Ugly Thoughts

Philippians 4:4-8

We’re quickly nearing the season of Advent – the four Sundays leading up to our celebration of Christmas. Now, I’m not one of those people who starts playing Christmas music in September and puts up the Christmas tree in October, but because we’ll be gone for a couple of weekends to see Sterling’s senior musical at Wilmington College and also celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas at the same time with my family in Ohio, we’re actually starting our Advent sermon series today.

We’re calling the series “Ugly Christmas Sweaters.” It’s kind of become a thing in recent years to have Ugly Sweater parties where everyone comes in the ugliest or goofiest sweater they can find. Used to be they’d raid the second hand clothes stores looking for them. They aren’t hard to find. I mean, I know we all have different senses of fashion, but it would seem that any fashion sense at all is severely lacking in the sweater knitting and manufacturing world. But these days, they actually make “ugly Christmas sweaters” on purpose that you can buy. And I’ll be wearing a different ugly Christmas sweater each week.

During this series, we’re going to be looking at four “ugly” things we tend to wear as followers of Christ that Jesus wants us to take off for good this Christmas season. Today, we’re going to talk about taking off ugly thoughts, and putting on the mind of Christ. Turn with me to Philippians 4:2-9.

If you think that the New Testament church, in the earliest years, was some kind of pure church untainted by sin and humanity, read Paul’s letters. There never has been and never will be a perfect church, because the church is filled with forgiven people who still struggle with selfishness and greed and ego and lust and addiction and everything else. Yes, there is forgiveness, and yes, we are on a journey toward Christlikeness, but all to often, our fallen, sinful human natures still get in the way.

And wonder of wonders, there’s a divisive argument in the church at Philippi. Two women in the church – Euodia and Syntyche – are at odds, and it’s gotten enough out of hand that Paul has become aware of it. By the way, Paul isn’t IN Philippi. He’s almost 800 miles away, under house arrest in Rome. But word had reached Paul, without email or telephone, that there was a problem in Philippi. This disagreement had apparently gotten big.

We don’t know what it was about. If it were theological, Paul likely would have weighed in with some theological teaching. He doesn’t do that here. So it probably wasn’t related to differences in perspective on a major issue of theology. You know, most of the arguments that divide churches aren’t over major issues of theology. Oh, some are, to be sure. But I can tell you this – I’ve served in churches where we updated and clarified the church’s statement of faith, and the congregation didn’t bat an eye. Approving the new statement was the least contentious congregational meeting ever. I’ve also been in meetings where voices were raised and people left not talking to one another over what kind of blinds to buy to cover the windows in the sanctuary. Or what new hymnal to buy. Or what kind of music to play in worship, or what color the choir robes should be.

Regardless, these two women are fighting, and it’s gotten big enough that it’s come to Paul’s attention 800 miles away in Rome. But notice that he doesn’t shame them. In fact, he builds them both up. He reminds them, and the entire church, that both of their names are written in the book of life. They are both followers of Jesus. He doesn’t question the sincerity of their faith.

When we argue in the church, we tend to take the attitude that the other party isn’t really following Jesus. They’re fake Christians. Paul doesn’t say that. He reminds them that their opponent is someone who follows Jesus too. He also reminds the entire church of this, because this is a letter that will be read publicly to the entire church. He wants to deal with the conflict without shaming either one, so he also reminds everyone that both of them had labored side by side with him. They’ve been in the trenches together with him. And they’re both someone for whom Christ died, someone who has accepted Christ’s forgiveness, and who has committed to following Jesus. So he tells them to find agreement “in the Lord.”

Regardless of our differences, it is in our common relationship with Christ that we will find unity. Not uniformity, or sameness, but unity. A willingness to stick together in spite of our differences. Paul doesn’t tell them what to think. He doesn’t control them. He simply wants them to work it out, to find their common ground in the Lord. We are to work to stay united for Christ’s sake – for the sake of our witness. And we find that unity IN Christ as we journey together toward Christ. It is in seeking Christ together that we find ways to stick together.

The church, from the beginning, has had plenty of reasons to blow apart. It been clear from the beginning that the Kingdom of God – and the church, the people of God in the world – is the earthly expression of that – is a place where people from every possible cultural and ethnic background, from every social and economic status – come together in Christ, with no one culture or ethnicity or status or gender being more important than any other. And as human beings, we aren’t good at that. We aren’t good at handling differences. We tend to want to be with people who look, think, talk, and live like us. And even when we do that, we still fuss and argue and deal with division.

But we are to find our unity in Christ. We are to seek agreement “in the Lord.” And that requires a rewiring of our minds. Paul, in First Corinthians 2:16, reminds us that “we have the mind of Christ.” The problem is, far to often, we choose not to use it. We have to discipline our minds to learn to see things the way Christ sees them, to think about things the way Christ thinks about them. So how do we do that. How do we take off the ugly Christmas sweater of bad thoughts?

Look at Vv. 4-7. Cultivating the mind of Christ, bringing my thinking in line with Christ’s thinking, begins with joy. And that truth is so important, that Paul says, “I can’t state this strongly enough.” “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, rejoice.” Rejoice is the verb form of the word joy. Those with the mind of Christ, those seeking agreement in the Lord, LIVE A LIFE MARKED BY JOY.

Now, joy isn’t the same thing as happiness. Happiness depends on happenings. In a sense, happiness is something that happens to you. When good things happen, we are happy. When bad things happen, we aren’t. And that’s normal. Joy is deeper than that, because joy doesn’t come from the happenings around us. Joy comes from a deep sense of who we are in Christ, and where we stand in Christ. Joy comes from knowing that no matter what happens in this world, I am a child of God and no circumstance, no tragedy, no diagnosis or disease can change that. Joy comes from a deep sense of security that comes from knowing that I am a child of God and a citizen of the kingdom of God, and no experience in this life, nothing that happens to me, can change that.

So yes, I can rejoice, I can live joy, even while I grieve the loss of a loved one. I can live joy while I face a terrifying diagnosis. And I can do so with tears in my eyes, because joy doesn’t always equal happiness. Joy is what gives me the strength to face difficulty, to keep getting out of bed in the morning, to keep on keeping on.

And that joy leads to what Paul here calls “reasonableness.” A better translation of Paul’s words here would be gentle patience or gentle forbearance. When I am living joy, it gets harder for people to push my buttons, and that gentle patience becomes evident. Now, that’s not to say that my buttons don’t get pushed. Jesus got angry. Paul got angry. Jeff gets angry. But when I am seeking to take off ugly thoughts and put on the mind of Christ, I learn to not speak in anger. I can feel anger, acknowledge that I am angry, but not speak angry, harmful words to someone else.

The most popular course in the history of Yale University was offered in the fall of 2017 – PSYCH 157: Psychology and the Good Life. Nearly one-fourth of Yale undergraduates registered for it. Laurie Santos, the psychology professor who teaches the course, says that she “tries to teach students how to lead a happier, more satisfying life.” No wonder the course has caught on – a 2013 report by the Yale College Council found that “more than half of undergraduates sought mental health care from the university” while enrolled.

One of Santos’ principle lessons is that the things Yale undergraduates most associate with achieving happiness – a high grade, a prestigious internship, a good-paying job – do not increase happiness at all. “Scientists didn’t realize this in the same way 10 or so years ago,” Santos says. “Our intuitions about what will make us happy, like winning the lottery and getting a good grade, are totally wrong.”[i] As followers of Christ, we know that happiness will come and go. Joy flows from a deeper source.

Now, for Paul, peace and joy tend to go together. When we live joy, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” When we think about peace, we tend to think only about inner peace. A lack of fear and anxiety. And that concept is part of “the peace of God.” But when Paul mentions peace, it is almost always in the context of community, as it is here. Remember the context for Paul’s instruction about taking off ugly thoughts here – a conflict in the church at Philippi. The peace of God flows from an inner sense of who I am in Christ, and then it overflows into peace between me and those around me.

And in the presence of the peace of God, fear and anxiety cannot survive. This doesn’t mean Christ followers don’t experience anxiety or depression or the fear that comes with PTSD. Life in this broken world often breaks parts of us that leads to fear responses. But over time, as we pursue Christ and put on the mind of Christ, we are less motivated by fear and more motivated by joy and peace. And when anxiety threatens to take over, we learn to lay those things at the feet of Christ in prayer.

You know, fear is what causes a lot of the conflict we deal with in the church. Fear of not getting your own needs met. Fear of losing your sense of control, which is a way of trying to deal with anxiety. One common trait among people with high anxiety is a very controlling nature. Sometimes its just fear of what’s different. Different thoughts, different ideas, different perspectives. It is fear that keeps us from really listening to and hearing one another. In a horse herd, the loudest, most expressive horse, the one that throws the biggest hissy fits, is usually the least secure one. The one that is most afraid. The same thing is true among human beings. Even those of us who follow Jesus.

But when I approach that fear with empathy and understanding instead of anger and judgment, that fear is often set aside. You see, we can help one another live joy and live peace as we follow Christ together. And I can lean into joy and peace by practicing gratitude. And I mean really practicing gratitude. When I am working with someone who is dealing with deep depression or anxiety, one of the things – not the only thing , but ONE of the things I encourage them to work on, and it’s a big one – is a gratitude journal. The practice of writing down, three to five things DAILY that they are grateful for, focusing on the events of the day and the people they encountered that day.

When I tell people I want them to work on gratitude by doing a gratitude journal, they look at me in disbelief with a “that’s it?” kind of attitude. So I talk to them about how keeping a gratitude journal, over time, actually rewires their brains. It does! We talk a lot about neuroplasticity and rewiring brains a lot in therapy and it sounds so technical and complicated. Like people expect us to hook them up to electrodes or something, do something really cutting edge.

Do you know what rewires brains? Doing things differently. Changing the input. And I always emphasize, we aren’t looking for toxic positivity here. Bad things DO happen and we can acknowledge that. What we’re looking for is the realization that most days are a mix of the good, the bad, and the indifferent and we tend to focus on only the bad. Doing a gratitude journal is a great way to train yourself to see the good things around you too.

Living joy, living peace, and practicing gratitude REGULARLY. That’s how we take off the Christmas sweater of ugly thoughts and put on the mind of Christ. And then Paul mentions several things TO focus our minds on. Look at Vv. 8-9. Here’s the thing about this list. There is nothing explicitly Christian about many of these things. They’re things that are commonly celebrated in a variety of cultures and societies and worldviews.

Truth is that which aligns with reality, with the way things really are. And the ultimate reality to which all truth aligns is God.

Things that are honorable or noble are those things that, generally speaking, are worthy of respect.

Like truth, things that are just, or right, are things that are in alignment with God and God’s character. But we have to understand that a lot of what Christian culture defines as right and just really aren’t. We have to look past the Christian slogans and marketing ploys and look to God alone.

Things that are pure are things that aren’t tainted by evil.

And then lovely and admirable – those aren’t at all explicitly Christian. They’re things that society at large sees as lovely and admirable. Beauty wherever beauty is found – in the great hymns of the church and in the works of Beethoven. And conduct worth considering because it is well spoken of by people in general. Not all parts of following Jesus are well-spoken of by the world. But there are aspects of every Christ-following life that are generally regarded as good. They may not agree with our stand on this issue, but they really appreciate our work feeding the hungry. That is lovely and admirable in pretty much everyone’s eyes.

As we move, shortly, into the season of Advent, let’s commit together to taking off the ugly Christmas sweater of ugly thoughts, and put on the mind of Christ as we live joy and peace and embrace gratitude. It’ll change the way we perceive the world, and the way we relate to each other.

New York City has the largest Ukrainian population in the United States, a community of about 150,000. Thousands had come to the United States as Christian refugees, most of them Baptist or Pentecostal, under a special asylum for those fleeing Soviet religious persecution.

As President Vladimir Putin put his nuclear forces on high alert, some took to the streets to join the protests against Putin’s aggression. But mostly, these followers of Jesus gathered in the churches to pray, weep, lament, and sing to God. They called their praise songs “weapons of war.”

As the nuclear threat escalated tensions, people in the service were in disbelief about how quickly the situation had spiraled. One church leader told Christianity Today, “Our minds fail to understand: How is this possible in this day and age? God allowed this to happen, and we do not know why. But we know God is sovereign, and he is on his throne. There are people who think if they kill someone it will accomplish a goal.”

A worship leader said, “Our hope is in the Lord, the one who holds things together. No matter how things fall apart, the Lord created this world, and he holds things in his hands.” He played music and led worship in tears. But he also told his church family, “Even if a nuclear attack happens, the hope we have is we go home. And we will be together with Jesus, the one we know will help us.”[ii]

That’s what it looks like to live joy, live peace, and embrace gratitude. That’s what it looks like to take off ugly thoughts and put on the mind of Christ. Ugly thoughts lead to fear and despair. The mind of Christ leads to peace, even in the midst of life’s tragedies. Let’s pray.

[i] David Shimer, “Yale’s Most Popular Class Ever: Happiness,” The New York Times (1-26-18). Reported in “Church and Culture” blog, 14/24.

[ii] Emily Belz, “Ukrainian American Churches Deploy Praise as a Weapon,” Christianity Today (2-28-22)