As my niece entered middle school, my mom told her, Jesus gives us peace. You can access it anytime by just calling on the name of Jesus. She can tap into that hope anytime because she’s a daughter of the Most High King as a follower of Jesus. I picked these verses specifically for today as we are all feeling anxious in this world. Watching the news, seeing horrendous images, rising food prices through inflation, shrink flation, rising gas prices, and the angst, bitterness, and division that creep into our cars, buggies at the grocery store, lining up at checkout lines and in extension the way in which we talk and interact with one another, in person and online, we desperately need the words of Philippians.
Listen to Paul’s words to the church at Philippi.
Philippians 4:4-7
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
We as a people are naturally anxious about everything. And this verse tells us to not be anxious about anything. Ann Landers, in her advice column, used to get about 10,000 letters a month about people’s problems. She was asked, what is the number one problem that people have? She said the number one concern of most people is anxiety. She said people are afraid of losing their health, afraid of losing their wealth, afraid of losing loved ones. She said people are afraid of life itself. Your mind can distort anything into a worry or a fear, especially when we are tired, rundown and already in a stressful situation. Go on a walk. Listen to Christian, Gospel or any kind of music that makes you chillax. Read the Word of God. Get centered with a devotion at the start or end of your day. It seems we put off the exact things that will help us, when we get stressed out over our to-do lists and worries.
When Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison and sentenced to death. He wrote this letter on death row. We think we have it bad. Paul was literally chained to a Roman soldier and guarded day and night. And yet he could still write, “Do not be anxious about anything . . .” He had been shipwrecked, beaten, ridiculed, stoned and abandoned and he still said, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!” You and I were made not made for a fearful, anxiety filled life, we were made for joy.
The North Carolina Poet Carl Sandburg understood that. He once wrote about children:
You were made for joy, child.
The feet of you were carved for that.
The ankles of you run for that.
The rise of rain,
The shift of wind,
The drop of a red star on a far water rim . . .
An endless catalogue of shouts and laughters,
Silent contemplations
They made you from day to day for joy, child, for joy.
The question is how do we tap into that joy that is available to each of us?
The insightful writer Isak Dinesen said, “God made the world round so that we would never be able to see too far down the road.” And that’s true. We can’t see down that road. That itself is the cause of anxiety for many of us. Sadly, we often look down that road with fear rather than with faith. But we’re not supposed to. 1 John 4 says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” Some translations say it “expels” all fear and it’s not just sometimes or sometime in the future. We have God’s promise and God’s peace now.
I heard a commentator this past week say we take Jeremiah 29:11 out of context. He accused us of not looking at what was really happening in the Babylonian exile. What if we knew the context all along? What if we knew it wouldn’t be a quick fix? What if we knew it would take time? But we take God’s peace and promise with us in the exiles of our lives.
Jeremiah 29:10-14, 10 For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
See the Israelites were in a spin cycle of sin all throughout the Old Testament and they pushed God to act as the Loving Parent giving them consequences. 70 years certainly takes the long view, but the promise is the same. God’s promises are the same yesterday, today, and forever. We do not fear or let the anxiety monster grab us because we trust in the Lord, the maker of heaven and of earth. No matter how long it takes, no matter what circumstances we’re in, as Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” We grasp tightly to joy because it is a presence we encounter. As the German theologian, Moltmann puts it, “God weeps with us so that one day we may laugh with him.” God came down to earth to dwell among us, to walk with us, right beside us. He knows our anxiety and tendency to fret and worry. What did the angels say to the shepherds in Luke 2:10-11, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Joy. Not just wishy-washy joy, but a joy that lasts.
In his book Talking to Ducks, James A. Kitchens explains there are two major types of joy: internal joy and external joy. Internal joy comes from within, but external joy comes and goes with whatever is happening in our environment. It is extrinsic because it arises from the outside. When the circumstances change in a good direction, joy comes. When fortune reverses, joy leaves. Internal joy stays with us regardless of our external circumstances.
Pastor Anthony Evans tells about the night that darkness descended on New York City during the blackout of 2003. Evans happened to be there that night and he witnessed the chaos. Manhattan, including Wall Street and the United Nations, was completely dark, as were all area airports and all rail transportation including the subway.
There was one exception to that darkness. Evans happened on a restaurant where people were lined up to get hot food. He reports that in this dark situation there was this one place with all this light and joy and music and laughter and warmth. He went over to the assistant manager and said, “Mister, I don’t understand. It’s dark everywhere. The airport is right over there and it’s dark. My hotel is right across the street and it’s dark too. Everything is dark, and yet you are lit up like a Christmas tree. How can this be?”
The manager said, “It’s really fairly simple. When we built this [place], we built it with a gas generator. We’ve got power on the inside that is not determined by circumstances on the outside. Even though there’s nothing happening out there, there’s plenty happening in here.”
Anthony Evans goes on to say, “When you accepted Jesus Christ, He came into the inside. So what’s happening on the outside shouldn’t determine whether or not you’ve got a lighthouse on the inside. What’s happening out there shouldn’t determine your joy. God has given us a generator of life and liberty in our souls through our relationship with Jesus Christ. We don’t have to live our lives determined by life’s circumstances.”
That’s the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. How do we get that peace? That joy? Prayer plus thanksgiving equals an entirely different view of the world.
Pray
As some of you may know, there is a Bible App by a company called YouVersion which has 400 million users worldwide. Every year the producers of this app announce the most popular Bible verse as chosen by its readers’ searches.
In 2019, the most popular verse in this online Bible was from our lesson for today, Philippians 4:6, in the New Living Translation. It reads like this: “Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.”
Verse 6 is written as a command. This is how we are to live. “Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything.”
Prayer is as simple as a breath. A sentence, Lord have mercy. A plea for strength. Intecessory prayer – prayer for the hostages and their families as well as the people of Gaza and those that area hurting all over the world.
Thanksgiving
There is a “Peanuts” comic strip where Charlie Brown says: “I’ve developed a new philosophy. I only dread one day at a time.” Chuck, oh boy, in fact the opposite is true. We are to be thankful for each day and count our blessings one by one. When we are stressed or anxious, that is exactly the perfect time to name the good things God has given us.
Some people lose their joy and peace because they’re playing the comparison game, instead of giving thanks to God for what we have. Futurist Faith Popcorn says that one possible downside of the Internet is the development of what she calls Comparative Anxiety. The internet has created a networked world that allows everybody to compare everything, instantly. How much money are you making compared to people your own age who graduated from the same college? How many words does your baby know versus millions of babies her exact age, around the world? It predicts that this ability to benchmark yourself in seconds with others is creating an increasing epidemic of comparative anxiety and a national wave of insecurity.
Joy is not a product of possessions, pleasure, busyness, affluence, or accomplishment. Joy is the experience of knowing that nothing, not sickness, failure, famine, war, or even death can separate us from the love of Christ.
Joy is a choice we make. Life can make us bitter or it can make us better. It can leave us grumbling or make us grateful. By remembering to give thanks for the little things, we develop a habit of thankfulness. It won’t happen overnight, but it will change how we view the world.
That brings me to the Big Picture.
Ken Lindner is CEO of Ken Lindner & Associates and the author of the book, Crunch Time: 8 Steps to Making the Right Life Decisions at the Right Time (2004). Ken is also a championship Paddle Tennis player.
A few years ago, Ken’s team lost in the final round of a national Paddle Tennis tournament. Ken was determined to learn from this disappointment. So, he decided to go up into the stands and watch the winning team play a few rounds.
Ken got an entirely different view of the game and of his opponents when he saw them play from up in the stands. From up there, he could see the Big Picture. He recognized the other teams’ techniques, their strategy, their weaknesses. As Ken sat there and soaked up a whole new perspective on his opponents’ game, he realized that he could apply this wisdom to every part of his life. As he writes in his book Crunch Time, “The lesson was: Far too often, while fighting our day-to-day battles on the ground, we never look beyond ourselves, or the immediate moment, situation, need or craving at hand. Therefore, we fail to view things from the fuller, richer, wider context of the Big Picture.”
When we walk with God, we are able to take a Big Picture view of our lives. We are able to replace worry with trust, choose a gratitude attitude, and focus our thoughts on those things that are not of this world – the peace that this world doesn’t understand because it’s not from this world – Jesus.
A Catholic priest named Johannes Tauler tells of meeting a poor man along the road one day. “God give you a good day, my friend,” said Tauler.
The poor man answered, “I thank God I never have a bad day.”
Tauler, astonished, kept silent for a moment, then added, “God give you a happy life, my friend.”
The poor man answered, “I thank God I am never unhappy.”
“Never unhappy!” cried Tauler, “What do you mean?”
“Well,” came the reply, “when it is sunshine—I thank God, when it rains—I thank God, when I have plenty—I thank God, when I am hungry—I thank God; and since God’s will is my will, and whatever pleases God pleases me, why should I say that I am unhappy when I am not?”
Tauler looked upon him with awe. “Who are you,” he asked.
“I am a king,” said the poor man.
“A king?” Tauler asked, “Where is your kingdom?”
The poor man smiled and answered simply, “In my heart.”
As followers of Jesus, we carry around a kingdom in our hearts. We grumble and complain and are fearful and anxious sometimes, but we’re still sons and daughters of the Most High King. Trying our best and growing in sanctifying grace. We are the recipients of God’s promises and God’s incredibly gracious love and mercy. If we really understand that, our joy will overflow. If you want to be set free from your circumstances, your stresses and your worries, then follow the instructions God gave us to live in joy: replace worry with trust in God, don’t compare yourselves with others, develop an attitude of gratitude, and think of the bigger picture. Good wins. The light DOES overcome the darkness. Take a deep breath of the Holy Spirit, call on the name of Jesus and let him fill you up with joy and peace, and God will be your strong tower and sure foundation.
Blessings on the Journey 