Ok, I know the odds. I have a greater chance of getting struck by
lightning (especially in South Florida) than to have a terrorist attack me. But here’s the difference. I can see the lightning coming. I can even get out of its way. But some crazed guy (and it usually is a guy)
with a knife or a bomb or a gun, that’s a lot harder to see coming. So yes I know, I’m more likely to get
killed in an accident on 95 than by a killer from ISIS, but the whole thing still
rattles me a bit. I guess that’s why
call it terrorism. That’s what they
want to inspire, terror.
And if that doesn’t rattle your cage, take your
pick. You have mosquitoes carrying Zika. You have the rising tide of climate change
that make South Florida one of the most threatened places on the planet. You have a Presidential election that hardly
anyone seems happy about.
But even so, let’s be honest. No one is bombing homes or cities like in
Syria. Unlike Venezuela, no one is dying because they can’t get basic medications. You and I still live in the richest nation
in the world, a place more stable, peaceful, and well provided for than pretty
much anywhere else. Yet, in the world,
no one gets more anxious than Americans.
We are No. 1. Roughly one in
five Americans suffer from serious anxiety, and over a lifetime one in 3 will.
Why is that?
More importantly, how do you not become part of that statistic? How do you live at peace in a seriously
anxious time? How do you live content
when so many are filled with such discontent?
In these words from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, God shows
the way. Let’s hear what God has to
say.
In a nation where so many get caught up in anxiety
and fear, how do you not get caught up? How
do you find peace and keep it, even if your life may seem to be going off the
rails? In these words from the Apostle
Paul, God shows the way. Peace happens
when you stop focusing on happiness, and instead rest in joy. And how does that joy and peace come? It comes as you ponder truth, as you give
thanks, as you rejoice in what cannot change.
How can a nation with such wealth, so many cool
gadgets, so much diversion and entertainment be so unhappy and anxious? It’s because so many believe that happiness
is what they need instead of realizing that joy trumps happiness every
time. Now don’t misunderstand me. Nothing is wrong with happiness. But
happiness has a problem. It doesn’t
last.
The Greeks had a lot of wisdom in the words that
they created. And when it came to the
word they used for happiness, and the word they used for joy, you can see their
wisdom at work. Their word for
happiness, Makarios, they used to describe the rich’s freedom from normal cares
and concerns or the luck of someone winning the lottery. In other words, they connected happiness to circumstances,
and circumstances come and go. But the word they used for joy, chairo, they
described as the good mood of the soul, as a fullness of being, in other words,
something not affected by circumstance.
If circumstances can take away joy, what can? The Greeks knew that. It’s why they made the opposite of joy not
sadness, but fear.
And that’s why Paul almost immediately moves to
focus on peace. Paul knows that joy and
peace always go together, and that fear and anxiety stand as their greatest
enemies.
In our culture, we think of peace often as an
absence of something, of worry or stress.
But in the Bible peace always describes a fullness; a fullness so
complete that it simply leaves no room for fear and anxiety to exist. Instead, you become filled with joy and
peace, a peace so great that it can even defy rational understanding.
When my family lived in New Orleans, my parents became
close friends with the DeZwaan family, a family that seemed so perfect they
could have been candidates for a Crest commercial. But no family, not even the perfect looking
ones are immune to awful things. The
DeZwaans moved up to Baton Rouge, and the parents, Ken and Marjorie bought a
weekend home on the lake. One Sunday evening
as they were finishing up there, Ken and Marjorie, asked their son, Gary to take
his sisters and their friend in his new car to the church youth meeting. They would follow behind a few minutes
later. And as Ken and Marjorie headed down the
highway, they saw an accident. Ken
pulled over to see if he could help.
Then they both realized. They
knew the car. It was Gary’s car, the one
they had just given him as a high school graduation present. A car driven by a drunk driver had crossed
the highway median and hit Gary’s car head on.
No one in Gary’s car survived. In one awful moment, Ken and Marjorie lost
all three of their children. In her shock
and grief, Marjorie cried out. “Oh, Jesus, help me.” And instantly in the midst of that horrific
scene, she felt a peace she could not understand. That peace carried Ken and Marjorie to the
hospital rooms of the men who had killed their children so they could offer
them their forgiveness. It led them on
the day when my father showed up for the funeral of their children (3 caskets
lined up in the front of the church), for Ken and Marjorie, to ask about one of
his, my brother Jes, who was going through serious health issues. And to this day, that peace has carried
them, and led them to tell the story of God’s faithfulness in the midst of their
tragedy again and again. Now how does
that peace happen, peace that literally defies understanding?
It happens when you rigorously ponder the truth, the
deepest realities of life. What do I
mean? I mean what Paul means when he
says that whatever is true and pure and honorable, think on those things. Now that sentence can seem somewhat generic
unless you know what those words mean to Paul.
The words he uses here, he uses in other places to describe his core
beliefs about God, about God’s love and grace, God’s purpose for the
world. In other words, Paul is telling
the Philippians, when worry and fears hit, ponder the deepest truths of life. Now why does Paul advise them to do
that? He knows. The more you ponder what is most deeply and
profoundly true, the more that truth will free you from worry and fear.
Ironically many self-help books advise the
opposite. They don’t encourage you to
ponder the deep questions of life. Instead
they often advise techniques to avoid those questions or at least to find ways
to quiet them. And that makes
sense. After all, if the only answers to
the deep questions of life are that life has no purpose, that no being exists
who can bring order out of chaos or good out of evil, that death is simply the
end, no more and no less, well that doesn’t do much to foster peace or hope. Those books actually a void facing the
implications of those beliefs, but the Bible tells you when worry and fears
hit, that’s when you need to see the implications of what you believe more than
ever. Why? The truth that Christianity proclaims says. Life does have purpose. God does have a plan,
one that can bring good out of the worst evil.
Nothing will defeat God’s love ever, not even death. And when you ponder those truths, reflect
on them, gain comfort from them, it fills you with a peace and confidence that
can withstand anything.
And how do you best ponder those truths? You do it by practicing thanksgiving. I used to think that Paul when he said to
make supplication with thanksgiving. He
meant that, before you ask God for something, remember all the things you
already have to be grateful for. That
sort of thanking gives you crucial perspective. But Paul was going further than that. Paul was saying that when you ask God for an
answer, go ahead and thank God for the answer even before you know what the
answer is. Now why would you thank God
even before you’ve have any answer to your prayer? You do so, so that you can remember whatever
God’s answer will be, it will be the answer that you would have chosen if you
knew what God knew.
And if you doubt that, look at the cross. On the day that the Romans killed Jesus, do
you think his disciples saw anything good happening? No, they left in despair. They thought that God had left the building,
when in reality on that cross, in that awful place, God was doing the greatest
act of goodness and love ever. Now if
God can do that in the utter evil of the cross, do you think God is going to be
stymied by any situation in your life?
Over a decade ago, I had a dream of where I wanted
my next church to be. I dreamed of
serving this church for years. And
guess what, my dream church wasn’t in Hollywood. It was in Pittsburgh. And I came close to getting it. I was in the semi-finals so to speak. But after my last interview, I knew it. They didn’t even need to send me a
letter. I was not going to Pittsburgh. And it bummed me out. But I look back now, and I wonder. What was I thinking? I would have been miserable in
Pittsburgh. If nothing else, it’s one of
the cloudiest places on the planet, and I love the sun. God knew.
You don’t need to be in Pittsburgh.
You need to be in Hollywood, and thank God, God’s answers were wiser
than my prayers.
If God really cares about you, wants the best for
you, and can even work that best out for you, than thanking God even as you ask
makes perfect sense. And the more you
thank like that, the more you open yourself to a peace and contentment that
nothing can shake. Why? Because it is a
peace and contentment rooted in the only thing that cannot change ever.
In Paul’s day, the philosophers struggled to
understand what truly would bring contentment, real peace. And most of them had come to the same
conclusion. People failed to be content
because they looked for the source of contentment in things not ultimately under
their control. So say, they found
contentment in family, but family can change. Divorces, death, divisions wreck families every
day. And the same could be said of
success or wealth or popularity. So what
was their solution? They said. Don’t look to outward things, which you can’t
control or depend upon. Those things will
change. Look inside to your virtues,
your character, which you can control.
There you have something that can remain unchangeable. But Paul and later the great Christian
thinker, Augustine, saw how weak that argument was. They said.
“Don’t kid yourself. Your virtue
isn’t under your control. How come you
find yourselves driven to do things that you know are wrong, that in your heart
of hearts you don’t really want to do. Yet you do it. You can hardly control your virtues better
than your family or success or anything else.
In the end, only one reality in the universe does
not change.. And what is that? God, and not simply God, but God’s love; God’s
unbreakable desire for your good; for
your well-being; for your fulfillment and joy.
In that and only in that will you find the peace and joy you seek,
because only in that do you find what will never change.
How can you know that? You
can know that because you know Jesus. A
God who loves you no matter what, that’s a nice concept, a comforting one. But concepts don’t transform your heart. But when you see that concept lived out in
flesh and blood, God dying for you in flesh and blood, well, that will
transform you.
When God in Jesus went to that cross, do you think he had peace? That he had joy? No. He lost his peace in that dark and despairing place. He cried out. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? He had no joy. The brutality and pain of those hours emptied him of joy. But he willingly gave up his peace so that you might know a peace that passes understanding He forsook his joy to open the way to joy for you now and forever. And God did all that willingly, freely, out of love for you. At any moment, Jesus could have walked away, could have ended the agony. But Jesus stayed on that cross, because even there, utterly alone and beset by evil at its worst, God’s love for you did not change. And if God’s love did not break under that, then it will never break. Death won’t break it. Your failings won’t break it. Your doubts won’t break it. And the more you realize that unchangeable truth, the more joy will fill you and with it peace, a peace that pushes away fear, a peace that passes all understanding.
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