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THE PEACE OF GOD

Joy for the Journey, Part 9

June 22, 2008

Pastor Bob Sanders

Philippians 4:1-9

       1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!

    2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.

    4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

    8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

A Sermon for Me

Some days a preacher writes sermons for other people.  And then some days, I write them mainly for myself. 

This past Wednesday morning I sat at my desk as I do each Wednesday, staring at the text for Sunday’s sermon, thinking about what it means and how I might preach it.  I’d just finished writing down what I thought was the key verse when all at once I was bombarded by a series of unexpected crises. 

My father’s doctor called on my cell phone to tell me the results of Dad’s medical tests and to go over the treatments he needed.  Pretty intense.  And as we were talking on my cell, the intercom on my desk phone buzzed and my secretary announced there was a call for me from a local pastor trying to get me to get involved with the upcoming Luis Palau event.  Pretty urgent.  And just as these two voices were reaching crescendo – one in each ear – in came a frazzled staff member to get my input on a project due in the next hour.  Pretty pressured. 

I think that’s when I lost it.  I’m not sure what I said, but everyone quit talking and started backing away from me very slowly.  I took a deep breath and apologized for my meltdown, finished up with the doctor, the pastor, and the staff person.  When they were all gone, I looked at my notepad and the key verse I’d written down just a few minutes earlier.  Can you guess what it was?  Right – Philippians 4:6-7.  Here’s how it goes in the Revised Standard Version, which is the way I memorized it long ago:

Have no anxiety 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 passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Like I say – some days I write sermons for me.

Do Not Be Anxious About Anything

I realize I’m not the only one dealing with anxiety.  According to a 2007 study, seven out of ten adults in the U.S. say they experience stress or anxiety daily, and most say it interferes at least moderately with their lives.  About one-third report persistent stress or excessive daily anxiety and anxiety disorders, which affect some 40 million adults, are the most common psychiatric illnesses in the U.S. today – and they are on the increase. 1

Of course, different people deal with anxiety in different ways.  Someone has noted that those of a younger age tend to look forward, and older aged folks tend to look back, while middle-agers tend to look…worried! 2  But some time or another we all look like that.  We all get anxious.

One thing I’ve noticed about anxiety is that advice doesn’t help a lot.  The author Noel Coward once sent a postcard to a little girl who worried too much.  On the front was a picture of the Venus de Milo statue (the one without arms).  On the back he wrote, “This is what will happen to you if you don’t stop biting your fingernails.” 

I’m not sure that helped very much.

What are we to do with Paul’s advice to the Philippians: “Don’t be anxious about anything…?”  I mean, how helpful is that?  Author Frederick Buechner says it’s a little “like telling a woman with a bad cold not to sniffle and sneeze so much or a lame man to quit dragging his feet.” 3  

Of course, it helps to remember the guy who wrote these words had a lot to worry about.  Paul’s words don’t come from a pastor’s office but from a prison cell while chained to some Roman guards.  Most New Testament scholars believe Paul writes this letter right about the time the Roman emperor Nero is tossing Christians to the lions and burning them as torches to light up his all-night parties.  So when Paul says, “Don’t be anxious about anything,” it’s not like he didn’t have anything to be anxious about.

Same thing for the Philippians.  They had their worries, too.  They were a small congregation, struggling to survive in a hostile environment.  Their fragile faith was threatened by a deadly strain of legalism.  And then they were facing a budget crisis ever since they sent one of their own members off to Rome to help Paul.  And now to top it off, two of their key leaders – Euodia and Syntyche – were having a fight that threatened to split the church.  Church members were starting to choose up sides. 

 “Don’t be anxious about anything…”  Yeah, right.

The Lord Is Near

But Paul is serious.  He really means it – for himself, for the Philippians, even for you and me.  “Don’t be anxious.”  So, how do we get there?

It helps to back up a couple verses – back to verse 4 where Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!”  Now, maybe these words sound just as impossible to you as “Don’t be anxious.”  Or worse – maybe they even sound cruel.  Rejoice – when my loved one is dying?  Rejoice – when my job is on the line, when my marriage is tanking?  What are you talking about?

But wait.  Notice Paul does not simply say, “Rejoice always… period.”  That would be cruel.  What he says is, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  And while that may sound like I’m splitting hairs, I’m not.  It’s an important distinction.  Paul doesn’t say, “Rejoice in your circumstances.”  He says, “Rejoice in the Lord.”  Rejoice in the One who is with you in every circumstance – the One who made you, the One who loves you, the One who has promised never to fail you or forsake you.  Rejoice in him.  Rejoice in the Lord.

Paul says the same thing in verse 5 when he adds these words: “The Lord is near.”  Some interpret these words eschatologically – that is, they think Paul is talking about the “end times,” the return of Christ.  They think Paul is saying, “Things may be tough now, but hang in there because the Lord is about to come again.” 

But I think what means is, “The Lord is right there with you.”  I think Paul is saying: “Remember – no matter what you’re going through, you’re not alone.  Never forget the Lord is beside you in every situation, every circumstance.”

Look, Jesus Christ never promised us immunity from struggle or pain or loss, and don’t believe any slick television preacher who tells you otherwise.  What our Lord has promised us is that we won’t be alone.  He will be there beside us.  That’s our bottom line.  When God came to us in the flesh, when he became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, when he went through all the struggles and trials we experience, when he went to the cross and took on death itself – he did all this to prove this unshakeable fact: that he is with us in everything that happens.  With us in anxiety or depression.  With us in prison or in the hospital bed.  With us in those gut-wrenching times of uncertain waiting.  The Lord is near – in every situation, in every circumstance.  That’s why we can rejoice. 

As we said a few weeks ago, joy is not the absence of pain and sorrow.  Joy is the presence of the Lord.  Never forget the Lord is beside you.

By Prayer . . . with Thanksgiving

Look now at verse 6: “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

That really is the best advice anyone can give us.  It really is the only way to deal with our anxiety – to pray.  Give it to God – in spoken words, if you can say them.  Or in written form, if that helps – in a journal entry, or a letter or poem.  Or if words won’t come, maybe in sighs and groanings too deep for words.  Prayer is simply communicating with the Lord who is near – any time, any place, about any thing.  Prayer is handing it over – that burden, that loss, that unmet need, that unfilled hope.  It’s letting go of control.  It’s taking a break from having to be God all by yourself.  For at least a few blessed minutes, it’s letting God be God.

But someone says, “Yes, I know that’s what Christians believe – when you get anxious, just pray about it.  I’ve tried that.  I pray about my anxieties, but I wind up feeling worse, feeling even more anxious.” 

Right.  But notice what Paul says.  Present your prayer requests to God – how?  With thanksgiving.  “In every situation,” Paul says, “by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God.” 

Ask God for whatever you need, Paul says.  But do it with thanksgiving.  Thanks for what?  Not for the problem itself.  Not for the crisis that’s got you wracked with anxiety.  But for the Lord who is bigger than the crisis, bigger than the fear, bigger than whatever is calling out to you from your own personal anxiety closet.  By choosing to give thanks, you’re reminding yourself there is a God who is stronger, a God who is greater, a God who is more powerful. 

Someone asks, “How can I be thankful until I know how God will answer?”  But don’t you see: that’s the point.  If you hold off on being thankful till after you get what you want, you make your desires, your needs, your crisis the center of the universe.  You’re back to being God again, and the result is more anxiety.  By giving thanks even as you bring your requests, you’re reminding yourself who’s in charge.  “The Lord is near” – remember?

The Peace of God . . . the God of Peace

“By prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  And when we do that, something begins to happen.  Verse 7: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Notice Paul does not say, Present your requests to God and you’ll get exactly what you want.  Present your requests to God and all your problems will disappear.  Remember this comes from the same guy who wrestled with God about his “thorn in the flesh.”  You can find out more about that in 2 Corinthians 12, but you need to know the apostle Paul had some kind of persistent problem, a chronic physical or emotional disability, an ongoing woundedness that would not go away.  But in the end, after much prayer and much struggle, even though nothing changed outwardly for Paul (the thorn remained) something changed inwardly.  Paul heard God say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 4  And Paul was given the grace to live with his limitation – healed, if you will, of his need to be healed.  And if you’ve ever met someone who’s been there, you’ve seen something of the peace that passes all understanding. 

It’s what Jesus had in mind when he said to his disciples on his final night, just before all hell broke loose: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” 5  Here is a peace that takes on the worst that can happen – the cross – and trusts God to bring good out of it.  Here is a peace adequate for any crisis, any anxiety.  A peace that passes all understanding, a peace that keeps our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

The God of Peace

Notice in verse 7 it says the peace of God will keep us.  At the end of verse 9 it says the God of peace will be with us.  That’s not an accident.  We can’t know the peace of God until we know the God of peace.  We can’t experience his presence and his peace until we let him be God for us, until we choose to trust in him, in his power, in his goodness, in his wisdom. 

Have you done that?  Have you put your trust in him?  Do you know the God of peace?

I’ll be honest with you.  I’m a worrier.  I come from a long line of worriers.  I find I have to take my burdens of anxiety to God over and over again.  It seems like I’m running this shuttle service.  I take my anxieties to God, drop them there, then take them back and carry them off with me again.  Then remember to take them back to the Lord, drop them there, only to take them back once more.  Finally, when I’m utterly exhausted from all this, I decide to leave them there.  Then and only then comes God’s peace.

Bruce Larson is a Presbyterian pastor who worked in New York City for a number of years.  Sometimes when a person came to him for help with their anxieties he would have them walk with him to the RCA Building on Fifth Avenue.  In front of that building there is a gigantic statue of magnificently muscled Atlas, the world resting on his shoulders.  As powerfully built as this Atlas is, he is straining under the weight, barely able to stand under the burden.  And Bruce would say, “That’s one way to live, trying to carry the world on your shoulders.  But now, come across the street with me.”

Across the street is St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and there behind the altar is a picture of the boy Jesus.  He appears to be no more than eight or nine years old.  As small and frail as he appears, he is holding the world in one hand.  And Bruce would say, “We have a choice.  We can carry the world on our shoulders, or we can say, ‘I give up, Lord.  Here’s my life.  I give you my world, my whole world.’” 6

What’s your choice? 

Have no anxiety 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 passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

1. Anxiety Disorders Association of America: “2007 Stress and Anxiety Study.” www.adaa.org/stressedoutweek/study.asp
2. Heidi Husted Armstrong, “Antidote to Anxiety” (sermon preached to Columbia Presbyterian Church on Nov. 17, 2002).
3. Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark (HarperCollins, 1988), p.10
4. 2 Corinthians 12:9.
5. John 14:27.
6. Quoted by Ben Patterson in his book, Waiting (InterVarsity, 1989), pp.55f.