“Do not be anxious about anything,” St. Paul wrote in chapter 4 of his letter to the Philippian church.
Great advice, right?
The problem is, it makes me anxious.
Yes, hearing the words “do not be anxious about anything” makes me feel anxious about the fact that I’m still anxious about some things even though I know I’m not supposed to be anxious about anything. And then I think I must be doing something wrong in my attempts to not be anxious, and so I get more anxious. And so the command to not be anxious not only makes me feel guilty for feeling anxious (thus making me more anxious), but it’s one more thing I have to do (try to not be anxious), which makes me anxious. And then I get anxious about whether or not I’m ever going to not be anxious. Well, enough of that. It’s making me anxious.
My point is that I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who has not at some point been incredibly anxious about something. We worry about what might happen to our country if the person we didn’t vote for gets elected to office. We toss and turn in the night because we’re distraught about a less than ideal situation in our workplace. We agonize over our children’s behavior, and their safety, and their future. We obsess over financial matters. And yes, Christians get anxious about their spiritual state: Am I growing? Am I sinning too much? Am I praying enough? Am I obeying? Am I keeping myself pure? Am I involved enough in my church? Am I too involved in my church?
Face it. We’re anxious.
Often.
Perhaps most of the time.
And once anxiety grabs hold of us, we find it hard to break free from it.
This is why I love Philippians 4. When we read the verses that surround Paul’s command to not be anxious, we discover that Paul does more than simply condemn anxiety or prescribe a cure for anxiety. He reveals some common reasons why we experience anxiety.
So in light of that, Why are we so anxious?
Paul gives us two common reasons: Our minds are too narrow and our deeds are too shallow.
Let’s consider each of these.
Our minds are too narrow.
In verse 8 Paul writes, “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.”
Though I’d like to think it was easy for Paul to say such things because he didn’t have to live in kind of stressful times that we live in, that’s simply not the case. The culture he lived in was brutal at the time, and his life circumstances were less than rosy. He wrote these words from a dank prison while chained to a Roman guard who never left his side. But Paul didn’t seem to think much about it, which is precisely the point: We think too much about ourselves and our problems. Even when we read the Bible we often think, “How does this help me? How does this apply to my situation?” rather than “What does this tell me about how lovely and praiseworthy Jesus is?”
For that matter, our minds prove to be narrow when we think that lovely, noble, excellent, and praiseworthy things can only be found in the Bible or in Christian things.
Notice Paul’s emphasis on two phrases: “whatever is” and “if anything is”. He doesn’t say “whatever in the Bible is lovely,” or “if anything made by Christians is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.”
Some of you know my friend Aaron Anderson. He’s a pastor in the city of York and he’s one of my best friends in the world. Do you know one of the reasons I love being with him? He makes me laugh! He recently started a Youtube channel featuring comedy sketches by a fictional character who pokes fun at politics and church stuff. It’s a lot of fun, and yet some find it offensive and inappropriate simply because it’s comedy. Somewhere along the line someone started telling the lie that being holy means being solemn and serious. Not sure who started it, but it’s a lie. Paul makes clear that Christians should be characterized by joy (verse 1), which comes from anything that is excellent or praiseworthy.
A few years ago some parishioners of mine were going through an absolutely brutal ordeal in their lives. They were under intense pressure and they were concerned that things would get even worse. They called my favorite preacher and author, Steve Brown, to get his advice. You know what he told them? “Go to a movie!”
Flannery O’Connor made the same case about reading realistic fiction:
The lady who only reads books that improve her mind is taking a safe course– and a hopeless one. She’ll never know whether her mind is improved or not, but should she ever, by some mistake, read a great novel, she’ll know mighty well that something is happening to her. . . It is when the individual’s faith is weak, not when it is strong, that he will be afraid of an honest fictional representation of life, and when there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the sense of the supernatural is apt gradually to be lost.
So, quit being so narrow minded, easily offended, and religious. It’s only making you anxious.
But Paul gives another reason we’re so anxious:
Our deeds are too shallow.
In verse 9, Paul continues, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me– put it into practice.”
We know from reading the first three chapters of this letter that the main thing the Philippians had learned from him and heard from him and seen in him was this: he was fixated on Jesus infinitely more than behavior. Not that Paul was against Christians doing good deeds. To the contrary. But he knew that we can easily slip into doing good deeds in order to try and get God’s blessings and merit his approval. The deeds may look good on the outside, but with such motivation we remain unchanged on the inside. In chapter 3 we saw Paul’s passionate plea to quit trying so hard to please God with your good works and just accept that he loves you. You already have his approval! The unchangeable reality is, “The Lord is near” (verse 5). No matter what you do. This is why Paul was such a man of prayer. He loved to pray because he knew God was near and wasn’t going anywhere. And he knew that praying with a thankful heart led to transcendence and peace of mind (verses 6 and 7).
Here’s the point: One of the biggest problems among Christians is our habit of strenuously doing things for God rather than simply enjoying being with God. And it’s making us anxious.
I came across a new book this week and I haven’t been able to put it down. It’s called Good New For Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do by Phillip Cary.
Pastors want so much to change people’s lives, to build them up in the Christian life– and that’s good. But somewhere along the line (was it in seminary?) they got the idea that you can only change people’s lives by telling them what to do to change their lives. That might sound obvious but it’s deeply mistaken, for the simple reason that telling people what to do doesn’t help them do it. That’s one of the fundamental insights of the doctrine of grace: telling people how to change their hearts doesn’t help them make a real change deep down in their hearts. . . Yet most pastors I know don’t really feel right unless they’re dwelling at great length on the boring application part of the sermon. . . And here’s the secret most pastors don’t get: the best way to help the bride get prepared for her Beloved is precisely to tell her about the Beloved, not herself. If you take up her time telling her how to live like a good bride, she’ll get bored and fidgety, or anxious, wondering, ‘Am I really good enough for him?’
What a wonderful summary of what Paul teaches in Philippians 4. May God broaden our minds to see his loveliness in all he has made, and may he enable us to rest in his love for us, which is based solely on Christ’s work on the cross, and is not changed by our deeds, whether good or bad.
