Secrets to Joy and Peace
Stress Sweeping Strategies Series
Samuel M. Stone
Philippians 4:4-7
4 Rejoiceq in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.r 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry 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.
I saw many of you wearing the green button on your clothes that says “Merry Christmas,” emphasizing Christ in the word Christmas. Nowadays, some people start to pronounce Xmas, instead of Christmas. Xmas means Christmas without Christ. I want to show you a video about a Christmas linebacker. Each time someone say Xmas, he would attack that person and "knock a little sense" into the meaning of Christmas. [Video Clip “Christmas Linebacker” from SermonSpice.com]
I hope this clip bring you some laughter and joy, especially to the football lovers.
The scripture lesson for this morning is from the lectionary reading of the epistle of Paul to the Philippians. This is one of the most beautiful passages in the scripture that you all need to memorize it, and I am sure some of you have already done so. The passage is very useful because it can help you sweep your stress away when time gets tough.
Like the prophet Jeremiah we talked about two weeks ago, Paul wrote this letter in prison. Normally, he should have been under a great deal of stress, yet he is able to rejoice and invite others to rejoice with him. Our question is, “What is his secret?” Many of us have a great deal of stress, especially at this time of the year, but I am sure we are not as bad as a prisoner like Paul. If he could use his God-given wisdom and peace to face his highly stressful condition, you and I can definitely deal with our situations with the same wisdom.
Rejoice in all circumstances
Paul says, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice." He repeats it twice to make sure people heard him. In this brief letter, Paul uses the word "joy" or "rejoice" more than ten times, even though this is not the theme of the letter.
To Paul, being joyful is a not a feeling, but it is a choice. He uses an action word “rejoice” rather than a feeling word. He is saying that you can rejoice in any condition. In the book of Acts, Paul and Silas were beat up, thrown into prison and shackled. But they were still able to rejoice.
Acts 16:23-25, "After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them."
Now Paul is in another prison. With his life in danger, Paul urges the people to rejoice with him.
You might ask, "How can I rejoice when I am under stress? I have no reason to rejoice in that kind of circumstances, unless I am crazy." But, Paul wasn’t crazy. In this verse he tells us the secret, which is in the phrase "in the Lord." He doesn’t just say, "Rejoice, like a fool." He says, "Rejoice in the Lord." Stressful times can make us lose focus on who we are. We forget that we are God’s beloved children. If you come to the small group lately, we are studying a very important lesson this past week, that is to recognize that you are not who you think we are, or who other people think you are. You are who God created you to be. One of the most important messages from the Bible is that you are God’s beloved. That’s what the phrase "in the Lord" means. You are ’in,’ like ’inside,’ the Lord.
Have you been to some small villages where people raise chickens in their yards? I think one of the cutest creatures in the world is the little chicks, so fluffy and delicate. You would see them running after the mother hen. I once saw in a friend’s backyard a falcon circling in the air waiting for the opportunity to catch one of the chicks. As soon as that falcon shot down for a catch, the mother hen would stretch out her wings and the little chick would run under her wings and hide in her belly. What’s interesting is that they continue to chirp joyfully beneath their mother’s wing.
When you are under stress, you can still chirp and rejoice “in the Lord.” Even if physically you are under stress, spiritually you need to know that you are you are in the Lord, and nothing can harm you. Don’t let your stress define you. Let God’s word define you. You are God’s beloved. So you can rejoice.
Secret: Stay “in the Lord.”
Be gentle to everyone
Paul says, "Let your gentleness be known to everyone." Some people think gentleness represents weakness. In fact Leo Buscaglia says, “Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.”
You can’t be gentle when you are stressed out. Why? Because when you are stress out you perceive yourself as a weak person. When I think I am a weak person, I want to prove that I am not weak by acting harshly. When you are stressed out, you tent to believe that you are not in control, so you want to grasp the control by pushing people down.
Paul says, be gentle to everyone, and he gives a reason why. It is because “the Lord is near.” This nearness has two meanings. It is generally interpreted as that the Lord is coming. That’s why this passage is part of the Advent season lectionary reading. But this nearness also means the Lord is close to you.
To use the previous analogy of the chicks and the mother hen, the chicks that are running near the mother hen knowing that their mother is near. If there is any danger, the mother hen will run to the rescue.
We live in a fallen world. Life is full of stress and full of injustice. Life is harsh, and we want to harsh back. We want to take control of the harsh world and in order to do that we want to appear tough rather than gentle. But, when you realize deep inside that the Lord who has the last word, and he is near, you can relax and be gentle.
Only a strong person can be gentle. The 28th Psalms says,
"The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts;
so I am helped, and my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him."
The Lord is your strength, therefore you can be gentle. St. Francis of Sales says, “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength”
Secret: Realize that the Lord, your strength, is near.
Don’t worry about anything
Some of you might say, "It’s easy for you to say." Or "It’s easy for Paul to say." But Paul wasn’t the only one in the Bible that teaches people not to worry. Jesus did it in the sermon of the mount, saying, "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow." Peter says, "Cast all your worries on Christ, for he cares about you."
The word translated “worry” (merimnaô) literally means “a divided mind,” and it carries the sense of being “harassed by care.” Always remember that worry doesn’t accomplish anything. It is stewing without doing. Worry is like a car engine running at a high RPM without going anywhere. It just wears the engine away.
Earl Nightingale said, that 40 percent of the things you worry about will never occur anyway. 30 percent of the things you worry about are the things in the past that can’t be changed by all the worry in the world. 12 percent of the worries are needless worries about our health. 10 percent of them are petty, miscellaneous worries. Only 8 percent are real and legitimate worries. So 92% or your worries are pure fog with no substance at all.
Paul tells us how he manages worry. He says, "Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." He says there are three things we need to do to keep worries away:
First pray to God about it. The Greek work Proseuchomai is translated as “pray," but because of the prefix “pros,” it should be more precisely translated as “pray toward.” The pros gives a vital clue that biblical prayer is focused primarily on or toward the one to whom we pray. It is different from other religious prayer. It is a relational prayer. What’s important is whom you pray to rather than that you pray. If you pray to Buddha, it won’t have any effect because Buddha can not help you. Buddha only teaches people to help themselves. So you have to pray to the Lord who promises to help.
Second, the Greek word “deçsis” is translated as "supplication" and it means the specific request made to God. Prayer in the Bible is specific and tied to real-life concerns. Prayer is what we bring to God when we lay our life and thoughts before God. Paul encourages exactly this kind of thoughtful prayer by his use of this word. We are invited by Jesus Christ, who showed us how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, to bring the requests and real concerns of our daily lives, including our need for our daily bread, to our Father in heaven.
The third key word in Paul’s invitation to prayer is “thanksgiving.” We must focus not only on what we need, but also on whom God is and on what God has given us. Thanksgiving is a response to the gracious generosity of God. Paul urges that prayer be offered in everything, with thanksgiving. Just as he called them to rejoice at all times, he also urged them to pray with thanksgiving in all circumstances. This is possible only through trusting that God’s greatest gift is already ours: in life and death we are not our own, but belong to God through Jesus Christ (1:19–24).
Secret: Prayer, Supplication, and Thanksgiving in everything
The benefit
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
The first benefit of following this wisdom is that you will have peace. Paul is not talking about the kind of peace that human beings easily understand. Even though this passage is written in Greek, he is referring to "Shalom,” from his Jewish tradition, which is a very rich word that contains the sense of wholeness and health. He is talking about the kind of peace that you can’t even describe; the kind of peace that will guard your heart, so that your heart won’t be worn out by the worldly stress.
The Greek word used here "phrourçsei" means to “guard” or “garrison,” and its noun form is the word for “fort” or “fortress.” Paul declares that God’s peace is able to guard your heart and mind like a fortress from the stresses and pressures that bring harassment and fear.
When the Bible says Jesus is the Prince of Peace, this is the kind of peace it is talking about. This peace from this Prince will guard your heart!
Your home work this week, as you wait for the Prince of Peace, is to memorize this passage—only four verses—and practice it in your daily life because it will bring you enormous peace that will give you a strong sense of security by guarding your heart and mind. May God bless you all, amen!
