God’s Waiting Room, Philippians 4:2-9

When was the last time you spent time in a waiting room? Probably not that long ago. Much of our lives are spent waiting. I have spent a fair amount of time in doctor offices and waiting rooms in hospitals such as surgery, emergency and intensive care waiting rooms with my parents. My father and mother have had many major surgeries and medical procedures over the past 20 years. Between them they have fought cancer three times, received a double lung transplant, a pacemaker, heart catherization, carotid artery stents, femoral stents, knee surgery, and many other more minor or not so minor procedures. I sometimes tell them they are so intrigued with the medical world that they are going to try out every procedure and device available.

Waiting can be long, boring, painful and uncertain producing anxiety and fear. Waiting can also be uplifting, encouraging and fulfilling. What was your last waiting room experience like? What did you do to pass the time? What was the hardest part? What was the best part? What makes the difference? The Covid 19 pandemic of 2020 and 2021 created a worldwide waiting situation.

Waiting is often where God does his most amazing, life-transforming work. Are you in a waiting room? Take a minute and identify it. You can find hope, encouragement, peace even as you wait. In the midst of Israel’s exile the prophet Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations 3:26, ESV, “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” You might be asking, “How is it good to wait?”

Paul gives us some principles to apply when we find ourselves in God’s waiting room in Philippians 4:2-9. Guess where Paul wrote this from? Paul wrote the book of Philippians while he was his own waiting room of prison. In this short letter to the Philippians, Paul uses the word, translated, joy, glad, rejoice 15 times.

Paul emphasized the need for believers to rejoice in Christ.

“Joy” (chara) is used four times (Phil. 1:4, 25; 2:2; 4:1);

“Rejoice” (chairō) occurs eight times (1:18 [twice]; 2:17–18; 3:1, 4:4 [twice], 10);

“Glad” occurs thrice (2:17–18, 28).

(In 1:26 the word “joy” is a different Gr. word; there it is the word “glad,” “boast,” or “glory,” [kauchēma], which also occurs in 2:16 and 3:3.)

Paul wrote frequently in this epistle about the mind of a child of God. One’s manner of life is truly a reflection of what occupies his mind.

Bible Knowledge Commentary, Volume 2, 647

In Philippians 4:2-9, Paul gives writes, revealing five choices we can make while in God’s Waiting Room:

Choose to Not Wait Alone (4:2-3)

"I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.  Yes, I ask you also my true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life."

Healthy relationships are central to healthy living. (John 13:34, 35; Ephesians 4:1-3: Colossians 2:2). Our Enemy loves to attack us when we are isolated and alone. Proverbs 18:1 (ESV) warns, “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.” Many people who experience depression-isolate, hide and fear what people might think. This isolation puts the anxious and depressed person in a place of little help or ministry from others, often deepening their feelings of aloneness and vulnerability.

We must make the decision to not wait alone…or with the wrong, negative person. During the Covid Pandemic the whole world was forced to isolate through social distancing and quarantining. We are just beginning to experience the post pandemic effects of months of isolation. Counseling offices and mental health facilities are running over with mental health issues caused by long term isolation.

Choose Your Mood (v. 4)

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

You don’t always get to choose your circumstances but you do have a choice how you respond to circumstances: Trust or Test, Rejoice or Rant, Grateful or Grumble, Glad or Gripe, Celebrate or Complain. I visited with a father not too long ago who shared the disappointment he and his wife were experiencing over the choices there daughter had made over the last few years that flew in the face of the values and beliefs they had taught her from birth till graduation. As he shared this with me, he quoted James 1:2, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” He went on to say, “I don’t find joy in this”

I could relate as my wife and I had experienced this with our own daughter for ten years. Many circumstances we would not choose and they are anything but joy producing. However, we can always choose to rejoice in the Lord, to delight in Him. Paul himself was an excellent example of one who had inner joy when external circumstances—were against him. Nehemiah 8:10b (ESV) “…And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Our response to circumstances is a choice and our response to others during difficult circumstances is a choice.

It is easy to react to others in shortness, anger and criticalness. Paul writes, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.” Reasonableness describes a gentle, patient and non-retaliatory spirit. Joy is not always seen but the way we react will be noted and sometimes posted. Why be gentle? Because the Lord is near!

Choose Your Dependence (6-7)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Have you ever felt anxiety about something and tried to not be anxious? Have you ever had to give a blood sample and tried to tell yourself, “Don’t be anxious. Don’t think about the needle that is about to be jabbed in your arm. Don’t think about the blood leaving your body and filling the tube to be sent off for analysis.” Can you tell I have issues with having blood drawn?

Saying to yourself, “Don’t be anxious” rarely works, but transferring your focus from the situation to another source does. Paul does not just write “Do not be anxious, but instructs us to “pray with thanksgiving”. (NLT) “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.” Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Don’t “beat around the bush with God”. Josh McDowell was teaching on this one time and described driving a car and in the back seat were many worries and uncertainties that threatened to reach from the back seat and choke him. He described being anxious by just thinking and fearing those thoughts and ideas in the back seat, in the back of his mind or maybe on the forefront. Then he imagined putting his arm over the seat and figuratively bringing those things from the back and putting them in the front seat. Telling God our concerns, worries, fears and asking for his help is bringing them from the dark, back seat of your mind and emotions into the light of the front seat where they can be dealt with in divine light.

There is a condition given for this prayer of dependence and help. Paul writes, “with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God” (6c). When we take the time and energy to look back and remember what God has done in the past, prayers He has answered, mountains He has moved, seas He has split, water He has caused to gush out of rocks and many ways He has come through in the past, we make our requests known with fresh faith and confidence. Throughout scripture, God’s people are repeatedly reminded to “remember”, “not forget” and “give thanksgiving”. David wrote and called God’s people to recall, remember, “things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us” (Psalm 78:3). He goes on to remind them of the “glorious deeds of the Lord, and His might, and the wonders that He has done” (78:4). Why? “So that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God” (78:7).

I love to view God’s greatness, goodness, glory as it is revealed in and through His creation. I take time almost daily to look at a sunrise or sunset, the moon and stars. I look forward to times to view the grandeur of mountains, the vastness of the seas, hills and streams, lakes and rivers, plants and animals, all created by our wonderful Creator and Savior (John 1:1-5).

You might consider these everyday reminders, tools to help us focus on God’s greatness, wisdom, power and presence. Many verses in the Psalms and Isaiah call us to these daily tools.

 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above1 proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is  heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the  heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.  Psalm 19:1-6 (ESV)

When we shift our gaze from our waiting room and turn our gaze to our Father in trust and thanksgiving, something, amazing, super natural, incomprehensible and powerful happens. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and mind in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:7 (ESV). Did you catch that? No matter how troubled, worried, fearful we become in the waiting room of difficulties and dangers, problems and pain, complexity and confusion, or tests and trials, we can experience “peace that surpasses understanding”! How? By the “peace” we have obtained “in Christ Jesus.” When we come to know and follow Jesus Christ supernatural peace becomes ours. Listen to God’s Word speak about this:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Romans 5:1 (ESV)

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13 (ESV)

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.  Ephesians 2:14 (ESV)

Peace of (or from) God relates to the inner tranquility of a believer’s close walk with God. This “peace of God…will guard your hearts and minds” (4:7b). The word “Guard,” translates a military term which means “to protect or garrison by guarding.”

I have been blessed to travel to Malawi Africa, and spend the night in the Baptist Guest house in Lilongwe many times. I remember my first trip, feeling a little anxious being in a foreign country for the first time and observing on our drive to our sleeping quarters that almost every house or apartment had a high wall surrounding it with either barb or razor wire strung around the top. Those that didn’t have wire had shards of sharp glass cemented in the top of the wall to discourage a would be thief from trying to climb over. I had also heard missionary, Ross Collier describe the prevalence of thievery in Lilongwe and stories of break ins of his home.

But as we arrived to the gate of the guest house, he honked his horn and a man came out and opened the gate. Ross went on to explain that this gentleman was a Night Watchman who would be awake all night, tending to the gate and patrolling inside the wall. The knowledge and presence of this “Night Watchman” brought a measure of peace and confidence that I could sleep, knowing I was surrounded by a security wall and the presence of a watchman.

The peace of God stands guard over two areas that create worry—the heart (wrong feeling) and the mind (wrong thinking). Our heart is the seat of our emotions and feelings. Lack of peace and security breeds worry, fear and anxiety. The peace of God acts like an umpire calling strikes and balls at the plate in baseball. God’s Peace is the watchman, the umpire that calls out lies and deception and affirms truth and integrity in our hearts. Our mind is where our thoughts originate. Again the umpire of our minds, God’s Peace, exposes wrong, worrisome thinking and replaces it with the reality of God’s Sovereignty, his power and wisdom, his promises and protection. The watchman of God’s Peace, takes wrong thinking, false beliefs captive (2 Cor. 10:15).

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Psalm 95:1-5, (ESV)

Choose Your Thoughts (v.8)

In times of uncertainty, difficulty, depression and anxiety, it is common for our mind to be flooded with many intrusive, fearful, troubling, uninvited and unwanted thoughts. They can be exaggerated, giant, overwhelmingly real and terrifying. However, we do have power over these thoughts. The best way to battle them is not head on, trying to tell ourselves not to think these thoughts. No, the way to win over worrisome thinking is with good, positive, true and wholesome thinking.

Paul writes with a tone of authority and caring counsel, “Finally, brothers…think, dwell, ponder these things.” Paul used six different Greek words for reasoning or thinking in the letter to Philippian disciples: “phroneō” (1:7; 3:15, 19); “ginosko” (1:12); “psuchē” (1:27); “noēma” (4:7); “logizomai” (4:9); “manthano” (4:9, 11) The verb, “think” is also a present imperative. This is an positive act of our will, not a passive, surrendering of our mind.

Six Words are mentioned as subjects, focuses, objects of a wholesome thought life, introduced with “whatever.”

• True – opposite of dishonest, unreliable things. Correspond to the teaching of God’s word.
• Noble – honorable, worthy of respect. Dignity of moral excellence.
• Right – just, conforming to God’s standards, His Word.
• Pure – wholesome, not mixed with moral impurity, no hint, no evidence of sin.
• Lovely –makes believers attractive, winsome, generosity, kindness, compassion and willingness to forgive. Promotes peace rather than conflict. Man in the airport, mask
• Admirable -positive & constructive not negative & destructive.
• Summarized: Excellent and Praiseworthy.

I have battled depression two times in my 57 years on this earth. Once in 2006 and again in 2019-20. Depression is a real, intense, stubborn battle on many fronts, none more dangerous, discouraging, defeating than the battle for the mind, your thoughts and thinking. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” This is an all out fight for life and truth! It is not easily won. It takes all of our effort and trust and effort to “take every thought”, every lie, deception, false accusation, imposed guilt and condemnation of the enemy “captive to obey Christ.”

If we have the single mind of Philippians 1 then we can give adoration. (How can a double-minded person ever praise God?)

If we have the submissive mind of Philippians 2, we can come with supplication. (Would a person with a proud mind ask God for something?)

If we have the spiritual mind of Philippians 3 we can show our appreciation. (A worldly minded person would not know that God had given him anything to appreciate!)

We must practice Philippians 1, 2, and 3 if we are going to experience the secure mind of Philippians 4.

Warren Wiersbe, Be Joyful

Choose Your Behavior (v. 9)
This is the third time in Philippians that Paul called his readers to follow his example (2:17–18; 3:17). Right behavior flows from right belief. Proper thinking will lead to proper actions. Though Paul was writing this from a prison cell, his focus is not on his condition but rather his calling. He is not caught up in his circumstances but is consumed by his commission. Remember Paul wrote at the beginning of this prison letter.

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear...18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.  Philippians 1:12-14,18 (ESV)

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Something powerful happens in us, our minds, our hearts when we take the focus off self and serve others in the power and promise of God’s word. There was a summer season a few years ago that I was called on to visit three men who were put on hospice care because there was no medical procedure or treatment that could bring healing and restoration to their well worn and frail bodies. I went to visit these men hoping that I could comfort and encourage them with God’s Word and through prayer. However I was the one comforted and encouraged as these men were in the waiting room of a hospice bed, waiting for the transition, transport from earthly bodies and temporal life, to heavenly homes and eternal life. As I entered the waiting room of hospice care with each of these men, they chose not to focus on themselves, their situation, but on others. They each asked how I was doing, how my family was doing and then offered words of affirmation and encouragement. Their circumstances were not their choice but their thoughts and words were chosen and shared with me, their friends and their family. The apostle Paul was in a Philippian jail cell, not what He chose, but what God used to share the Gospel powerfully with jailers and gentiles and to encourage and embolden believers to boldly share the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus!

What about you? Do you find yourself in God’s Waiting Room? Are you in the waiting room of marriage strife, parenting pain, physical illness, spiritual defeat and dryness?
You can’t change the situation, will have to wait on the Lord, but that doesn’t mean you are idle, passive and pitiful. You have choices to make and actions to take even as you wait. Max Lucado writes about how you and I can experience and demonstrate CALM in the midst of the CHAOS.

Celebrate God’s Goodness “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4) Turn your focus from your mess to your Maker, from your problem to your Provider. Face God first, then Face your problem.

Ask God for Help “Let your requests be made known to God” (4:6) “Call on me in the day of trouble.” Psalm 50:15 “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.” Matt. 7:7When we ask, God listens! So ask!

Leave your concerns with Him “With Thanksgiving…” (4:6)Let God take charge and do what he is so willing to do, “Guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (4:7). Gratitude helps keep us focused on the present. Max writes about how Anxiety chops up our attention. We worry about the past-what we said or did. We worry about the future, what might happen. Anxiety takes our attention from right now to “back then” or “out there”.

Meditate on worthwhile things “Think about the things that are good and worthy of praise” (4:8).
Life gives Lemons to good people, bad people, young people, old people, all people. You may not be able to choose if life hands you lemons, but you don’t have to suck on them. Make lemonade out of life’s lemons.

Max Lucado’s,Anxious for Nothing: C.A.L.M in a Chaotic World.

Relationships are a good place to begin your search for calm over chaos. You can have CALM in both your Vertical and Horizontal relationships.

Vertically: Do you have a relationship with Jesus? Have you trusted in Him as Savior and Lord? You can have a right relationship with your Maker through Jesus Christ. You can be forgiven of all your short comings and sin. You can enter into His presence with the peace of forgiveness and the promise of unending love and life.

Horizontally: Do you need to talk to a brother or sister? Do you need to seek restoration and healing of a broken relationship? When your are in a healthy and whole relationship vertically with your Creator and Savior, you can also discover a healed and healthy relationship in your horizontal relationships of marriage, parenting, working, recreating. Peace within leads to peace in relationship with others.

Benediction:
1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 (ESV) Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.