to do this. You absolutely have to do this. ⁓ and so as I read this today, I'm reminded to kind of sit and evaluate what have I been choosing? meditate on today. What have you been choosing to meditate on today and recently? ⁓ as I'm in conversations with my kids or as we're talking about things, ⁓ I often come back to this scripture. I shouldn't say often, I don't they feel like they're often not focusing on these things. But I will say this is a scripture I definitely pull out to remind them of when it seems like they're stuck in a cycle. of, you know, everything is wrong, life is horrible. sometimes we can just get stuck in these cycles that, you know, the world is against me and everything. just isn't it's the lens through which we can see life. And so but that's not true. And so that's why I I love that Paul starts with whatever is true and that's the why there's so much value in coming to God's word. Because we know first and foremost that God's word is true. ⁓ but we also know that we have his Holy Spirit that's gonna lead and guide us into all truth. And so we need both God's written word, which is true, but also we need his Holy Spirit to lead us into the true truth of the situations that we're navigating. Because there is an enemy that has come to steal, kill, and destroy. So as we're navigating relationships. situations at work or school, ⁓ or in our family, you know, he's gonna be trying to distort the truth. And so it's important that we don't allow him to twist that so that we focus on that which is wrong. Whatever is honorable, whatever is just, you know, how easy is it to get stuck on ⁓ the thing that somebody did wrong, the thing that they did to hurt us or to dishonor us. And, you know, we're really encouraged by Paul through the Holy Spirit. you know, God inspired this word to be written to to not focus on those things, but to to instead look to Christ and focus on the things ⁓ that are honorable, that are just, that those things which are pure. That doesn't mean we ignore the the difficult things of this world. That doesn't mean mean we even ignore ⁓ things that need to be addressed. But again, if you find yourself meditating on on something that is the opposite of these things, encourage you to come back to God's word, come back to the cross, come back to the f the the foot of the cross, come back to Jesus and say, Lord, I feel like I'm stuck in this mindset. Can you help me to see you in the situation? Can you because God's always gonna give us a way through? Because then I want to go to verse nine. So this has only been verse eight. It starts with our mindset. Starts with how we're thinking. He intentionally starts there. So how we think is then going to impact how we act. Verse nine goes on to say, What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. So Paul says, Look, I've modeled, I've shown you, I've helped you to see these things. Practice these things and listen to this, and the God of peace will be with you. If you are struggling to carry peace in your heart, in your life today, I believe that through these words, they are very practical, encouraging words for us to grab a hold of today. We have to learn to take thoughts captive and to focus on that which is true and good and honorable. We have to learn to not just think about these things. But then to take God's word and to walk, we have we can't only be hearers of the word, but we have to be doers of the word.