This morning, we will continue in Philippians, chapter 4, verses 4-7. If you want a title to organize your thoughts, the title is "God and Our Emotional Health." By the way, we will finish this short letter by the end of February. We will alternate between a study from the Psalms in the Old Testament and the first short letter by the Apostle John beginning March.
Many hospitals and researchers have found that those who have a personal relationship with God through a worship community such as church worship and prayer group generally do better in their physical and emotional health and recovery. This morning, I’m not going to give biblical reasons for their findings, but I will offer insights from Paul’s letter to the Philippians on why and what difference God makes in our emotional health.
I like to read from a transcript by Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias, "You may recall the chess victory by the computer Deep Blue over the world champion Gary Kasparov, which caused many to compare the similarities of machines and humans. Yale professor David Gelertner disagrees.
"He writes, ’The idea that Deep Blue has a mind is absurd. How can an object that wants nothing, fears nothing, enjoys nothing, needs nothing and cares about nothing have a mind? It can win at chess, but not because it wants to. It isn’t happy when it wins or sad when it loses. What are its [post]-match plans if it beats Kasparov? Is it hoping to take Deep Pink out for a night on the town?’
"He continues: ’The gap between the human and the surrogate is permanent and will never be closed. Machines will continue to make life easier, healthier, richer and more puzzling. And humans will continue to care, ultimately, about the same things they always have: about themselves, about one another, and many of them, about God.’ What a unique capacity God has put within us-the capacity to feel."
The unique capacity to feel is not often appreciated, and for many men, "healthy" and "emotions" are not two words that show up in the same sentence. This morning, we will look at how having a personal relationship with God, where you are growing in your knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, will help you experience healthy emotions. Our passage is Philippians 4:4-7.
Many who have commented about this letter to the Philippians have titled the entire letter as a "letter of joy." You might expect a joyful letter to be written by one lover to another as they look forward to reuniting. But in this case, if you remember, Paul is writing from a prison cell, and he’s not only unsure about reuniting with the Philippians, but he’s not even sure that the Roman Emperor will allow him to keep his head on his shoulder.
Furthermore, the Christians at Philippi have very little to rejoice about. They are a minority in an anti-Christian city. Romans were suspicious of the Christians, and the religious Jewish leaders were antagonistic toward the Christians. Finally, as we saw last week, there was strife and disagreement inside the church. So Paul had to emphasize and explain to the Philippians to rejoice.
What we will study this morning cannot be thoroughly explained, because true emotional health involves the Divine. If you already have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, what you’ll hear this morning is nothing new, but a reminder, and we all need to be reminded. But if you don’t have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, I’m not sure you’ll understand everything we will talk about.
To explain the truth in Paul’s words to one who does not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ would be like trying to explain love in a marriage to a junior high girl who has a crush on a junior high boy. You might understand the words but you won’t have the experience. But if you listen carefully, you may discover good reasons for a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
In this morning’s passage, Paul calls the persecuted Christians in Philippi to experience joy, relaxation, and peace. But can one experience such emotional health when one’s circumstances and relationships don’t justify such an experience?
Paul reminds the Philippians, and I want to remind us this morning, that when you know Christ, you can rejoice always. We see this in verse 4. Paul is not calling us to rejoice in our circumstances or in our relationships with others, because our circumstances and relationships may not give us reasons to rejoice. Paul calls us to rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ always.
Paul is not calling us to always feel or experience joy. Emotional health is not a denial of evil, injustice or loss in our lives. No one can or should always feel joy. Even Jesus Christ was well acquainted with sorrow. He cried at the death of his friend, Lazarus, and He cried at the pitiful state Jerusalem was in.
Several months ago when I was between churches, I made two visits to two different hospitals on the same day. In the morning, I visited Shiqiu, and we rejoiced because God brought healing to her at a critical time. In the afternoon, I visited an elder of another church, a good friend and model to me. There, I cried because one side of his brain was already dead, and his body was beginning to break down.
Emotional health is not about being joyful all the time, but being joyful in Christ. You can rejoice in Christ only when you know Jesus Christ in a personal relationship. When a Christian speaks of knowing Christ, the Christian knows much about life that brings joy. He or she knows the meaning of life and his or her purpose in life. When you know Jesus Christ, you have a clear conscience and can retire each night with a clean slate because of the forgiveness made possible by his sacrifice on the cross.
When you know Jesus Christ, you have eternal security, hope and life beyond the grave. So I grieved for my friend, who died, but I didn’t grieve as one who had not hope. He and I knew what God promised in His Word, the Bible, that his spirit would be with Christ when he died, and he would get a new body when Christ returns in the future.
We can rejoice in a promotion or a salary increase, but they are far and few in between. We can rejoice in our vacation and even weekends, but they too do not make up the majority of our lives, unless you’re retired, and then vacations and weekends become routine and boredom sets in. We can rejoice in our popularity and successes, but both are fleeting and can be reversed at any moment. None of these objects of joy are central, fundamental or eternal.
The central, fundamental and eternal questions of life are answered in the positive for those who know Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:20 tells us, "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ’Yes’ in Christ." For those who don’t know Christ, the questions of life and death, and life after death, are truly uncertain, and joy can at most be brief.
For the Hindu, you don’t know if you will reincarnate into a nobler person or into livestock. For the Muslim, your only hope is "if Allah wills," but what if Allah does not will in your favor? For the atheist, the illusion of meaning and purpose in life come crashing down in the moments before your death. For the Christian, however, you have meaning, purpose, and a sure, unending, better destination beyond the grave.
To know Christ allows us to rejoice always, because of our confidence in Him and His promises. Joy is central, fundamental and eternal in the Christian life, while sadness is interspersed in the Christian’s earthly life. When you don’t know Christ, sadness is central and eternal, while joy is interspersed in this life. Do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Have you trusted Him as your protector and the solution for your peace with God? If you haven’t, emotional health cannot be within your reach.
Paul reminds the Philippians, and I want to remind us this morning, that when you know Christ, you can rejoice always. Not only that, when you know Christ will return, you can relax. We read this in verse 5. The Greek word translated here into "gentleness" can also be translated as "yielding, patient, lenient or relaxed." In other words, Paul was reminding us that Jesus will soon return to clean up the mess and the injustice, and His return gives us reason to be relaxed.
Paul wrote to the Romans, "This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ...." Paul wrote to Timothy, "In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom...." In other words, we have a God who will make sure that Hitler and Mother Teresa do not end up in the same place in eternity. God will let Jesus Christ judge and repay.
Do you sometimes get upset or uptight because someone wrongs you? So you repay evil with evil? Yet, God calls us to relax, because He declared that He will avenge you, and He will repay. He is the only Judge who knows all, and can judge and repay fairly.
This week, I went out to lunch with Pastor Winsome Wu, and I learned a great deal about organizing the mission ministry and how organizational leadership evolves. I had a tremendously delightful time, until my glass of water ran low. Our waitress didn’t come by for twenty minutes. We ended up getting our own water. Her service was terrible, and I wanted to repay her with a very small tip. Fortunately for her, Pastor Winsome grabbed the bill and paid it with a generous tip.
But as I studied this passage, I realize that I’m not to be so uptight, because I’m not a very good judge of others or of life’s situations. For all I know, the waitress could have had a bad morning, or her mind could have been occupied with family problems, or any number of things. Giving others the benefit of the doubt is not only good human relations, but this practice is an expression of humility, acknowledging that we cannot always judge fairly, because, unlike God who knows everything, we don’t.
Learning to relax produces good emotional health, and research has indicated that people who know how to relax and do relax live longer. Being relaxed involves letting God judge and repay. Being relaxed involves forgiving others as Christ forgave us.
Being relaxed does not mean that we don’t passionately stand up for what is right or that we permit evil to run its course. Being relaxed means we do what is right, even to intervene and stop evil or injustice. But we don’t allow hatred to be our motive or evil to be our repayment.
Paul reminds the Philippians, and I want to remind us that when you know Christ, you can rejoice always, that when you know Christ will return, you can relax, and when you give God charge of your life, you will have peace. We see this in verse 6 and 7.
Four years ago, I was a campus minister at the University of California, Davis. One night, I went walking with a young man who was a part of our fellowship. He was a great looking young man, with a great personality and was very well liked by all. Yet, he was filled with tremendous anxiety and worry about his future. On the inside, he was very insecure about his relationships, his hopes of accomplishment, and his purpose in life.
Not being trained in counseling, I prayed to God for clear thinking and the Holy Spirit led me to discern that this young man has been trying to control everything in his life. He tried to control others’ perception of him; he tried to control his definition of success; he tried to control the amount of hardship and uncertainty in his life; and he tried to control his own destiny. The illusion of such control was falling apart as he approached graduation, and as a result he was headed for an emotional breakdown.
I asked him, "Bill, (and that’s not his name), who sits at the throne of your heart? Do you sit there and rule your life, or does God sit there and rule your life? If you rule your own life, I will join you in your worry and anxiety. If God sits there and rules your life, then I can promise you by the authority of God’s Word, the Bible, that you don’t have a thing to worry about."
We knelt down on the sidewalk, and I led him in prayer to ask God to sit at the throne of his heart and to rule his life. That was another way of saying he gave God charge of his life. When we got back up, he was almost in tears because a strange peace, that couldn’t be explained, replaced the tension and worry that was in his heart just seconds before.
You need to know that Bill (not his name) already gave charge of his life to God and trusted Jesus Christ for salvation many years ago. But if he and we want the peace of God, we have to dethrone self from our hearts every morning and moment-by-moment throughout the day, and to enthrone God in our hearts.
Some might think that the peace came from shedding his responsibility to take charge of his life. We need to recognize that being responsible and taking charge are two different things. A private who takes charge in the company of an officer may be committing mutiny, while a private who carries out orders in the company of an officer is being responsible. We are all privates; Christ is our Commanding Officer.
Apathy comes from shedding our responsibilities. Peace comes from allowing God to take charge while we fulfill our responsibilities to God. Worry and anxiety comes when we try to take charge away from God, regardless of whether we keep or shed our responsibilities.
Someone has said that our limits are defined by the size of our God. So if I am my own God, my capability is sure to be small, and what I can handle is sure to be limited. Worry and anxiety will follow my every step.
When the God who can do the impossible, even to raise Jesus Christ from the dead, is my God and is in charge of me, my capability is unlimited because my God will supply all my needs. I would not be preoccupied by worry and anxiety. That is why Paul calls us to pray with our request and with our thanksgiving to God. We make request to the One Who is in charge, and we give thanks to the One Who replaces our anxiety with His peace.
Can we rejoice, relax and replace anxiety with peace apart from God? Not unless you are referring to the brief experiences of joy, relaxation and peace interspersed into our sorrow-filled, unjust and uncertain world. Emotional health comes not from periodically escaping painful, unjust and uncertain experiences, but from a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Let me summarize this morning’s message with this contrasting statement, "No God, no emotional health. But know God, know emotional health."
