Embracing Uncertainty, Part 3

I am 50 years old, which makes
me on the outer edge of that denomination, the baby boomer
denomination. And just as I will argue with
John Magnuson from time to time that Colorado, at least Fort
Collins, is not part of the Midwest. The Midwest starts on the other
side of I-25. It is a very clear line of demarcation
that allows me to tell you that I am not a baby boomer. Nevertheless,
I grew up at the tail end of the hippie movement. I grew up
hearing all about, you know, the things that they thought
were important. not the least of which was the
peace movement. And as such, I was introduced
to what was, unbeknownst to me, a new symbol called the peace
symbol. And I was fascinated by it as
a boy. And I can remember in my enterprising
youth seizing upon this symbol as an early opportunity to make
a few bucks. What happened was, we lived in
a neighborhood that was enduring a lot of new construction and
everywhere we would go where they were putting in phone lines,
we would find piles of colored wire of all kinds of shapes and
all sizes of wire and just as many colors as in the rainbow.
And what I would do is twist two different colors of wire
together and twist them into a circle and then insert that
little chicken foot that is the peace symbol. And then I would
take those to my respective schools, grade school or junior high eventually,
and I would sell those peace symbols for a quarter or something. It was quite a little business
I had going for a while. But the fascinating thing is
I thought about it because I thought about the whole 60s and the peace
movement and the hippies and all the rest of it. You would
think that with that focus on peace. That the largest boom of children
that America at least has ever known, the baby boom generation. That their influence would have
been so great. Their impact on society so profound
that peace would have come to our culture. Peace between the
races, peace between religions, peace between men and women,
peace between various cultures. And that that peace would over
flood our land and extend even to the globe. Peace between nations,
peace between warring factions, peace. But the truth is, as we
saw a couple of weeks ago, this generation is no closer to embracing
peace than any before it. In fact, in many ways, it’s further
away, isn’t it? Personal peace is absolutely
elusive. We talked about the absolute
dependency that this generation has on counseling. The most counseled generation
of all, the most drug addicted generation of all, the most alcohol
dependent generation of all, all brought on because they have
not found personal peace. They are in a constant pursuit
for something more. The problem wasn’t that they
were longing and desiring peace that in and of itself was a good
thing. They just went looking in all the wrong places. Paul
tells us where to find peace. And Paul tells us where to find
peace in Philippians, chapter four, if you would, the bulletin
is the passages there in the bulletin with place for notes,
if you choose. But if you would turn to Philippians,
chapter four, Once again, to this passage where
Paul ultimately will tell us how to find peace. Paul said, Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving,
let your request be made known to God and the peace of God,
which surpasses all comprehension. shall guard your hearts and your
minds in Christ Jesus.” Be anxious for nothing. That’s how we started.
As we looked at the whole desire here to embrace uncertainty,
because that’s what brings about stress. That’s what brings about
the lack of peace. That’s what brings about the
anxiety about which Paul speaks. It is uncertainty. It’s not knowing
what’s coming, good or bad. And it stresses us out. And we
go to pieces internally. And eventually, externally, we
fall apart. We are to embrace uncertainty,
Paul says. And we looked at these three
facets that he provides for us in this passage, that these paces,
as it were, that a child of God progresses in faith. First of
all, we saw that a child of God is to make a resolution of faith.
Before you fall on your knees, there must be some kind of a
resolution that I’m going to do this on my knees as opposed
to worry and fret and wringing my hands in fear. There must
be some kind of a resolution. Paul says, be anxious for nothing. Make that resolution. Determine
in your heart and in your mind that you’re going to do another
thing. And not this. King James, we
clarified, says be careful for nothing. It doesn’t mean that
we’re not supposed to care about anyone or anything. Quite the
opposite. It is an overworked care. It
is a care that is distrustful of God as being incapable or
unable or unwilling to step in. And so we must care more than
God. Another form of the translation
was no more helpful. It said, take no thought. Which
is overplayed as well and misleading. The word can be used in a good
way. We are exhorted in Scripture
to care about certain things, but what Paul is pointing to
here is an anxiousness, a brooding over something. The verb, as
I indicated a couple of weeks ago, talks about a distraction
of mind that is so focused on the problem that it can’t focus
on anything else. As one pastor said it, we are
not to be over careful. We are not to be over anxious.
And while a prudent provision for the future is right, a wearying,
corrosive, self-tormenting anxiety is always wrong. As we saw, this care can be positive. But what Paul is talking about
here is not simply a loving care for our brothers and sisters
in Christ, It is not simply a responsible care for our God given duties. It is a negative here, it is
a care that degenerates into worry and anxiety. As one pastor
characterized it, he said it is the anxiety to be guarded
against. Is that state of mind in which one worries himself
to know more than he is able or to reach something too far
beyond him or anxious to make provision for every contingency? And as humans, we can’t do that.
To guard against every suspected evil, to protect himself against
feared failures and disasters, we can’t do that. That is encapsulated
in the unknown. As I said, one of my chief delights
is getting to go over these passages and to dig deeper and deeper
into writings and sermons. I found this statement by a Puritan
this past week who said about anxiety and the tendency toward
it, these words, he said, within our hearts by nature, my brethren,
there is rioting and turbulence. the will warring with the conscience,
the fleshly lusts stifling the spiritual aspirations, and all
over the dark shadow of a fear. Amid all the joys that we have,
the thought more or less definite of sin and its desserts still
enters into mar happiness.” Do you hear what he’s saying? He
says regardless of the fact that you’re in Christ, regardless
of the fact that you enjoy certain joys, In the grace of God, there
is always that ever-present specter of sin. He goes on to say, this
thought is ever a skeleton at the feast, a bitter in the cup
of sweet, a blighting shadow on the flowery path, so long
as there is dissension in the depths of our hearts, so long
as we carry about us a half-acknowledged conviction. Did you hear that? He said even the best saint can
degenerate in his care into worry and anxiety because of a half
acknowledged conviction. Listen once again. The thought. Pardon me, so long as there is
a dissension in the depths of our hearts. So long as we carry
about with us a half acknowledged conviction that we must have
been made for some and far higher and nobler than we have attained,
we cannot possibly have true, satisfying peace. In other words,
we need to fix our thinking. We need to remember that we are
children of God, that God has sent his son for us and that
we have been seized, rescued out of this fallen, despicable
world. We are on the path of righteousness
and that God will not quit. God will not finish with us until
the work is indeed complete. We are to embrace uncertainty,
we are not to cower in fear from it, we are not to be worked up
about what we cannot figure out. But as I said last week, those
words in and of themselves, If that’s all that was written here,
I would say they would be among the most cruel in all of Scripture.
Cruel words, if that’s all it was written. Don’t worry. Be
happy. Like the world tells us. As we were considering the paces
of progress in faith, we saw that a child of God must not
only make a resolution of faith. But he must implement a replacement
for worry. There’s got to be something to
fill the void. And Paul gives it right here. Be anxious for
nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. It’s impossible. From a human standpoint to carry
out the mere resolve not to worry. As I said last week, if this
verse contained that opening clause only be anxious for nothing,
it’s cruel. As if we can just flip the switch
of worry. If Scripture gave us no insight,
no instruction as to how to move from anxiousness to faith, practical
faith, it would be cruel to the extreme. But the passage doesn’t
just stop there. Scripture doesn’t just coldly
and callously issue a command, don’t worry. It goes on to give us the only
cure for an anxious heart, and that is prayer, communion with
God. Paul says, be anxious for nothing,
but let your request be made known to God. We pause there
because the words are interesting. It’s an interesting preposition. That we are to put our request
before the face of God. It is a telling God of what we
want. And that is the bottom line of
this whole sentence. We are to inform God, as it were. We are to keep God in the loop.
We are to let God in on our situation. And I know that sounds strange
to us. But that’s essentially what Philippians says. I’m not
suggesting for a moment that God is unaware, that God is ignorant
of our situation, our plight. Psalm 139, which we read last
week, you have searched me and known me. You know everything
about me. And yet it is exactly as if God
needed the information, that’s how Paul says it. Let your requests
be made known to God. And it is exactly as if God needed
the information that we are to come to him as his children.
And to put our requests before His loving face.” And Paul said, there and only
there is where you find practical peace, day-to-day living peace. The peace which Paul speaks about
in verse 7. In these paces in our progress
of faith, a child of God not only makes a resolution of faith,
he not only implements a replacement for worry, but he or she will
ultimately enjoy a reaping of peace. Look at verse 7, if you
would, where Paul says, And the peace of God, which surpasses
all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus.” There’s where we find peace. The Christian who resolves not
to worry and instead replaces that worry with prayer enjoys
a bountiful harvest of peace This piece, as we have detailed
in weeks past, is not the peace with God that we enjoy that Romans
5.1 and other passages speak of. There is that peace with
God that the child of God comes to know. But no sooner does the
child of God raise up from those knees of repentance in the early
hours of faith in coming to Christ and feeling that peace that he
has with the Savior who he used to be at war with. And then comes
life. The life to be lived, the life
full of anxiousness and worries and troubles and strife and trials,
even persecution. New opportunities. to drive that
peace back into the corner. This isn’t the peace that we
first sense initially with God. It’s not the peace of justification
that we have come to know, but it is the practical daily peace
that the Christian is to walk with. And you can have a taste
of the one and be almost totally devoid of the other. You can
know God and know that you are at peace with Him. You can know
that you are in Christ and be worrying your head off all the
way. Jesus said that He was interested
in imparting to His disciples not just that peace of reconciliation
with a holy God, He wanted his disciples to know the peace of
being able to walk with God day by day, moment by moment, trustingly,
in faith, just as we came to Him for our salvation. Jesus
said in John 14, 27, Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to
you. Not as the world gives, do I
give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled.”
These men knew Christ already. These men were surely saved. Why then did Jesus have to say,
do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful? The peace that Paul is talking
about here, the peace that Jesus wanted to impart to His disciples,
is the peace of inner calm, the quietness of heart, the serenity
of mind that is brought about by the realized presence of God. Pardon me, it is the Spirit of
God who produces the peace of God in the heart of the child
of God. As one said it, peace is the
smile of God reflected in the soul of the believer. It is the
heart’s calm after Calvary’s storm. It is the firm conviction
that he who spared not his own son will freely give us all things. It is God. It is the God given
reward resulting from joyful reflection on God’s bounties. That’s peace. That’s that day
to day practical peace about which Paul speaks here. It is
trusting. in a sovereign God, in his infinite
wisdom and in a God who has the power to do whatever it is he
needs to do to accomplish his will in our lives, regardless
of whatever storms or troubles are without. The book of Isaiah, chapter 26,
3, a verse that many of us would memorize as being just an ongoing
principle of Scripture. The steadfast of mind you will
keep in perfect peace because he trusts in you. It is those
who are trusting in God that God is going to respond and keep
in perfect peace. And we’ll see that unfold for
us right in this passage. That it’s God who sends, as it
were, a garrison on the hill to watch over our hearts and
lives to protect that precious commodity of peacefulness of
heart. Paul said it likewise to the
Colossians. when he said, let the peace of
Christ rule in your hearts. Sometimes we’ll let it in as
a visitor, right? We’ll let it in as a visitor,
and visitors are okay as long as they don’t come in and put
their feet on the coffee table. And even a visitor, right? Sometimes
you can’t wait to just kick the door right behind them. Here’s
your hat. What’s your hurry? We’ll allow peace to come in
as a visitor. But to come in and to rule? To have sway over everything that
we do and to not let ourselves be shuttered or worried by anything? That’s a little much to ask of
a guest. Peace isn’t asking to come in
as a guest. Paul says, let the peace of Christ
rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one
body and be thankful. What is in focus here is not
the peace with God secured by Christ’s death imparted to us
through justification. It isn’t that kind of peace. Paul refers to it as the peace
of God because it is God who provides it. Not so much because
it is a character quality of God, although that is true. If
you ever thought of anyone who is serenely at peace, it is God
sitting on His throne, undistracted and undisturbed by all the things
that are going on in the world. He’s not worried about Iran’s
nukes. He’s not worried about what goes
on here in our culture, in our society. He’s not worried about
who’s in charge. We can hardly conceive of a God
as worrisome, can we? Would that even be a God? A fretful
being? Such a one would be no God at
all. So it is the peace of God because peace is a chief characteristic
of God, but Paul speaks of it as the peace of God because it
is He ultimately who bestows it upon us. God brings that serenity
of mind which tells me Quite frankly, that it is not indigenous
to us, as we’ve already determined. In other words, it isn’t something
that we can call up on our own, that if only we would calm our
anxious hearts. We would be at peace, it isn’t
something down deep within. One said that man may train himself
to apathy or nerve himself into hardiness The one in effort to
sink below nature, the other in effort to rise above it. But
we cannot bring ourselves to peace, not the kind of peace
that Scripture speaks of. And note also, if you look at
it, that the peace that God gives is completely independent of
his consideration or his particular answering of our prayer. It doesn’t
say if you just pray and bring these things before God, be at
peace, because I’m going to give you everything you want. That’s
not what he said. In other words, the peace that
He gives, He gives regardless of how He intends to answer the
prayer. With a life of prayer instead of worry, we enjoy the
peace of God regardless of the outcome of our prayers. As one pastor said in closing
for this particular point, he said, to know that it is well
with me now. and that it shall be so forever. To feel that God is my guide
and protector while His Son pleads for me and His Spirit dwells
within me, His temple. To feel that I am moving onward
along a path divinely prescribed and guarded to join the eternal
banquet in the company of all that I love and live for. The
emotion produced by such a strong conviction is peace. Yes, the
peace of God. That’s the source of this peace,
but I want to take you also to look at the astounding nature
of this peace. This peace is beyond description. Look at the passage again and
the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension. Literally means all mind or all
thinking It surpasses, it goes beyond the mind of man to be
able to analyze or describe this piece. This is just another in
a long line of one of Paul’s super words where he adds super
to it, to super understand or super comprehend. Now, the main thrust of this
entire passage is prayer, right? Informing God, bringing God into
our world and making him aware of what it is we need. Not that
he’s unaware. Communion with God in and for
all things that are desired as a replacement for worry, and
it is this very cause that Paul highlights. The truth of God’s
peace is the comforting result of communion with God. He says,
look, I want you to go and commune with God. And as a result of
that, there is going to be peace, overwhelming peace. When it says
here that this peace is a kind of peace which exceeds or surpasses
all comprehension, we need to pause and consider what Paul
even means here. Does it mean that this peace
is so profound and so unexpected, so far beyond the natural human
response that it is inexplicable? That’s how the NAS translates
it here, and that’s how most have come to understand this
passage, that it’s peace beyond all understanding. Everybody
who looks at this guy can’t figure out why he’s so much at peace.
I can’t even understand it myself. That’s kind of how we understand
the passage, right? As one described it, it’s the
peace of God that is so great and wonderful that it transcends
the power of the human mind to understand it. Another described
it, no human mind can grasp or fathom or comprehend the greatness
and fullness of the glory of peace which God gives. Still
another. And these are beginning to echo,
right, this is what we’ve heard all our life, this is what this
passage means. Simple, right? Another, the mind
cannot rightly estimate this peace or rise to an adequate
comprehension of it. It is so rich, so pure, so noble,
so fraught with bliss that you cannot imagine its magnitude. Even its possessor is not fully
able to understand its nature and its blessedness. But there
is another explanation. There is another possibility
in understanding this little phrase. Is it possible that this
peace? Is the peace that is provided
because of the prayer It is simply superior to the anxiety produced
by all the human thought processes. Consideration, planning, reasoning,
contingency planning and the like. What Paul says, and that’s what
the word means, it’s the human thought process. And that’s why
comprehension is a decent word to supply in translating the
passage. One described this particular
angle in these terms. He said the process in combinations
of human reasoning results not only in continued doubt and anxiety. Mere reason cannot find a way
out of perplexity. The mysterious dealings of God
present problems which it cannot solve and which only multiply
its doubts and questionings. Within the sphere of God’s peace,
all of these are dismissed and the spirit rests in the Lord,
even where it cannot understand. You see, if you go back to the
passage, Paul has been warning the Philippians and Christians
by proxy against all these warrings of the mind, all this anxiety
that is so natural to us. And what he seems to be telling
us here is that God’s peace produces far better results than all kinds
of human reasoning, human scheming. It is superior to all of man’s
devices for security, all of man’s efforts, and it’s far more
effective in removing worry and anxiety than any intellectual
reasoning power. As one said, it is the peace
which God pardon me, the peace which God gives, excels and surpasses
all of our own intellectual calculations and considerations, all of our
contemplations and premeditated ideas of how to rid our cares. And now you’re sitting there
and now you’re totally stymied. You say, boy, the first one was
such a good explanation. I’ve held to it for years. But
the second one, you make it sound so good. He’s talking about all
human reasoning. You don’t really have to choose.
The first is gobbled up by the second or the second encompasses
the first either way. Ultimately, what he’s talking
about is all human reasoning. It is beyond comprehension, the
peace of God that God gives. It is all mental activity. And
that’s what led one commentator essentially to blend these two
answers. He said the mind of God, the mind rather, is the
organ of the natural moral consciousness until it is renewed by the spirit
of God, it cannot exercise right moral judgment. It may theoretically
approve what is good, but it cannot conform to the practice
of this theory. But this piece. This peace transcends
human intellectual powers, human analysis, human insights and
understanding. It is superior to human scheming,
devices, solutions, since its source is the God whose judgments
are unsearchable and whose ways are unfathomable. When we come
to God, when we make this resolution of faith, even before instantaneously
before we fall on our knees and return it to God and to bring
our request before the face of God as we ought. When we do that. We gather in a peace that is
so far beyond anything that we could ever discuss or conceive
anything that we could ever reason our way into and that when we
begin to experience this peace, we know it is supernatural. The
child of God doesn’t need a course in apologetics to continue his
faith in him. He knows that once he has fallen
on his face before God and returned these rightful concerns to God,
who is alone the one that is able to really affect any change.
He senses a peace that cannot be accurately described. It doesn’t
make any sense, humanly speaking. Thirdly, this morning in closing,
and quickly, we’re looking at the peace of God. The child of
God is to be enjoying a reaping of this peace as part of the
progress of faith in embracing uncertainty. We looked at the source of this
peace and the astounding nature of this peace. Finally, this
morning, I want to just look at the protective power of this
peace. I said a moment ago that it is
God that sits as a garrison on the hill watching over us, protecting
this peace. But it is figured here in human
terms, we’ll see it in a moment. Look at the passage once again.
And the peace of God. Which surpasses all comprehension. Shall guard your hearts and your
minds in Christ Jesus. The sort of word shall guard. It was a military term. Meaning
to guard as a century. And the Philippians, as citizens
of the extended Roman Kingdom, would have instantly grasped
this image. They would have been familiar
with various century points throughout even their own city. Centuries
at certain buildings, centuries over certain points, guards,
as it were, watching over troublemakers and over any challenge to the
Roman law. And other than Peter’s one use
of it, this word is only found used by Paul. It was one of his
favorites. Paul loved this imagery. The illustration is both simple
and profound at the same time. It is this image of the peace
of God walking about as a posted soldier, as a watchman over the
hearts and minds of God’s children. This peace is just spoken of
in human animate terms that must ever be on duty. It is always
watchful over the foes of peace. Concern, anxiety, trouble, uncertainty
and the unknown. As one said, Solomon’s temple
was not so well guarded with his 60 valiant men all holding
swords as a good Christian is by the power of God watching
over him and the peace of God within him. The question often
arises, though, how far does this divine protection extend
It includes, no doubt, protection from the devil and protection
from our enemies and protection from evil thoughts and the like.
But it is a very general statement. Which includes every situation
and imaginable that would bring about anxiety and worry to the
Christian. Essentially, what is urged upon
us here is that the very certain result of our prayers, our communion
with God. God doesn’t promise to deliver
us from every situation. God doesn’t promise to remove
every threat of persecution, every contributor to difficulty
and heartache that we face. God doesn’t promise to remove
those calamities, straits and difficulties, trials. But he does promise something
greater and more desirable than all of those things, and that
is the peace of God. Note that it watches over our
heart and our mind, the heart and Scripture, as you know, includes
the whole inner world. You don’t find the word heart
used to speak of the physical organ at all in the New Testament.
Instead, it is the center of where willing takes place and
feeling takes place and thinking it is everything that is within. God’s watching over that. The
peace of God is watching over that. This heart, said one, is
the seat of mental action, intelligence, moral choice. It gives impulse
and character to action. It is the seat of the Spirit
of God and the sphere of His operation in directing and comforting
and establishing. It is the seat of faith, the
love of God and the organ of spiritual praise. That is the
heart in Scripture. And the mind. are thinking. God’s peace watches over that
too, correcting it, informing it, reminding it that God is
in charge, that God is able, that God is capable, that God
will oversee our lives. God will provide what we need. God watches over our hearts and
our minds. The peace of God We’ll continue
to watch over and guard our hearts and our minds. We’ll continue
to urge us to further resolve, to lay down anxiety. It will
continue to call us back to knees of prayer and communion. It will
tell us when those moments of anxiousness are creeping up within
us. When those threats to our serenity are present. In this world that we face that
is full of affliction and full of thoughts, full of worries
and temptations, there is a peace that God is able to give that
keeps watch over our hearts and our minds so that nothing can
cause debilitating concern and sinful worry because everything
is placed trustingly in the hands of God by faith. One Puritan said in closing, under trials of every kind and
the sublime power of this peace is shown. Place the believer
where you will in sudden poverty, on a bed of pain, by the grave
of a dear friend. He cannot but feel the affliction,
painful, perhaps very painful, Yet the guardian, the peace of
God will keep him from murmuring. He knows that whatsoever passes
away, his most precious treasure is safe forever and that all
things work together for good for him. Let’s pray. Our great God, we come before
you as it were convicted weeks ago, even at the mere mention
of anxiety. It being so indigenous and so
part of our lives, so naturally accepted. We let ourselves off the hook
so often because it’s so much a part of our lives, we downplay
the worry and anxiety of others. We take it to be almost a national
pastime. And even though we’re Christians
and we know God. We play it down until we hear
this verse. And Lord, we are reminded that
we are to be anxious for nothing. And that there isn’t anything
so small and so puny, anything that brings us any kind of concern
or worry. We are to bring before your glorious
throne in prayer because you’ve commanded it. And Lord, which
of us does not know? This precious piece of having
laid a grave concern at your feet, brought it before your
face. And left it there for your care. Lord, if there are any
who do not know that peace. We pray that you would prevail
upon them. Make them to consider the Lord
Jesus, who brought the only kind of peace that a sinner will ever
know. Be glorified, Father, in bringing
them to knees of repentance where we first tasted peace. We thank
you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.