Good Minds Think Alike

 February 11 2024

Philippians 4:4-9

         My wife, Jennifers work schedule is such that she works from ten in the morning to eight in the evening which is a ten hour day so she gets Friday off. Now for the most part this schedule is pretty rough, no matter how you look at it, a ten hour day is a long day. Yet, we have found that this schedule does have its perks because it gives us time in the morning together. What we do, besides eat breakfast together, is that we play word games, you know the ones like Wordle or Quordle, where you have to guess what word or words are in the puzzle for the day. These kind of games are supposed to exercise your brains but I never feel overly smart after I finish them. It does help that Jennifer and I work on these word puzzles together because sometimes one of us just can’t seem to have any clue what the word is. Now, what is also interesting is that staring at a jumble of letters for a while, both of us will blurt out the answer at the exact same time, and what always follows is that we say, “Great minds think alike”!

         In this message series that we are going through called, Think.Good.Work., we are looking at this connection between the thinking of our minds and our doing of good works. Today, what I want us to think about is not how, “Great minds think alike” but rather how, “Good minds think alike”. Last week, in the third chapter of Titus, we saw how imperative it is that we exercise our minds to live good.We have to consider our past, that time before God has entered our life and remember how very lost and wandering from the truth we once had been. Then we needed to stop and really think about what God in Jesus Christ has done for us, saving us so that we have a hope and a future. We learned that there on the cross the blood of Jesus was not only the blood necessary for the forgiveness of our sins but that same blood ratified a new covenant with God, signifying his favor towards us, the very welcome of us into his life. Through the loving embrace of the Holy Spirit we are made a new creation able at last to do the good works that God desires of us, this extravagant giving and forgiving of others just as God first has extravagantly gave his Son to forgive us of our sins.

         Today then, we are going to build off of what we learned from the letter to Titus so that we know that it is not just great minds which think alike but rather it is good minds which think alike. This doing of good works is something that God intends for us to do as part of a group of like minded people. The reason why this is so true is that, as funny as it may seem, doing good works upsets some people out in the world. Today from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi we are going to figure out just why it is that doing good works sets people off and how having good minds which think alike can help us weather the storm that comes against us when we do those good works.

         This passage from the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians may be familiar to us perhaps because of the song which goes, “Rejoice in the Lord, always! Again I say rejoice...”. So often we know passages like this so well that we don’t stop to consider just what is meant by this word, ‘Rejoice”. What is curious is that the roots of this word are the same roots for the word, “grace”.  What ties these seemingly different ideas together is knowing that grace is the favor or welcome of God. Holding on to that idea, we then listen to the words from Matthew 25 where Jesus, at the end of a parable states, “Well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” What is implied here is that joy is what sweeps over us when we come before our Master and we bask in the glow of his joy. The joy of our God, then, becomes the very source of our own joy; rejoice, indeed! We enter into the presence of our God having served him by giving more than was required for us to do. Jesus, in the fifth chapter of Matthew, describes such extravagant giving like this, “…if one slaps you on the right cheek, turn and give him the other cheek as well. If anyone sues you and takes your coat go on and give him your shirt, too. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him the second mile. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” Here we can see just what excessive forgiveness and extravagant favor, looks like in real time. When our life is marked by such lavish generosity, God is joyful and in his presence, so are we. The radiance of the joy of the Lord glows upon our faces.

         As wonderful as this scene is, us being filled with joy before our God, all is not as good as perhaps it should be because Paul abruptly interjects his letter with a warning against being anxious. What Paul is referring to, in this instance, is not a condition like worry, or a wringing our hands about some crisis we are facing, but rather, Paul here is speaking about being double-minded, that our minds are no longer solely focused upon doing those good works that God desires. We are left wondering just what has happened to cause our minds to become divided in their devotion to God. In the first chapter of this letter to the Philippians we find that Paul writes to the church at Philippi hoping that they, “…are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel…”.Here Paul’s hope is that the church can overcome this division of their minds by their coming together to help one another. You see, what happens when our individual minds waver in our loyalty to God is that the church as a whole is no longer united, no longer standing firm in one spirit. Paul knows that such division is a grave threat to the life of the church. Paul also knows that the source of this wavering of the minds in the church is that the gospel has its opponents, those who want to inflict suffering and fear upon the church. In these times of persecution, this is when doubts arise as to whether living a life of extravagant giving is really the life we ought to be living.

         You know, what also should make us wonder is just why anyone would get upset by those just striving to do good, why get mad at those whose goal is to love God and each other with a profound passion, why would this cause such an uproar. Part of the answer is found in the second chapter of this letter to the Philippians, because there Paul instructs this church that they are, “…to be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life…”. When we live doing good works, works which show forth excessive generosity, when we give to others and forgive others, then we stick out from the crowd because were to be as different from those who do not know God as light is from darkness. When Paul says that we are to shine like stars, he is quoting a saying from the twelfth chapter of the book of Daniel, where we are told that the righteous who sleep in the earth will awake and enter into everlasting life. These are the ones who will shine like the brightness of the sky above, like the stars forever.” You see, the Holy Spirit has lifted us up from death into a new life. It is the Spirit poured out upon us without measure, this is what raises us up to live a life where we give ourselves in return, to God without measure. It is when we are people of the light, this is when the people of our corrupt and twisted world take offense. The reason for their opposition is explained to us by Jesus who in the third chapter of John says, “This is the judgment :the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, lest his works be exposed for what they really are. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so it may be clearly seen that their works have been carried out in God”. What Jesus is saying here is that when we do good works, we can be utterly certain that we do so in partnership with God. We might say that God is in the giving. The people of the world though, are only concerned with what they can get, not what they can give. They are looking for some way that they can manipulate God so that he might be the source of fulfilling their desires. Can you understand why Paul calls such people crooked and twisted, to think that they might actually discover a way for Almighty God to be at their beck and call. God, quite rightly wants nothing to do with such schemes. So can you understand why such people are so angry at such news? It is hard to accept that God is in the giving and that he works through those who give. Those who have this, “ what’s in it for me”, mindset simply refuse to believe that the kingdom of God can actually be brought into existence through excessive giving. Yet, this is who our God is, the Father who generously gives his Son to save the world, the risen Son who gives usthe Holy Spirit without measure so that through the Spirit we might be given without measure to the Father. 

         So, yes, in this world we will have trouble, the question is just what are we going to do about it? Paul tells us, at the end of the first chapter of his letter to the church at Philipi that the answer to our question is that we are to, “…stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.”. You see, facing the opposition is a team effort, an athletic undertaking we do together. Think of it as a work out of faith to make us strong against what comes against us. So, we train together in order to be ready for the fight. This training, Paul tells us at the end of his letter, consists of four actions,-prayer, peace, praise and practice. 

         It goes without saying that we must pray together and do everything in a spirit of prayer. We are to know that good minds pray together.  Prayer is an act of humility, an act of kneeling before God admitting our need for him. In our humility we find that our God, as Isaiah tells us in the fifty seventh chapter, is a God who, “…dwells in the high and holy places and also with those of a humble and lowly spirit”. God kneels, comes down to us, when we kneel. What we find in this moment, as Jesus explains, in the sixth chapter of Matthew, is that our Heavenly Father knows what we need before we even ask him. So, we pray knowing that our Father already is aware of our need, absolutely certain that our God knows us, that he is indeed the very searcher of hearts. Together in prayer, we become known to one another as God already knows us. Thankfulness fills our hearts. Our relationship with God is founded on gratitude for we are people who know that we have been given everything by God. In prayer, we come to know the people who God has given to us, as gifts to be thankful for. Kneeling together, then, gives us strength, for in our humility we declare our need for God and each other.

         From our kneeling then, we rise and stand. This is the image Paul gives us in the fifth chapter of Romans when he speaks about the peace God has made with us. Paul writes, ‘Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace  with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand…”. So, it is the peace of God which makes it possible for us to stand with God. We know that good minds know of God’s peace, and in this peace we stand together. You see, the peace of God guards our hearts and in this peace we know that not only do we stand with God but we also stand with each other.  So, together, then, we need to encourage each other, make each others heart strong, by always reminding each other that no matter how hard the fight, God still stands with us.

         Our third action is praise. We do so because we know that good minds praise God together. We need to stop and breathe in, take into ourselves the Holy Spirit, the breath of life and consider the greatness of the life God has given to us. You see, a glorious new way to live has been revealed to us through Jesus Christ, a life that Paul tells us is worthy of the very honor of God, a life where all people are equals, a life cleansed from the pollution of the world, a life that finds everyone worthy of love, a life worth talking about, a life that others can tell is morally good. So, breathe in, draw in the Holy Spirit, and consider the greatness of this life; how can this life not be worthy of our praise?  Our praise tells God that no matter what God asks of us, no matter what the cost to us, God alone is worthy of all that we are. God is worthy because he found us worthy, worthy of the giving up his only Son for us upon a cross so that through his death we might be able to receive his life. So, we breathe in the Holy Spirit, we find our life in Jesus and we breathe out our praise, ready to pay any price, even the offering of our lives because our God is worthy.

         Finally, after we have knelt in humility as we pray, and risen to stand with God and find that God stands with us because of the peace he has made with us, and we fill our lungs with the Holy Spirit and with this life breath we lift our voices in praise for our God is worthy, then we are ready to go forth to practice what we know in our hearts to be true. Jesus tells us that we therefore must be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, and as they say, practice makes perfect. This means that we need to make a habit of doing good works, loving others with the perfect love of our Father with no thought of receiving love in return. As we go, we do so knowing that good minds practice together. We try hard to get it right, yet we are always ready to confess when we fail. So, in our, prayer, in our peace, in our praise and in our practice, this is when our good minds are thinking alike about our gospel faith. These actions assure us that God is with us, willing and working for his good pleasure, In his presence we rejoice and again, I say, rejoice. Amen.