When the Apostle wrote these words, he was filled with the best of all loves. These grand words were almost the last outpouring of the fulness of the Apostle's love. Everybody knows them; everybody admires them; everybody is conscious of an undefined pleasure in them.
I. Observe that all the good and holy things of the text purify. St. Paul does not say, Do them, but what is far more: "Think on them." The word means literally, Take them into your mouths; dwell on them; imbue your very spirit with them; for there is life in them when fostered in the inner life of which the outer life is only a reflection. Every mind must have its thoughts, and every thought must have its food. Thought dies without food. Some men think too abstractedly; some men think much of the evils which they wish to avoid; that is vainness: the thought may take the bad character even from the wrong thing, which it is the object of that very thought to destroy. It is far safer, it is far better, and far more effective to think of the true, the holy, and the good.
II. The more you meditate upon the truth, the honesty, and the justice which regulate the sacred transactions between Heaven and man that is, the more you see the Cross of Christ as the great embodiment of the mind of God and contemplate the highest truth as it is exhibited there the more prepared you will be to go on to take a proper estimate of what is to be "the true, the honest, and the just" in the relations and dealings of the present life. Whenever you can form this lofty conception of the inner and beautiful principle, your standard will be very high, and you will be better able to take measure of the circumstances of life. He will always make the best prophet the eye of whose mind is the most familiar with a Divine and prompt obedience.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 151.
I. We can all appreciate the importance of being able to guide and control our thoughts; we can all understand that it must be a serious thing to have lost or not to possess the power of doing so. And who has not known by experience something of the evil effects of thinking of the opposite things to those which St. Paul here recommends? St. Paul bids the Philippians entertain one kind of guests within, and by inference exclude or expel another. And which of us does not feel that there is wisdom in this caution? A man who lives much amongst the evil things of human nature, even if professional or other duty requires it of him, can seldom preserve unsullied the purity of his Christian feeling. And if such be the effect of an acquaintance with things hateful and impure in those who approach them at the call of business or duty, how must it be with those who live amongst them by choice? There are those who gloat upon the records of vice or crime, and find in them an attraction and fascination which is wanting in things lovely and of good report.
II. St. Paul's charge has a depth of wisdom and a wholesomeness of counsel scarcely noticed perhaps on its surface. We ought to cherish only such thoughts concerning others as are lovely and of good report; we ought to dwell by choice only upon virtues. The charge presupposes a power over the thoughts. And thus we are led to a serious reflection upon the importance of turning our faith to account in the work of regulating and disciplining thought. Of ourselves we can neither think nor do one good thing; but if the Gospel be true, we can think as well as do all things through Christ who strengtheneth us. Let us pray to God to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit.
C. J. Vaughan, Lectures on Philippians,p. 295.
References: Philippians 4:8. F. W. Farrar, Everyday Christian Life,p. 46; T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons,p. 158; W. B. Pope, Sermons,p. 213; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 200; Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 115; R. M. Stewart, Ibid.,vol. xix., p. 121; H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. xxvii., p. 148; J. G. Rogers, Ibid.,vol. xxviii., p. 28; Ibid.,p. 295; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. vii., p. 289. Philippians 4:9. W. G. Horder, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxx., p. 277; S. Martin, Sermons,2nd series, p. 219; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 382.