Introduction

In 2009, Carolyn and I moved to South Korea for a year to teach English. I wish I could say it was a wonderful cultural experience, but the truth is that I didn’t really experience much Korean culture. We had Korean co-workers, but they were eager to practice their English with us, so we didn’t need to make an effort to speak their language. While we did eat some Korean food, we bought a lot of familiar, Western food at Costco®. The church we attended offered mixed Korean/English worship, but the preaching was in English, and the Koreans who attended came with the intention of improving their English. Of the friends we developed, only one close friend was Korean, and he had previously lived in Canada and spoke excellent English. So at the end of the year, I really didn’t learn much about Korea. It still felt alien to me.

The experience gave me an appreciation for the difficulty people face when they permanently relocate to a new country. They have to learn a new language, and a new culture with different values and priorities to assimilate in their adopted homeland. Relearning these foundational things is far more difficult than just acquiring a new skill. You don’t just have to learn to do something new. You have to learn to be someone new.

There are interesting parallels between immigrants adapting to a new country and Christians learning to follow Jesus. Our new home—the Kingdom of God—has different priorities and values that can feel foreign when we’ve lived by the norms of this world. Paul, who wrote the letter to the Philippians, had himself experienced this transition, unlearning his old way of living to become someone new. In Philippians 4:4-9, Paul mentors the Philippian believers through this transition as they follow him on the journey of adapting to new ways of living. Paul says:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 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. Finally, brothers and sisters, 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. 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 (Philippians 4:4–9, NIV).

In this passage, Paul instructs the Philippian believers on some key differences between the culture they’re leaving behind, and the new one they are setting out to learn. We could say that by coming to faith in Jesus, they’ve emigrated (in a way of thinking) to a new kingdom, and as immigrants, Paul wants them to learn how to assimilate into this new homeland.

Even though this letter was written to very different people in a very different situation, it’s highly applicable in our own time and place. Like the Philippian believers, by coming to faith, we are called out of our old way of living, and into a new and counterintuitive way navigating this world. Like the Philippians, we must recalibrate our responses to difficult situations in light of what God has done for us in Jesus. So together with the Philippians, let’s sit at Paul’s feet and learn what kind of life people live in this new kingdom. In particular, let’s pay attention to how the good news about Jesus changes the way that we respond to hostility, to uncertainty and to conventional wisdom.

I. Responding to Hostility

A. Gentleness Evident to All

Our culture says it’s important to be kind to others, but that kindness doesn’t extend to people who don’t like us or who we feel treat us badly. We often feel justified in hostility towards people who aren’t in our tribe. For example, I think many in the MAGA movement in the US right now appear to be Christians who feel looked down on and disrespected by educated elites who don’t share their cultural values. Whether or not the slights are true or imagined, the move to respond to the perception of hostility with hostility isn’t the way of Jesus.

Jesus challenges us to respond to hostility with love. In Luke’s sermon on the plain, Jesus says “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also” (Luke 6:27–28, NIV). Paul is thinking along these lines when he says, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” The word translated here as ‘gentleness’ has a broader meaning: It can also be kindness, generosity, clemency, or reasonableness. Paul is not saying that our gentleness should be evident to all our friends and family. He’s not saying it’s something we must show to our fellow Christians. Rather, Paul instructs us to live in a way that our gentleness is evident to all, all, being everyone, friends and enemies alike. While the world teaches us to respond to those who aren’t a part of the tribe with anger and hostility, the culture of Christ challenges us to be patient, gentle and understanding with them, no matter if they are friend or enemy.

Certainly, there are going to be people who say this is an unrealistic approach to dealing with our enemies. Among them would be Donald Trump Junior, who at the 2019 Turning Point USA Student Action summit said, “We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of the biblical reference. I understand the mentality, but it’s gotten us nothing. It’s gotten us nothing. While we’ve ceded ground in every major institution in our country.” One could question whether the religious right could be fairly characterized as ‘turning the other cheek’ prior to 2019. There’s also a genuine debate about whether the right has truly lost ground or not. But the biggest problem comes from one of his underlying assumptions.

B. The Lord is Near

Trump Jr. seems to be forgetting the assurance that the Lord is near. This statement means a few things.

First, the Lord’s nearness is about accountability. I once worked on a three-shift rotation on an assembly line in the factory. I always struggled with the night shift, but some of the guys on my team loved working nights. They reasoned that since the bosses didn’t come in until 8 or 9 am, during our shift from 11 pm to 7 am, we didn’t have to work under their watchful eyes. We could ‘get away with things.’ But during the day shift, everyone was more careful to do their jobs according to specs because the bosses could be watching. In the same way, Paul is reminding us that Jesus, the boss who has instructed us to love friend and enemy alike, is always close by. So we need to conduct ourselves with the assumption that he sees our actions. We can tell ourselves we’re justified in our disobedience, but it’s not likely that Jesus would see it that way.

Second, the Lord’s nearness is about protection. We may worry that if we are gentle and kind, we’ll be exploited and mistreated by the powerful people of this world. But if we claim Jesus is the king, victorious over sin and death, who loves us and watches over us, then we can face the threats posed by others differently. Even if we suffer for doing right, God is at work in and through our suffering. Paul makes this same point very memorably in Romans 8

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 

“For your sake we face death all day long; 

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:31–37, NIV).

Paul is saying that Jesus’ presence with us, and his intercession on our behalf, means that nothing can happen to us apart from God’s will. That even when Christians suffer like sheep facing slaughter, God is working in their affliction, bringing victory out of what looks like defeat. So if the Lord is near, then we need not fear exploitation or mistreatment by the ungodly because God will fold every adversity that we face into his great plan of redemption.

Finally, the Lord’s nearness is about empathy. We do not worship a God who shuts himself up in heaven away from the reality of suffering here on earth. In Jesus, God enters fully into our world and our condition. He experiences hostility, mistreatment, and exploitation, and he overcomes them. So when we show patience to others only to have it thrown back in our faces, we can know not just that Jesus sees, but that he knows what it’s like. He’s experienced it too.

The world where we live responds to outsiders with hostility, but immigrants of Christ’s culture follow the commands and example of Jesus in showing gentleness to all people.

II. Responding to Uncertainty

A. Don’t Be Anxious

Apprentices of the Christ culture don’t just need to respond to hostility differently; they must also learn a new way of responding to uncertainty. Anxiety is on the rise in our culture. Geopolitical tensions that went dormant at the end of the Cold War have begun to reemerge. People are worried that Russia really might come for NATO, or that the PRC might actually invade Taiwan, or that the US might actually invade Greenland. And they might worry that if they take Greenland, are we next? There appears to be an ever-expanding mental health crisis. There’s the epidemic of loneliness. The increasing prevalence (or awareness) of ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorders. Social skills atrophy as we spend more and more time with devices mediating our interactions. More people feel deeply ashamed of their bodies (and how they measure up against those of online influencers). Overtly partisan news and AI slop are making us worried about whether we’re able to tell fact from fiction. This anxiety can lead us to feel like the truth is unknowable, and that we are powerless to respond to the things (we think) are going on in the world around us.

We don’t know specifically how things are going to unfold, but prayer gives us the assurance that God is aware and active in all the situations that induce anxiety in us. Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” We aren’t helpless; we are invited to bring things to God in prayer. This isn’t an assurance that our will will triumph. I know there have been times when I’ve prayed fervently for things I thought God would want, and it didn’t go as I had planned. God doesn’t promise that we’ll get everything we want (despite some people taking Jesus out of context to make them say exactly that). At the same time, though, we can trust that when God doesn’t act as we think he ought to, he’s working with an understanding of the big picture that isn’t accessible to us.

The invitation to prayer isn’t always something that people accept. For many people, prayer is intimidating. Maybe you don’t feel like you know the lingo. Your prayers don’t sound polished or lofty enough. But there are no magic formulas to prayer. And God is just as happy to listen to an artless prayer as one that sounds beautiful. Prayer isn’t about style. It’s about substance. It’s just about having a conversation with God. We don’t need specialized vocabulary. It’s not even about asking for the right stuff. Sometimes we have to go through asking for the wrong stuff (like vengeance against the person who hurt me) before God can reshape my heart. Prayer is a place where we can express our places of confusion, disappointment and anger with God (that’s a good chunk of the Psalms right there). But by praying, we’re showing that we at least trust that God is able to do enough that we bother to complain to him.

B. In Every Situation

Some people are also confused about the scope of what we’re allowed to pray for. I might conclude that I can only bother God to pray for really important stuff: World Peace, Justice for the poor or the Stanley Cup for the Leafs. But the invitation is to bring all of our cares to God. You can pray for a parking spot when you’re driving in downtown Toronto. You can pray that God will help you find your missing, mismatched socks. We are invited to come to him with anything at all. As Peter writes: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). God is not too busy. He has all the time in the world for you. God does not think that any request is beneath him. He desires for us to learn to trust and depend on him. God won’t give us everything we ask for, but he loves us, and he’s happy to hear us out whenever something is bothering us.

C. With Thanksgiving

Now, some of the keen-eyed among you might have noticed that Paul tells us to pray with thanksgiving. This needs a bit of clarification. What Paul is not saying is that we can give thanks in advance for the particular outcome we desire. We can’t pray for a million dollars in the bank and then say, “I know you’ll do this for me, God, so Thanks in advance.” After all, God doesn’t always grant our requests. For example, Paul says he had a thorn in the flesh. He pleaded with God on multiple occasions to be free of it, and God refused. Why? Because the thorn in Paul’s flesh was a part of the plan, teaching Paul that God could be victorious through him even in a weakened state, because the power was not found in Paul, but in God.

So to pray with Thanksgiving doesn’t mean thanking God in advance for the specific answer in prayer we’re looking for, but rather it is a general attitude of thanksgiving that arises from our relationship to God. When I know that God listens to me, I can be thankful that he hears. When I know that God is faithful to me (even if I don’t always understand how at the moment), I can be thankful for his faithfulness. When I know that God promises he can take my anxiety away if I cast it on to him, I can thank him for the promise of peace. We thank God for who He is and how He relates to us, even if he doesn’t do the specific things we would most like to see him do for us.

D. Peace will Guard Your Heart

What is the promised consequence of bringing our prayers with thanksgiving to God? Paul started with a section saying, not to be anxious, and now he circles back to explain the alternative to anxiety. When we give our anxieties to God, God gives us peace in return.

The peace that God gives is different than most of the peace we experience. Normally, we have peace when a desired outcome seems highly probable. You really want that promotion at work, and you know you’re a shoo-in to get it. You go to the doctor with some aches and pains, but you’re pretty sure it’s something minor that a quick round of antibiotics can fix. Peace is easy when uncertainty is limited.

But God’s peace is different. It’s not based on assurance  of specific outcomes.. He’s not guaranteeing you’ll be successful at work. He’s not guaranteeing you that your marriage will always be smooth sailing. Neither is he guaranteeing you that your nest egg is safe, nor that your kids will avoid struggling with health issues. But while God doesn’t give us certainty about the specifics of what is to come in this life, we can trust his character. We know that whatever we go through is compatible with his promise to eventually set all things right. We know that He will give us the strength to face every trial. And we know that even if we die, we will live. The result of this is a different kind of peace, one that ‘transcends all understanding.’ It’s the kind of peace that says, “I don’t know if this is going to work out the way I had planned. But I trust God and know that no matter what happens, he will be present with me and at work in whatever life throws my way. I know he promises to deliver me through all my trials, including from death itself.” A person who truly believes that can stand no matter their circumstances. This person’s heart and mind are protected because the doubts that fuel our anxieties and fears are overwhelmed by the assurance of God’s faithfulness.

III. Responding to Conventional Wisdom

A. What is Good?

Now we arrive at the third part, where Paul seems to tell the Philippians to think about good things. I have to admit, my understanding of this passage changed as I researched this sermon. I thought that Paul was saying we should look at nice things because we’re so drawn to things that often induce fear and anxiety. But that’s not quite what he seems to be getting at.

The list of virtues: true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy would seem very familiar not just to Philippians of faith, but also pagans. This is actually a sort of generic list of virtues held up as desirable by Greek culture. So is Paul saying that on this front, the Greek philosophers were right about what makes a good life? Or we could ask, is Paul affirming the highest ideals of the culture? not quite.

Truth, nobility, rightness and the rest are, of course, positive characteristics. The real question we have to ask ourselves is which things belong in these categories. This requires discernment. The key to understanding what Paul is saying is the verb translated here as ‘think about’ (as in ‘think about such things’). The word in the Greek isn’t talking about merely meditating or contemplating such things. The verb here, logizomai (λογίζομαι), can mean reckon with, judge, or determine. What Paul seems to be saying is that if conventional wisdom sees something as good or praiseworthy, don’t uncritically accept that designation. We must consider it in light of God’s wisdom. An example: A Greek would say that physical strength and beauty are praiseworthy. But a Christian who has considered physical strength and beauty in light of Jesus might conclude that these things are often overemphasized.

B. Examining Our Assumptions

Paul’s instructions here are helpful for us because they force us to consider the importance of many of the things to which we might dedicate our lives. For example, In our culture, wealth and power seem like self-evident goods to be pursued for obvious reasons. But, when considered in light of the life of Jesus, they start to look less self-evidently good and more ambiguous or even bad.

One of the big obstacles Christians face in their witness is that in every meaningful way, we’re exactly the same as our neighbours. I think the reason for this is that we don’t give our cultural values much critical thought. We must learn to question things that we have been taught are self-evident. Our culture might tell us that a middle-class career, a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, a marriage with 2.5 children and annual vacations to Florida is what a good life looks like. But maybe Jesus’ commands and example might lead us to question whether the good life can be defined in such narrowly materialistic ways. Maybe our ambitions aren’t compatible with the abundant life he promises to give us. Our world might tell us there’s safety in cultivating personal power, while Jesus’ example calls this assumption into question. If our ideas about what is good and true and noble match exactly what our non-Christian neighbours think, then our aims in life will likely be pretty much the same. And when we’re all aiming at the same target, starting from the same place, our lives will look identical. If, however, we decide to reconsider the things we’ve always believed in light of what Jesus has revealed, then our lives might make a surprising counter-cultural turn.

When Paul says, ‘Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, put it into practice,’ he’s inviting the Philippians to follow the example he set out in questioning the culture’s conventional wisdom about what is worth pursuing. His promise is that as we unlearn and relearn what is good, we’ll find peace and contentment from God, where before we looked for it in created things that could never actually deliver.

Conclusion

So coming back to where I began, when I left Korea, I didn’t leave as a person who had really learned to live there. I never quite stopped being a visitor. I kept the familiar foods, the familiar language, the familiar habits. And because of that, Korea always felt a little strange, a little distant, a little foreign. I think that, as a metaphor, my experience can be a quiet warning: It is possible to live in this ‘new country’—the church—and still mostly operate by the habits of the old country. We can confess Jesus as King, and yet keep responding to hostility the way our culture trains us to respond. We can pray, but still let anxiety set the emotional temperature of our lives. We can admire Jesus while chasing the same definitions of success, security, and happiness as everyone else around us.

Paul’s invitation in Philippians 4 is not to admire a better culture from a distance, but to actually assimilate into it. To rejoice where the world panics. To show gentleness where the world sharpens its elbows. To pray instead when the world would spiral into despair, to give thanks instead of grasping for control. To slow down and ask hard questions about what we call “good,” “successful,” and “worth pursuing,” and to give Jesus permission to reshape those categories. This kind of life does not come naturally. It has to be practiced. It has to be learned. It requires unlearning instincts we’ve trusted for a long time.

And yet, Paul does not leave us with a burden, but with a promise. He says, “Put these things into practice, and the God of peace will be with you.” Our lives will be touched by the intimate presence of the God who stays near when we are gentle and misunderstood; The God who listens when we are anxious and confused; The God who guards our hearts and minds when outcomes are uncertain and the future feels fragile.

So let’s ask ourselves, what would it look like this week to live a little less like a tourist in God’s kingdom, and a little more like someone who has finally decided this is home? To trust that his ways really do lead to life. To believe that his peace is stronger than our fears. And to take one small step of obedience, confident that as we do, the God of peace goes with us.