Unreasonable Peace

Philippians 4:4–7 (NIV)

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

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

Introduction

Unreasonable peace…

The word unreasonable is fun, ins’t it?

If you and someone are disagreeing about something you can tell them, ‘You are bring unreasonable.”

Have you ever told someone, “You are being unreasonable”? You should try it sometime. It’s pretty liberating.

I think that one of the marks of being a follower of Jesus means that we are a bit unreasonable.

I mean we believe that Mary, who was a virgin, became pregnant and gave birth to the Messiah. That’s unreasonable.

We believe that Joseph, who was engaged to her, went forward with marrying her. That’s unreasonable.

King Herod was so mad about the birth of a Jewish Messiah that he had every baby boy killed under 2 years. That’s an unreasonable solution.

Transition

And today, I want to talk about unreasonable peace, because at this time of year we sing about peace on earth. Is that possible? Is it possible for their to be peace on earth? Is that reasonable?

According to God’s word, and according to the Biblical definition, it is.

So let’s dive into it today.

Peace is a Promise

Philippians 7 is a well known verse about the peace of God. You might have seen this verse in Hobby Lobby on a frame. Maybe on a coffee cup. It’s a verse about peace.

And as we learned last week, peace is not just the absence of conflict, but it is wholeness and completeness that God wants for our lives. When we get a picture of the kind of peace that God wants for our lives, we see the depths of His love towards us.

But you have to closely examine this scripture, because this scripture is a conditional statement. It begins with the word ‘and’, requiring that be read and apply what Paul is saying before verse 7.

Why?

Because peace is a promise. Peace is something that we enter into. And I want to teach you from Paul’s letter how we can enter into this kind of peace.

He gives us three things that we can do to receive this promised peace.

Rejoice in the Lord, Always

The first thing that we should do to enter into this promise of peace is to rejoice more.

Have you ever wondered why we constantly celebrate here at Lighthouse?

There’s a lot of cynicism around the church. The church doesn’t have the best reputation. I’m not saying the church is blameless, that’s certainly not the case. But there is also a certain level of cynicism about the mission of the church, the values of the church, and of course, why the church talks about money.

So one of the things that we do a lot here at Lighthouse is we celebrate. That’s why I’ll ask you to clap your hands. In a world full of cynicism, the church should be a community of celebration.

Think about the world around us. The news is bad. Social media is a stew of cancel culture. People argue with complete strangers in the comment section just for holding a different point of view.

And in the word of God, Paul tells us to step away from that kind of bad news, canceling, and arguing, and step into a lifestyle of celebration.

Philippians 4:4 (NIV)

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

He wanted to make sure that we understood this so he said it twice!

When we look to science and studies on the brain, we learn that for the most part our brain is almost completely developed in childhood. But there is one part of the brain that continues to develop into adulthood, and that is the right orbital prefrontal cortex.

Do you know what section of this brain is called? The joy center.

Let me read to you what one author observed;

“When the joy center has been sufficiently developed, it regulates emotions, pain control and immunity centers; it guides us to act like ourselves; it releases neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin; and it is the only part of the brain that overrides the main drive centers - food and sexual impulses, terror and rage.”

Let me summarize what the author was saying that joy becomes a strength.

The more joy that we have, the less emotional we become.

We aren’t on a rollercoaster of emotions.

The more joy that we have, the greater our ability to control pain.

Yes, we will have pain in our lives. We’re human. But we’ve got joy in our lives so that when the pain comes, and it will come, it will not break us.

The more joy that we have, we can actually push back sickness in our body.

Some people are addicted to being sick.

Now this is a less spiritual example, but let me just say this. You can be a Tigger or you can be an Eeyore. You all remember these characters from Winnie the Pooh?

Eeyore was a downer! And have you met anyone like that? You’re afraid to ask them how they are doing because you’re having a good day; no, a great day! And you don’t want an Eeyore to bring you down.

But Tiggers?

Do you remember Tigger had a song?

Here’s the intro to the Tiggers song.

“The wonderful thing about Tiggers, Is Tiggers are wonderful things”

I mean come on! A guy like that has no shortage of joy, and no matter what mood you’re in, he’s lifting you up!

So you need to make a decision to rejoice.

Let Your Gentleness Be Your Witness

Philippians 4:5 (NIV)

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.

Everyone say gentleness.

Gentleness is Our Message

Let me just say this to everyone here.

There is nothing that could ever go wrong with each of you being more gentle with others. Nothing.

And listen, right now. Things aren’t easy.

I was spending time with a group of Pastors last week, and most of them are from out of state, and they couldn’t believe the cost of living here in California. I know that it’s been normalized for many of you, but for many, many others, it’s not. It’s a struggle.

And I can’t think of anything worse than a follower of Jesus to somehow excuse their lack of gentleness with others. Especially with those who don’t know Jesus.

I know I might sound like an overbearing Dad right now, but I’m just tired of seeing people in the church somehow justify their immaturity by not being gentle with others. We got too many angry Christians in the church, looking to start fights with people who don’t think like them.

Pastor Rich Villodas tweeted this out:

It really is a curious evangelism strategy to despise the people you are trying to convert to Jesus.

Church. Be gentle.

And watch what it does to them.

And then watch what it does to you.

It feels good to make other people feel better.

John 13:35 (NIV)

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Pray About Everything

The last thing that Paul encourages us to do to enter into the promise of peace is that we are to pray about everything.

I recently read a book, and you should too, and it’s called I’m worried about everything because I pray about nothing. The book is based right off of this verse right here.

Philippians 4:6 (NIV)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Last week I talked about anxiety and how it is on the rise.

It continues rising because we haven’t learned how to pray.

Prayer requires of me to do a few things:

Worship - we come to prayer with a posture of worshipping God. We do this through praise, thanksgiving, and then just for who He is.

Release - we then turn things over to Him in our moments of prayer. “God, here are the things that I am struggling with,” “Here are the things that I think are completely out of my control,” “Here are the things that are taking my peace.” And then when you release it to him, don’t pick it back up again. Leave it right there. Resist the urge to pick up the things that you’ve been drawn in to lay down.

Receive - finally, we sit in the quiet and wait to hear on God. We wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to us. We don’t ding dong ditch God. We wait until we receive from him.

And Paul says, when you pray, you’re going to lose your anxiety.

Conclusion

As we live life doing these things, we get to experience this verse right here.

Philippians 4:7 (NIV)

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

The completeness and the wholeness of God, which is far beyond all of our understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds.

I want to receive this peace from God! I want to live this peace with God!

So what can I do?

I can Rejoice

I can be Gentle with others

I can Pray always

And as I do this, I believe the promise of peace will come into your life.

Now, many of you are tracking with me, but as I said earlier, there is a lot of cynicism toward the Bible and the teachings in the Bible.

So let me close by giving you some context of the author and this letter. Paul was writing this letter to the church in Philippi in response to a letter he read from them.

The church in Philippi was started by Paul. We read about it in the Book of Acts.

Paul traveled into Macedonia to preach the Gospel, and he was thrown into jail. When he and his friend Silas were in jail, he began to sing and praise the Lord. When this happened his prison chains fell from off of his wrist, and his feet, and the prison doors were opened so they could leave. The guard on duty that night was making his rounds when he saw that the prison doors were open. He thought for sure that his prisoners, Paul and Silas, had left. He was so afraid of the repercussions that would follow that he decided to take his own life. Paul called out to him and told him, “We’re still here bro! We’re good! No need to take your life.”

This prison guard then gave his life to Christ. Then his family gave his life to Jesus. And they were part of the Church that began in Philippi.

Now, fast forward, Paul is in another prison in Rome. He’s under house arrest for preaching the Gospel once again. He receives a letter from the Church in Philippi. They are asking him, “How are you? Can we help you? What can we do for you, Paul?”

And Paul, while under house arrest, begins to tell them:

I want to report to you, friends, that my imprisonment here has had the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of being squelched, the Message has actually prospered. All the soldiers here, and everyone else, too, found out that I’m in jail because of this Messiah. That piqued their curiosity, and now they’ve learned all about him. Not only that, but most of the followers of Jesus here have become far more sure of themselves in the faith than ever, speaking out fearlessly about God, about the Messiah.

Philippians 1:12-14 The Message

So for those of you who are hearing me and thinking, “Man, that must have been easy for Paul to say. He wasn’t going through what I am going through. He doesn’t get me. He doesn’t have my struggles. He doesn’t understand what I am going through.”

Remember… Paul was talking about peace while he was under arrest. Paul was encouraging them, when he was in confinement.

Maybe it’s not that Paul doesn’t get you, but that you don’t get Paul.

Paul had unreasonable peace. And he wants for you to also have this kind of peace.

When he had every reason to be anxious. When he had every reason to be upset. When he had every reason to be in his feelings he made a choice.

I’m going to rejoice.

I’m going to be gentle with others.

I’m going pray a lot.

And when I do this… *breather deep* I’m going to enter into the Peace of God.

The Call

Church, do you want to breathe in the peace of God today? Do you want to replace the feeling of pressure with the feeling of peace today?

Let’s pray together, and commit to these three things.