"Request with Thanksgiving!" (Sermon on Philippians 4:4-9) | November 26, 2025

Sermon Text: Philippians 4:4-9
Date: November 26, 2025
Event: Thanksgiving, Set 1

Philippians 4:4-9 (EHV)

Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if anything is excellent, and if anything is praiseworthy, think about these things. 9The things that you learned, received, heard, and saw in me: Keep doing these things. And the God of peace will be with you. 

Request with Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving and contentment go hand-in-hand. If you’re thankful for what you have, there’s a high likelihood that you’re content. And likewise, if you’re content with what you have, you’re probably thankful for it.

But I think it can be tempting to equate contentment and thanksgiving with never desiring something more, but in truth, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. Certainly a lack of gratitude and seeking after more! more! more! is a problem. But can you be thankful for what you have, content even, and still desire something beyond it?

Perhaps an illustration: the family is finishing dinner. There are no plans for the rest of the evening, and everyone is feeling satisfied. The child asks if they can go get a treat out once everything from the meal is cleaned up. If the answer is “no,” she won’t be throwing a fit. She’s just wondering—great if it can happen, and fine if it can’t. It’s just an idea for a family outing to enjoy that evening.

The little girl in that example is not unthankful for what she has; quite the opposite! And in some ways, it is her thankfulness and contentment that lead her to make the request. She knows that her family loves her and wants her to be happy, and so she makes this small request to see if they can do something special since they have the time.

It is with these thoughts that we approach our second reading for this evening. Taken from the tail end of Paul’s “letter of joy” to the Philippians, these are essentially Paul’s final words to the Christians in Philippi, a closing direction for these dearly loved children in their walk of faith and their relationship with God. Paul begins this section with famous (and perhaps obvious) words about our response to the blessings we have from God: Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice!

Of course, that’s what we want to do. We who know the love of God want to rejoice in his blessings—to be awash in joy knowing God’s love for us and the eternal blessings that he provides. But sometimes we might wonder how. Like, clearly, being in church for worship is a way to do that. A thankful prayer in the middle of the day is part of that rejoicing.

But Paul goes on to other ways that we can express that joy in God’s love for us: Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. The way you live your life, the way that you are an ambassador for God to those around you, is part of this thankfulness. Letting your gentleness be known to everyone means you don’t let anger grip you. You don’t let harshness spew out of your mouth. You treat people and situations with compassion and decency because you know the compassion God has shown you.

A lack of worry is a common goal stated in Scripture. But it’s not just the “worry is not productive, so stop it” one might find in secular self-help books. As we noted a few Sundays ago, worry is really the brain freaking out about the future because it cannot find any certainty. But for the Christian, it’s not just “stop worrying,” it’s “you don’t have to worry because the almighty Creator of the universe is working all things out for your eternal good.”

That confidence influences the prayers and petitions that we bring to God. How are your prayers different if you trust that God is taking care of you, loving you, doing what he knows, in his perfect knowledge, is best for you, working all things out for your benefit? Prayers with this motivation and backing are not desperate, but rather an expression of trust. It is not that we expect everything in our lives to be perfect—we know for certain that will never happen—but we know that when we bring our requests to God, they are received with love.

Which brings us to thankful prayers and requests. It’s not just saying thank you to God who loves us and has saved us (though that is certainly part of it!). But even more so, it is approaching God with a thankful heart that says, “I know and trust the promises you’ve made to me. Thank you for that faith, thank you for all you do. Because I know your love for me, I bring this further request before you.” It’s not unlike the little girl bringing the request for dessert out after dinner to the family. These prayers are not selfish or greedy; this is exactly what God wants us to be doing!

This stems the tide of worry because the thankful heart is firmly planted in the peace that God brings. Paul’s familiar words here generally serve as the closing encouragement for our sermons: The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This peace of God is something very special and unique. This is not the promise that he will provide us with daily bread. This is not even that he will work good from difficulty and suffering. No, this peace of God is the eternal peace brought only by Jesus.

God’s forgiveness is the anchor point, the lynch pin in our whole relationship with him. Without the peace of Jesus’ forgiveness won at the cross, we would be in a constant state of distress and hopelessness because we’d go through this life with the eternal albatross of our sins around our neck, while not being able to do a thing about it. It would drag us down to the depths of hell because that is sin’s just punishment.

The peace of God goes beyond all of our comprehension and understanding because the way he brought that peace is completely baffling. We sinned against him, but his love was so great that he took the punishment for our sins against him on himself. It’s like someone stealing your car, and then you volunteer to go to jail for grand theft auto, only infinitely worse. It makes no sense to human reason. Even for us who know that God loves us, it still leaves us dumbfounded that he would do such a thing for people like us. And yet, here we are, standing with completely mystified human reason, yet also standing in the peace of God.

Thus, we thank him with our contentment, with our gratitude, with our public gentleness, and even with our trust-emboldened requests.

There’s an internal knock-on effect to all of this. As the peace of God guards your heart and mind, your heart and mind are changed. Knowing the forgiveness of sins means we no longer have the desire to dwell in the muck and mire of our sins. Rather, we want to dwell on those things that are pleasing to God. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if anything is excellent, and if anything is praiseworthy, think about these things.

If our thoughts are dominated by these high standards—things that please God rather than things that gratify our sinful flesh—that will also shape our thanks-driven requests. The peace of God means we won’t ask for anything sinful or spiritually harmful. It means we won’t want God to do what we know he hates. It means that no matter what the content of our prayers, we know that God’s will is always higher and greater and more praiseworthy than our will, so our prayers will always ask that his will, not ours, ultimately be done.

We know that all of this is easier said that done. It’s difficult to keep our sinful natures in check, to live as we want to live. Even Paul wrestled with not being able to do the things he wanted to and constantly committing the sins that he hated! But as we struggle and strive for this life of thanks, we are an encouragement for each other.

Paul noted this, even while acknoelgeing his failings. He knew that as he strived for this life, he could be an example, an encouragement, for his dearly-loved Philippians. The things that you learned, received, heard, and saw in me: Keep doing these things. And the God of peace will be with you. So, too, can we be that for each other. Not perfectly, but in our striving for thanksgiving, in our striving to live contented lives, entrusting the God who loves us and forgives us with all of our requests, we can be this model for each other.

So, my dear brothers and sisters. Follow my lead in these thankful requests to God flowing from a heart overflowing with gratitude for my sins forgiven. As you follow my lead, I will follow yours down the same path. And together, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Don't Shrink Away from the Moment" (Sermon on Philippians 3:17-4:1) | March 16, 2025

Sermon Text: Philippians 3:17–4:1
Date: March 16, 2025
Event: The Second Sunday in Lent, Year C

Philippians 3:17–4:1 (EHV)

Brothers, join together in imitating me and in paying attention to those who are walking according to the pattern we gave you. 18To be sure, many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. I told you about them often, and now I am saying it while weeping. 19Their end is destruction, their god is their appetite, and their glory is in their shame. They are thinking only about earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven. We are eagerly waiting for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21By the power that enables him to subject all things to himself, he will transform our humble bodies to be like his glorious body.

4:1So then, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, in this way keep standing firm in the Lord, my dear friends.

Don’t Shrink Away from the Moment

The basketball player gets the ball. Down by one point, a single made shot wins the game. The defense has panicked, leaving him wide open. The final seconds are ticking down. He lines it up and gets ready to take the shot, but he hesitates. His teammates on the bench are screaming for him to shoot, but he doubts himself and shrinks away from the moment. He sees a teammate open and passes the ball to him, but what he didn’t see was the defender behind him. The defender swats away the pass, grabs the ball, and they lose the game. They would have won if he had just taken and made the wide-open shot, but his hesitation means they didn’t even get a chance to try. Game over.

Our walk through this life as Christians is of far greater importance than any basketball game that has ever been played, but the same kind of metrics and drama are present. We have a limited amount of time, we face pressures and opposition that sometimes are outside of us and sometimes are inside of us. When everything is on the line for us spiritually, do we shrink away from the moment, hesitating to or even refusing to live the life that God has called us to live? Or do we embrace the moment and seize the opportunities that God is putting in front of us?

In our Second Reading this morning, Paul is writing to beloved Christians in the city of Philippi. This brief letter is often called Paul’s letter of joy because, despite writing it while under house arrest, Paul is so positive and so thankful for these partners in gospel ministry that he just can’t keep it contained. Even in our brief snippet of the letter here, you get a sense of that joyful flavor. Consider how he addresses this congregation in the last verse of our reading: my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown… Is there any question about Paul’s feelings toward these fellow believers?

And what does he want for these beloved people? That they live their lives consistent with their faith in the crucified and risen Savior. And how would they learn what to do? In part, by looking at Paul and his coworkers in the ministry: Brothers, join together in imitating me and in paying attention to those who are walking according to the pattern we gave you. Now, to be clear, Paul is not implying that he, in some way, is the “gold standard” of living the Christian life; this is the same man who, when writing to pastor Timothy, was clear that he viewed himself as the worst sinner of all (see 1 Timothy 1:15-16). But he knows that while he was with the Philippians, he set a positive, if not perfect, example. And he urges them to follow suit.

You might have had the experience that heavy, big emotions in one area can lead to heavy, big emotions in another area at the same moment. And so it is the case here that in Paul’s overflowing joy for the Philippians, with the floodgates of his heart set wide open, he loses control of his emotions in another place. So, with tears in his eyes, tripping over his words and even interrupting himself, he puts forth the opposite side of the coin, the thing he doesn’t want in any way, shape, or form for the Philippians: To be sure, many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. I told you about them often, and now I am saying it while weeping. Paul is absolutely destroyed that many are going about their lives as enemies of the cross of Christ.

What constitutes being an enemy of Christ’s cross? It’s not necessarily being vehemently opposed to the gospel message to the point of fighting against it. While that would certainly be included here, Paul’s description is not limited to that. How does he describe these enemies? Their end is destruction, their god is their appetite, and their glory is in their shame. They are thinking only about earthly things. It’s not only setting one’s heart and mind against Jesus but simply valuing other things over him.

There may be echoes here for you of our worship from Wednesday evening this past week where we focused on the First Commandment. In short, enemies of the cross of Christ are those who value things other than Christ’s cross, put other things ahead of God in their lives. Indeed, this would apply to unbelievers. But this is also a path believers can walk. Paul is determined to do everything he can not to let that happen to the Philippians and their faith.

But what would cause someone to take such a position? What would cause someone to value things other than God? What would that look like in practice? Well, looking at what Paul says here, we might be able to derive some thoughts:

Their god is their appetite. Now, a phrase like this perhaps conjures up a hedonistic view of someone who overindulges in every worldly thing. But it’s more basic than that. Perhaps this is someone who overindulges, but it might also be someone who is constantly on the hunt to make physical ends meet. They might rarely know where their next meal is coming from, so their growling, empty stomach becomes their god; they focus primarily on how to fill it next to preserve their life. This is an example of a lack of trust in God’s promise for daily bread. And even if it’s not too-much or too-little, prioritizing physical appetites over everything else in this life—especially God—is a tell-tale sign of an enemy of Christ’s cross.

Their glory is in their shame. So too, the enemies of Christ’s cross might find glory in shameful things. We might think of the person who brags about how they cheated someone in a transaction and came out financially ahead. Or perhaps someone who lives a sexually promiscuous lifestyle and boasts about his or her “conquests” in that realm. Perhaps it’s someone who brags about how much alcohol they consumed or how many drugs they took at a party over the weekend. It might be someone laughing about the filth that dominates their internet usage. All of these things should be shameful because they are sinful abuses of God’s blessings. But rather than approaching these things with repentance and sorrow, they boast in them, value them, identify with them, and might even find the meaning to their life in them. For the enemy of Christ’s cross, actions and attitudes that they ought to be ashamed of are worn as badges of honor.

They are thinking only about earthly things. Oh, and now this is where it starts to get really uncomfortable, because this statement seems wildly broad. I wonder, how many of us here today have thought, just since the sermon started, primarily about that work that needs to be done at home or that bill that needs to be paid, or that meal that will need to be prepared, or that bit of fun we’re planning for the afternoon, or anything along those lines rather than focusing on God’s Word. Are the earthly things dominating your thoughts, pushing spiritual matters and the joy of Jesus’ cross out?

Well-meaning Christians can become enemies of the cross of Christ. Consider for just a moment the suffering that you might undergo for being a Christian. What trouble has or might your faith cause among the members of your family? What about among your friends? Coworkers? Neighbors? Even strangers at the coffee shop or driving down the road? What is our gut reaction most of the time? We might not want to face the consequences of having a faith that is looked down on, so we hide it. We perhaps have a moment for confession, a time to make our faith known, but we sit quietly; we don’t take the shot.

In our nation, an ugly side-effect can come along with our secular principle of the freedom of religion—we, as Christians, long for “comfortable” or “consequence-free” Christianity. We want to be Christians, but not endure any hardship for that. We want to cherish our Savior while keeping him a secret or relatively unknown. We want the blessings of being the child of God while at the same time indulging in the infatuations that come with being a child of this world.

So this “enemies of the cross of Christ” category is not just those people who seem especially opposed to the gospel. Again, it’s anyone that is valuing these earthly things more than spiritual things. It might be true of the hedonistic unbeliever, but it is also just as likely that you and I here today are, in part, going through our lives like this. However, whether in ourselves or others, Paul gives us the proper response to these things. He isn’t furious about this; his tears say it all. We need to see the spiritual and eternal danger these attitudes pose for us.

Is it any wonder that Paul is weeping when he thinks of people living like this and that such a fall could even come upon his beloved Philippians? This path ends nowhere good. It only ends with the rejection of faith, the rejection of everything won at the cross of Christ, and ultimately, as eternal punishment in hell for our sins.

So, if our thoughts are misguided if they’re focused exclusively or even primarily on earthly, physical things, what is the solution? Paul directs us in the next verse: But our citizenship is in heaven. Our closing hymn this morning will underscore the fact that, really, we are foreigners here in this world. Our true homeland is heaven, the dwelling place of God. That’s easy to forget, though, because we don’t see a lot to remind us of that and redirect our thinking that way. It’s like we’re traveling abroad and find ourselves swept up in another nation’s civil war. If we can only focus on what is right in front of us, we might be terrified of the injury or even death that could face us. But if we remember our true citizenship and seek help from our homeland, ideally, we will be rescued from that conflict and returned home safely.

This citizenship idea would have been powerful in the city of Philippi. As a leading Roman city in the area, many of the residents would have been Roman citizens, aware of the privileges they held there and throughout the empire because of their citizenship. Likewise, the people who didn’t have citizenship in the empire would have been accurately aware of what they were missing.

But Paul stresses that our citizenship in heaven supersedes that of any earthly nation. And don’t miss a really small, yet really important detail. Paul says that our citizenship is in heaven, not that it will be in heaven. This is something that is true right here, right now. How? He goes on: We are eagerly waiting for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are looking forward to our Savior Jesus’ victorious return at the last day. But this stresses once again that this forgiveness, this citizenship, is something given, not earned. You don’t get this citizenship because you paid a lot of money, as you might in the Roman empire. You don’t get it because you jump through all sort of legal hoops and red tape, complete with lawyer’s fees, as you might in our nation. No, this citizenship is a gift of God’s love.

But this gift was not free. Like us, Jesus had a choice in front of him: easy path or difficult path. The easy path would have meant no cross, no suffering, no death, but that also would have meant eternal damnation for us all. Jesus was not willing to take the easy path, to save his own skin, and leave us to rot. So he took the difficult path, the path of the cross, the path that led him to taking our sins on himself and being punished for them at his cross so that we would be free from sin. This is why we are citizens of heaven, because of Jesus’ love for us that sacrificed himself to save us.

We hold dear, cherish, and value that citizenship-gift above everything else. We walk about our lives not as enemies of the cross of Christ but so thankful for all the eternal blessings we have now and will fully experience later for Jesus’ sake. We recognize that this path will be difficult; we will have crosses of our own, suffering of our own, placed on us as we go through this life. But let’s not take the shortcuts. Let’s not prioritize short-term comfort, which will forfeit eternal-term comfort and peace. Let us look forward to that final transformation that Jesus will bring about, when he brings us back to our homeland, to heaven, and purges even that sinful nature from us so that our bodies will be more akin to his glorious body than the decay we feel now.

Lord, give us the drive to walk the path in front of us, no matter how difficult or painful. Help us always be your positive representatives in the world, no matter the cost. Strengthen us as you forgive us for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.