Havasu Christian Church
May 25, 2025
Philippians 4:8-9
“Whatever!”
INTRO: We hear someone say the word “Whatever,” and it usually means that they don’t really care. “What would you like to do tonight? Whatever…” “Would you rather have this or that? Whatever…” Today, however, we’ll see the word “whatever” in a very different context, used a very different way.
8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
- Dwell on these things!
What you think about tends to be what you wind up doing! So what should we spend our time thinking about?
- Whatever is true.
- Pontious Pilate asked Jesus the question, “What is truth?”
- I think he was just a bit ahead of his time.
- We live in a time where many would say that there is no such thing as objective truth.
- But we know better. There is such a thing as “truth.” That which is valid, reliable, honest.
- Things are true or they are false.
- 100 people can believe a lie, but that does not make it true.
- 100 people can believe something is a lie, but that does not make it a lie. It is still true.
- Truth comes from God!
- Scripture tells us the truth!
- Who Jesus is.
- What God expects of us.
- Who the Holy Spirit is and what does He do in our lives.
- How the world came into being
- How it was destroyed.
- The promise of the rainbow.
- What is right and what is wrong.
- These things are all found in God’s Word, and they are TRUTH!
- Whatever is honorable.
- What do we think of when we hear the term honorable?
- Deserving of respect or high regard: Deserving of honor: Of great renown: illustrious.
- Perhaps we think of Scripture where we are told to “Honor your father and mother.”
- When something is honorable, it is worthy of our respect. It is held in high regard.
- What about dishonorable?
- lacking honor or integrity; deserving dishonor; “dishonorable in thought and deed”
- We are to make our minds dwell on honorable things.
- Our world is full of “dishonorable distractions.”
- Things that are not deserving of honor.
- Think about the news: Does it mostly report honorable, or dishonorable things?
- Think about television: does it show mostly honorable, or dishonorable?
- Think about the internet: Does it show mostly honorable, or dishonorable things.
- Dwell on the honorable!
- Whatever is Right! “Upright, just.)
- Good as opposed to evil.
- It’s easy to let evil have a foothold in our thoughts, and even our actions.
- But we are called to dwell on things that are right!
- Things that are righteous!
- Whatever is Pure (Morally pure, undefiled)
- Undiluted. Nothing bad mixed in.
- Would you rather drink out of a mountain spring in Colorado, or the Mississippi river?
- Would you rather drink from a spring or from a river, just past the outflow from the waste treatment plant?
- We should do our best to focus our thoughts on things that are not diluted by the “pollution” of the world.
- Whatever is Lovely
“Causing pleasure or delight, pleasing, agreeable, lovely, amiable.”
- We are to dwell on things that are pleasing to God.
- We are to dwell on things that are not hostile and cause problems.
- Think about the good things that people do and say.
- Things that are of good repute
- Repute: reputation.
- Things that people speak about in a positive way.
- We are to dwell on positive things rather than the negative.
- Excellence (Approval of someone who practices virtue.)
- Here we see that a Christian is to dwell on excellence.
- We are to think about things that are excellent.
- Again, when we fill our minds with all the negative things, we think and act like that’s all there is.
- Our thinking of excellence should lead to our doing things in a way that is excellent.
- Things that are worthy of praise. (Approval of someone who practices virtue.)
- There are things that we do that give people the ability to praise us.
- Doing your best at something important.
- Raising a family well.
- Loving your spouse with all your heart.
- Serving your church in whatever way you are able.
- There are things that we do that no right-thinking person would praise us for.
- “Great job wrecking your car!”
- “Way to be rude!”
- “The way you slammed the door in that woman’s face was simply epic!”
- We need to fill our minds with the praise-worthy things.
That’s a lot of things to fill your mind with! It’ doesn’t leave a lot of room for the bad things, does it?
- Remember what you’ve been taught!
- Things you’ve learned and received from Paul.
- This sounds like Paul the teacher, Paul the instructor.
- This probably harkens back to when he was in Philippi, teaching them.
- He sat with them, he taught them.
- Paul tells this to the Philippian Church.
- This letter is certainly something Paul taught.
- So are his other letters.
- So is the rest of Scripture.
Paul reminds timothy of this in II Timothy 2:2 The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
- Things you’ve heard and seen in Paul.
- These things they have learned from just “hanging out” with Paul.
- How he treated others.
- How he answered “dumb questions.”
- How he treated the wait staff at “the Philippian diner.”
- What he said and what he did.
- In other words, they were to look at his example and follow it!
- Practice these things! Live what you’ve been taught, people!
Here’s where we get down to how this all applies to us!
- We should make it our business to think in a way that Honors our Lord!
- Dwell on what is honorable.
- Dwell on what is pure.
- Dwell on what is lovely.
- Dwell on what is right.
- Dwell on what is of good repute.
- Dwell on things that are excellent and worthy of praise!
- Use your mind the right way!
- Keep out the garbage!
- Live in a way that follows what you’ve been taught.
- Taught by the study of Scripture.
- Paul isn’t around, but what the Holy Spirit prompted him to write, is.
- Taught by trustworthy people who KNOW the Scripture.
- Even though you trust them, you still check what they say with Scripture to be sure they are right!
- Taught by the examples of Godly people.
- Again, Paul isn’t around to go to lunch with and see how he acts, but there are plenty of Godly people to look at for examples.
- Be a Godly example yourself!
- If you do this, the God of peace will be with you! (me too!)
- When we live in the way God wants us to live, His peace is with us.
- Peace even when we’re suffering and we don’t understand why!
- Peace even when the world we live in has no peace.
- Peace that is ours because we know this life is the journey, not the destination.
- Peace that comes from knowing the destination is amazing and is an absolute sure thing!
Do you want to live in His Peace?
- Belong to Him!
- Live for Him!
