Got Peace? Give Thanks! Philippians 4:4-7

GOT PEACE? GIVE THANKS!

Philippians 4:4-7

Introduction: What do you think of on Thanksgiving? For many Americans it’s family, food, and football!  Some don’t even call it Thanksgiving any more, it’s just “Turkey Day.”  Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation is something we can hear afresh today:

"It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens." 

I don’t think America has ever been a theocracy, and we may never get such a call from a President of the United States again, but as individual believers, and as the Church, we should not only on a designated day, but every day, be marked by an attitude of gratitude toward the Lord. It’s something that should characterize us as believers.

       According to the Apostle Paul one attitude that marks unbelievers, along with a failure to honor Him for who He is, is that they do not give Him thanks, “…²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools…” (Rom 1:21-22).  Tremper Longman commented on this verse saying that it shows, at one level, that every human knows God, that is, they know that He exists. But for the non-Christian, they don’t honor Him, or give thanks. Ingratitude flows from unbelief. I always am intrigued when an unbeliever says “I am thankful.” What do they mean? How can you be thankful when you don’t acknowledge the One who is deserving of all honor and glory? Who are they thankful to? A genuinely thankful heart is an attitude that flows from a life that has been redeemed by the grace of God. One writer said “Thankfulness is the spontaneous expression of pleasure in the gift and the Giver.” I love that, we’re thankful for what He has done, we praise Him for who He is. Our love and joy in knowing the Giver has to be the foundation for the Christian. Jonathan Edwards called love for the Giver the “foundation of gratitude”:

True gratitude or thankfulness to God for his kindness to us, arises from a foundation laid before, of love to God for what he is in himself; whereas a natural gratitude has no such antecedent foundation. The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on... God's own excellency.

That points to our pleasure in the Giver, not just the gift, our delight in God who chose us and who loves us.

The Big Idea: Because of who God is and what He has done for us, believers have reason to be thankful in every situation of life.

I. A thankful heart is full of joy: “Rejoice in the Lord always…” (4).

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!”

            “Rejoice…” How can we rejoice always?  It’s not an emotion or a feeling that we have, but, as Gordon Fee says, “…it is a deep down confidence that God is in control of everything for the believer’s good and for his own glory, and thus all is well no matter what the circumstances.” It doesn’t mean that we rejoice because of painful or difficult circumstances – but we know we can trust God in the midst of the storm! It’s helpful here to remember the circumstance in which Paul is writing this letter. He is a prisoner, most likely in Rome. It seems likely to me that this is the Roman imprisonment we see at the end of the Book of Acts. There was some doubt as to the outcome, whether he would be released, left in chains, or put to death.  Remember also that the Philippians knew Paul, he had been arrested there as well back in Acts 16, at that time Paul was miraculously released. It was then that the Philippian jailer came to faith in Christ. Now years later, it was unclear how this imprisonment would end, but Paul was full of joy, absolutely convinced that God is sovereign, in absolute control of history, and of our place in “His story.” The better we know Him, the more that confidence is going to fill our hearts and give us joy in both the gift and the Giver.

            “…in the Lord…” It’s because we are in Christ, a part of the new creation that we can rejoice. We belong to the king of kings, the creator of the universe knows us and we are his. We are in the world, and in the world we will have tribulation, but that is temporary.  What is permanent and real and goes beyond the circumstance of the moment is that we are “IN CHRIST.”  Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17,

 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

The English translations all have problems with this verse and as a result the tendency has been to emphasize the idea that when we become a Christian our life is changed, we’re a “new creature.” That is true, but I don’t think that is the main idea here. A woodenly literal translation would be, “If then anyone is in Christ – a new creation! The old things are gone, and look, the new have come!” The idea is that we are part, already, in a preliminary sense, of the New Creation that God has promised. This is already/not yet of New Testament theology that seems to me to be at the heart of the Christian life. Like Paul said to the Colossians, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son…” (Col 1:13).

            Because that is our position, our new reality in Christ, we can rejoice in the Lord “…always…” It’s not only when things go well, or go our way or according to our plan that we can have joy – we have a peace in times of chaos, even when we don’t understand, because we know the Lord of Creation, the King, the Author of the Big Story, and we know His plan is always good.  Just for emphasis Paul repeats the exhortation: “I’ll say it again, Rejoice!”  Because of who God is and what He has done for us, believers have reason to be thankful in every situation of life.

II. A thankful heart is marked by gentle forbearance (5a).

“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.”

 “Let your gentle spirit be known…” This phrase has suffered various translations.  The Message is more of a commentary than a translation but I find it helpful, it says: “Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you are on their side, working with them and not against them”. MacArthur suggests the term has the idea of “charity toward the faults of others, big heartedness.”  Fee suggests as a translation “gentle forbearance.”  There is an interesting play on words here: later he’ll say we make our requests known to God- but to our fellow humans – in the church and out – because of our joy in the Lord, our grateful heart toward Him, we give evidence of, we “make known,” a “gentle spirit” toward our fellow sojourners in this life.  People need to know that we care, genuinely about them, that we extend grace toward them. They need to understand that we really want them to know and experience God’s best.  We can be patient with others because of who God is and what He has done for us, and as believers, as recipients of grace, we have reason to be thankful in every situation of life.

III. We can be thankful that the Lord is near, so there is no need to worry, there is nothing to fear (5b-6a).

“The Lord is at hand;  ⁶ do not be anxious about anything…”

            Why is it that joy and gratitude fill our hearts? “The Lord is near…”  Psalm 145:18 says “the Lord is near to all who call on Him.” Whether Paul is referring to the nearness of the Lord’s return (which is true), or the promise of his presence here and now (which is also a fact), this statement of fact seems to be the motivation to live a life that reflects God’s grace and mercy to our fellow humans, and also to give a basis for the next phrase, “Don’t worry about anything!”

“Be anxious for nothing…”  Virtually every one of us will experience anxiety at one time or another.  The reason Paul puts this statement in this letter is that even 2000 years ago anxiety was a problem.  We don’t need to be paralyzed by the pressures, and trials, and chaos of life.  Why panic when we can pray? Jesus uses this phrase several times….

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  ²⁷ Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  ²⁸ "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  ³¹ So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:25-34).

Worry, anxiety, they accomplish nothing, at least nothing positive. Because of who God is and what He has done for us, believers have reason to be thankful in every situation of life.

IV. Rather than worry, we can pray with thanksgiving to God in every situation of life (6b).

“…but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” 

“…but in everything…” The contrast is emphatic. Not only should we not be anxious, but this is what we should do instead, in “everything,” that is, every situation of life this is what we need to do. Not only when we experience what seem to be “showers of blessing,” but even in times of darkness and storm and uncertainty, we need to look up to Him.

“…by prayer and supplication…” We can go to the Lord of the Universe, the God who knows us and loves us, the all-powerful Creator.  He bids us come, He is waiting patiently to hear from us.  Do you believe in prayer? What an invitation we have, to come into the presence of Yahweh, our Lord and Master, and bring our requests and needs to Him.

“…with thanksgiving…” Expressing our requests is to come by prayer, “with thanksgiving.” I don’t think we go thanking him for trials or difficulties – but the point is in spite of them we can still be thankful to God.  Think about it: We are forgiven – we have eternal life!  In that beautiful litany of praise at the end of Romans 8 we read,

“As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." [That is what we see, that is our experience in this present age isn’t it?]  ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,  ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:36-39).

If you can reflect on that, try to get your mind around it, bask in the truth of it, you will overflow with thankfulness for the gift and especially for the Giver.

“…let your requests be made know to God…” Still he wants us to come, asking, knocking, seeking. It’s how we affirm our dependence upon Him, our trust in Him. Our little granddaughter Arden just turned two. She doesn’t talk a lot yet. Well, actually she does talk a lot, we just can’t understand most of it! But when she is doing something and gets stuck or has a problem her tone will change and she’ll whimper, “HELP ME!” Our prayers may sound like that to God. Our cries for help to Father, acknowledging our need, affirming our confidence that He can handle whatever we are facing.  Now when the child or grand-child call out for help, we immediately look, but sometimes we see that this is something that they need to figure out and work through, and as they do, they’ll learn and grow.  Abba is always watching, He really does know best. Because of who God is and what He has done for us believers have reason to be thankful always.

V. As we come to God and express our trust and thankfulness to Him, He promises to guard our hearts and minds with His peace (7).

⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

“And the peace of God…”  God is the source of real peace. It’s not just an absence of conflict, it relates to the idea of Shalom in the Old Testament. We live in a world disoriented by sin, but as we know God, and go to Him in prayer, with thanksgiving, he leads us to a place of rest, a place of confidence, of a calmness and assurance that God is still there, He hasn’t changed, He still loves us, and He will work all things together for our good and for His glory.

            Notice that it is a peace “…which surpasses all comprehension…” It’s not logical, it goes beyond human wisdom, understanding or comprehension.  It’s a supernatural calmness that comes from knowing God, and trusting that He is near, that He is present and working, and absolutely trustworthy.

God’s peace “…will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  The image is of God’s peace, watching over our hearts and our minds, in Christ.  He is our watchman, a sentry, always on guard, protecting us, ever vigilant.  Remember the story of the little child frightened by a terrible thunderstorm.  Finally his eyes started to grow weary and he asked, “Mommy, are you sure God never sleeps?” The answer came, “That’s right, he never sleeps!”  “Well, I guess I’ll go to sleep then, there is no sense both of us staying awake!”  David was reflecting on God’s care in the midst of a time of crisis in his life when he said in Psalm 3, “…I lay down and sleep, I awake, for the Lord sustains me…”  He recognized that God was caring for him, even when he was most vulnerable. What are the storms that frighten you today? If they don’t frighten you, do they rob your joy, or damper your thankfulness?  It can be problems in the family or at work, it could be a bad report from the doctor, or a crushing financial need. Whatever we face, rather than being overwhelmed by anxiety, we can have peace.

What is God saying to me in this passage? Because of who God is and what He has done for us, believers have reason to be thankful in every situation of life.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage?  Thanksgiving is more than family, food, and football, especially for those who know the King of all creation, the Lord of History, the Savior of all who come to Him in faith. This week think of Him, who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Think, and then thank Him for His amazing grace.                          AMEN.