Fellowship in the Word

Bil Gebhardt: Worthy of praise. Can you think of anything worthy of praise? Anything? You know, sometimes we get so down, so fearful, so full of anxiety and so worried. If you answered that honestly, you'd go, "I've got nothing. I can't think of anything." That tells you what you're thinking. You see, that reveals what your thought life is. You're fixated on one thing.

You see, he said anything worthy of praise, whatever is excellent and worthy of praise. One of the things I most think about being worthy of praise are the blessings of my life. They're worth praising God for.

Guest (Male): Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bil Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bil Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bil Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bil Gebhardt: If I were to reduce what my philosophy of ministry is from me to you for all these years, I could put it in one sentence. It is my goal or ambition that you fall totally in love with Jesus Christ. That's it. I don't need any more than that. You love Jesus Christ. If you love Jesus Christ, all the other things take care of themselves.

If two people love Jesus Christ and are married, what do you think their marriage is like? It's not a trick question. You see what it is like? You see how this works? I love Christ. I'll fulfill my role, she'll fulfill hers. What kind of parents would we be? What kind of neighbors? What kind of employee? Do all for the glory of God.

You see, once I love Jesus Christ, I know Jesus Christ and I love Jesus Christ, there's the motive of my faith. You see, and all this takes place within the context of my own ears. So I want to look at some particulars now of what to really be thinking about. Go with me to Philippians chapter 4, and we'll start in verse 4. We've been here several times in this series.

As I've said in the past, Paul was in prison. He doesn't know if he's going to be executed or not. He writes these prison epistles and the theme of this epistle that he writes from prison, what he thought on death row, is joy. Paul is filled with joy when he thinks on death row. It didn't change anything for him.

So he says to them and to us in verse 4, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say it, rejoice." By the way, it's an imperative mood in the Greek. It's a commandment. You are commanded by the Word of God, just like the ten, to rejoice. Does that seem odd to you? Just imagine if you came into my office and you're describing just how terrible your thinking is and how you find yourself defeated, and you have no peace, and you're full of anxiety and fear and all that. I say, "What can I do for you, pastor?" "Okay. I'm telling you, be happy."

Would that work? You see, though, that's what God's telling us. Paul says, "Rejoice." Now, there's a good reason for that, but I'm commanding you to rejoice. I'm not saying, "Hey, look, I hope you feel some joy now." No, he said, "You need to rejoice."

He goes on then after that and says, "Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near." Then he says it this way: "Be anxious for nothing." As I've said each time I've taught it, no wiggle room here. None. Now, there are some things you've got to be anxious about. I mean, you get that diagnosis, you better be anxious. It says here for nothing. For absolutely nothing.

That just doesn't make sense to me. If you think that way, you're thinking in your flesh. You see, that's a fleshly thought. "Be anxious for nothing, in everything by prayer and supplication." And I've said it, now you can pray to God. And the word supplication, you can tell God how you feel. Go ahead and tell Him. You see, be honest with your emotions.

But he says more then. "In everything by prayer and supplication," and we talked about this two weeks ago, "with thanksgiving." Wow. What do you mean? When do you think God? When you're praying? When you get what you want, don't you? Isn't that when you thank Him? "Oh, praise the Lord. I got what I wanted." God is good every day when you get what you want.

But if you don't get what you want, you see how this works? This says in your prayer, you pray to God and you thank God before He does anything. Why would you do that? Because He's God. Do you understand something? He's God. He is the infinite, sovereign, providential, loving God. You can thank Him in your prayer.

You see, once I pray about it, I give Him thanks. That's Paul's view. You see, Paul's whole idea is, "Why not? I thank Him." I'm sure when Paul was praying here, he just thanked God for being God. Remember, I've said this before. In the beginning of this book, the Philippians asked him the question, "Paul, you sound a little strange to us," because he thinks spiritually, not fleshly.

If I were to ask you the question if you would rather stay alive right now or be dead right now, and Paul's answer was classic: "Well, if I was being selfish, I'd rather be dead for sure. To be absent from the body is present with the Lord. So I'd love to be dead." But, he said, if God wants me here for your sake, I'll gladly stay. You see, I'll be happy to stay. How can he talk like that? Because he thinks like that. And his thoughts are based on spiritual things.

So that's what he says. Notice what will happen. He said, "I give God thanks." You mean he thanked God for the situation in prison? Yes. God, I thank You. Did you say you're only going to thank Him if you get out? No, no. I'm thanking Him for being God in my life. If God wants me out, great. If God wants me to go home now, great. I'm good either way.

See, that's what thanksgiving does. And then he says, "And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." You see, what do you get if you think that way? You get peace. And it's the kind of peace that's beyond comprehension. That's what you get.

You see, you want the key to peace? Think rightly. You start thinking spiritually and eternally instead of fleshly and on a temporal level, you'll have peace. You'll have peace all the time. So then he goes and he now says, "I'll give you some things to think about." He said, "Finally, brethren, whatever is true." First thing: whatever is true. I want you to think about what is true.

Now, I can remember when I was in first year at Dallas, I was taking a counseling course from Dr. Paul Meier, a Christian psychiatrist. And one of the things I knew about but I never thought about, but he said, "Do you realize in this world every single thing that is absolutely true in this world came from God? Everything that is true in this world, no matter where it's at, it came from God. God's the source of truth."

So he says, "Whatever is true." Wow. Well, let me give you some. Are trials true? Is that true? You ever going to go through a trial? Yeah. You see, though, what did James say? "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you go through various trials." How, wait, wait, how do you consider that joy? Think differently. I think differently about this. This will work for my own spiritual growth. That's what he ends up saying.

Whatever is true. Is God sovereign over what? Everything. Does God love me? Infinite love. He loves me infinitely. Has God given me the capacity to get through this? Well, Paul said in Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Another passage usually, in one way or another, will this pass? We say it: "This too will pass." Is that true? Yes, it's always true. No matter where I am, it's true. It's all going to pass.

So there's a true thought. The second thought he has is he says, "Whatever is honorable." The word for honorable probably would be better translated "noble." The etymology of this word is more to do with nobility. In other words, a kind of king thinking. You see, they had a view of kings; they had noble thoughts. Well, what about us? Is Jesus Christ the King? Yeah, I think He is. He's the King of kings, right? And He's the Lord of lords. He said, yeah, have thoughts about that. Have some thoughts about that.

Thirdly, he says, "Whatever is right." And that doesn't mean correct. The Greek word means upright. And whatever is upright, the right thing, the right thing to do. He said think about something like that. The next one, though, is difficult in our culture: "Whatever is pure." Wow.

Our culture's getting very much like the days of Noah. Let me listen as I read Genesis 6:5: "The Lord saw how the wickedness of the human race had become on earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." Wow. See, we're not talking about their behavior. That's just the outgrowth. It was their thinking. It was only on evil.

Now, we're now realizing within our own culture, we're seeing a lot of things we've never seen before. And we're seeing it from that point of view. It's not pure in a sense at all. And think of some of the advantages we have. Something like impure thinking or impure thoughts used to be pretty much localized. It was a very localized type of thing because you only knew a few people.

You know, you live out, if you're just a hunter-gatherer or you're a farmer, a primitive farmer, you know your family and maybe a neighbor. You go months and never see another person. That's not what life's like. But we have something in our culture we call the internet. And the internet is a wonderful thing in many ways. The ability to find out knowledge instantly about almost anything.

The ability to text people. I'm just amazed how that works, or call. I'm always amazed that I can have a conversation and or be texting with Ranjit who's in Delhi, India. Now, I have to be careful what time of day it is because here's different than India. But the point is, it's instantly. We everything is connected.

But we know something else about the internet. It's a cesspool. It's an unbelievable cesspool of impure thoughts. And I think the ramifications on teenagers must be amazing, what's accessible for the idea of the purity of thought. It's a very different kind of thing. And then he says, "Whatever is lovely," or "of love." Think lovely thoughts about love.

I do that once in a while. Do you do that? I think about God's love for me. I still don't understand it. I know you'll disagree, but I'm not as lovable as you think, okay? But God loves me. I love Him. You see, I truly love Him. I love my wife and family. I love them. And hopefully they love me as well.

You see, that's a wonderful thought to have. I love you. You see, as a shepherd of these sheep, I love you. And most of you, I hope, probably love me as well. But the point of it is, those are great thoughts to have. These are really good thoughts to have. Whatever is lovely. You see, that's that's a wonderful thing to think about.

Then he says, "Whatever is," he said, "of good repute." Good reputation. "Admirable" is a great word for the Greek. Whatever's admirable. Have you ever known people that have had a real positive effect on your life? I have. I'm just amazed at it. One person I think about a lot is the pastor of my home church in Pennsylvania who just went home to be with the Lord this year.

Pastor Dave was probably the greatest example of humble Christlikeness I've ever seen in a man. He was brilliant. He went to the Ivy League, graduated with honors from Princeton before he went to Dallas Seminary, and his humility was overwhelming. And I think of Dave all the time. What a role model this man was.

When I got to seminary, like a lot of other DTS grads, Howard Hendricks had a profound effect on me. I never met anybody who understood the word and the Lord that well and understood me that well. He could say things with so much creativity and conviction that I still remember almost all of his sayings.

Those are the kind of men that I find admirable in my life, and I think about them from that point of view. And then he says, "and anything worthy of praise." Can you think of anything worthy of praise? Anything? You know, sometimes we get so down, so fearful, so full of anxiety and so worried. If you answered that honestly, you'd go, "I've got nothing. I can't think of anything."

That tells you what you're thinking. You see, that reveals what your thought life is. You're fixated on one thing. You see, he said anything worthy of praise, whatever is excellent and worthy of praise. One of the things I most think about being worthy of praise are the blessings of my life. They're worth praising God for.

And I'm going to give you a challenge, I hope you try it. I just started not as long ago as I should have started it, I think. But I don't know if you're the same way I am, but if you're having a bad thought life in a sense of anxiety or lack of peace or something, you ever notice if you wake up in the middle of the night, it's not good? You just start fixating. It's just like all of a sudden there's no distractions and my thoughts just keep going and going.

So what I decided to do, I want to thank God for the blessings of my life. And the way I do it is I start out where I lived when I was a little boy and my parents and my friends in my neighborhood. And it was a great childhood. And I just talk about that to God, just start with thinking about that all the way through my teen years where I met my wife, all the way through our dating years and then our early marriage and our family and all the things. And I just start thinking that way. And by the time I usually get about twenty-five, I'm asleep.

It beats counting sheep. You see, because I'm thinking about the blessings of my life. But be honest with yourself, is that what you think about when you're in a lot of anxiety, fear, and worry, when you start thinking in the middle of the night? Or do you fixate right on that again? And that's all you think about.

You see, and once you do that, you're fleshly thinking. You're thinking like you used to think. You're not thinking about the knowledge of Christ, the grace of God. You're not. You're thinking about the circumstances and how you don't like them. And then we end up reaping what I sow. That's an amazing thing when you think about it from that point of view.

So those things are all there, all those different things he said we should think about. The things that you have learned, he said, and seen and heard in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. How you think is such an important thing and it can make a difference. I want to close with this illustration I found this week.

It's about a Scottish missionary named Geoffrey Bull. His mission was Tibet and he was caught by the Chinese Communists and put into prison by them. His possessions, including his Bible, were stripped from him, and he was thrown into a series of prisons where he suffered terribly for over three years.

In addition to extreme temperatures, almost no food and miserable conditions, Bull was subjected to such mental and psychological torture that at one time he feared he might go insane. But he had studied the Bible all his life, so he began to systematically go through the Bible in his mind. He found that it took him about six months to go all the way through the Bible mentally.

He started in Genesis and recalled each incident he could remember and the story the best he could understand, first concentrating on the content and then musing on certain points, seeking light eventually in prayer about those verses. He continued through the Old Testament, reconstructing the books and chapters as best he could and focusing his thoughts on verses he knew by heart. Then in the New Testament and on to the book of Revelation.

And then he'd start all over again. And he said this: he said, "The strength received through this meditation was, I believe, the single most important factor in bringing me through, and it helped me keep my faith to the very end." What did he change? Was the cell's no longer cold? He got good food? They didn't torture him? All that stayed the same. What did he think about? He thought about Jesus Christ and the word of God.

Just like Geoffrey Bull, if you fill your mind with Jesus Christ and His word, I believe you can practice the presence of God in your life, especially when you find yourself in difficult times. Think about it. Let's pray.

Father, one thing is for sure. Almost everything in the Christian life is relatively easy for us to sort of fake our way through, but not our thoughts. Our thoughts reveal us, who we really are, where we stand with You. I pray, Father, that we understand the importance of our thinking.

That if we're going to be transformed into the image of Your son Jesus Christ, it begins here and now with the way we think. We need to think eternally, heavenly, not fleshly and temporally. We need to fill our mind with Jesus Christ and His word. We need to allow those kind of thoughts to dominate our thinking.

And the promise of the Word of God is clear. When we do that, anxiety and worry and fear leave us, no matter what the circumstances, and we have what is said over and over again, the peace of Jesus Christ, a peace beyond all comprehension. Father, I pray in the days ahead, we begin to look at our lives on the basis of how we think for our good and for Your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Pastor Bil Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you'd just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well.

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If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original form, that is, as a sermon that Pastor Bil delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnoia.org. That's fbcnoia.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bil's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are listening for, or you can search by title.

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