A Fellowship of Joy

       I was recently re-reading an autobiography my dad wrote in 1994.  It’s enjoyable to learn about his early life.  But one thing bothers me about what he writes.  He goes kind of light on the most important stuff.

       My dad was a paint chemist. So he easily writes paragraph after paragraph about interesting new processes for paint.  But meeting my mom and getting married get about a paragraph each.  My brother, sister and I are each awarded one line for being born. 

       Now we were all more important to my dad than paint.  It’s just that my dad was a very private man.  He got so used to keeping out of touch with his feelings during his early life with a wicked step-mother that he never got back in touch.  He found it hard to share his feelings even with himself in the story of his own life. 

      For example, he was captured by the Germans during the war and held as a prisoner in a Stalag for six months.  So there are long descriptions of the camp and drawings of the layout.  There is a chart showing the value of different items in the camp in American cigarettes.  But there is not one word about how he felt to be taken prisoner – knowing that for a few minutes at least his life was absolutely on the line.

       It got me thinking about the big moments in my life.  There are a lot of big days.  Today is a big day as we worship for the first time in our new sanctuary. There is certainly the day of my wedding.  There are the days when Ryan and Kevin were born.  I’d give them a whole chapter each.  There is the day, now over twenty one years ago when we arrived to begin this ministry in Moorpark. 

       But all of those days would pale next to a day when I was eighteen years old.  That’s the day I met Jesus Christ for myself – my encounter with Jesus no longer mediated through the faith of my parents or my Sunday school teachers. 

       Blaise Pascal, the mathematical genius and inventor was one of the great minds of human history.  Pascal had a conversion experience with Jesus that changed the course of his life.  It was so pivotal to him that he wrote it down and had it sewn into his jacket.   

       Here’s what Pascal wrote: 

       “In the year of Grace, 1654, on Monday, 23rd of November…from about half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve

       “FIRE

       “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars.  Certitude, Certitude.  Peace and joy.  God of Jesus Christ, “Thy God shall be my God.”  Forgetfulness of the world and of everything except God. He is to be found only in the ways taught in the gospel…Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy…”

        Pascal inscribed this experience on a piece of parchment as a Memorial and had it sewn into the lining of his successive coats until the end of his life.  In this way Pascal always bore close to his heart the memory of the fierce joy of his conversion.  During times of stress and loss and need he would feel for the parchment to steady his soul.

      “Joy, joy, joy!  Tears of joy!” Pascal’s words express the reality of Nehemiah 8:10 that we sang earlier – that the “The joy of the Lord is our strength.” 

       During these Sunday’s approaching Easter, in the sermons and in the small groups, we are looking at the theme “The Community You’ve Always Wanted” from Paul’s great Letter to the Philippians.  We’ve looked at the church as a community of expectation, a community of service, and as a community of accountability.  This last week we’ve looked at what it means for us to suffer with Christ.  This morning, the Sunday before the dedication of our new sanctuary, we are looking at what it means to be a community of joy.

        Listen to what Paul writes in Philippians 4:4-7. 

                 Read Philippians 4:4-7

       Now Paul doesn’t write these powerful words about joy and worry-free, prayerful living while he is lying in a Roman bath or sipping espresso in Café Roma. As Paul delivers this command to rejoice whatever the circumstances he is confined in prison.  He is in chains.  He is unsure whether he will live or die.

         He is also writing to a church that has many things to be worried or preoccupied about.  Epaphrodites, the bringer of the letter, became ill after a short time with Paul and found it necessary to return home.  Despite Paul’s’ brave statements about his hopes to return to Philippi , the people know from Epaphrodites that Paul’s release is very unlikely.  The church struggles with legalism from the Jewish side and the beginnings of heresy from the Greek side.  Then there is the severe argument between two leaders in the verses right before the verses I just read.

      There’s always lots of stuff going on. So as if to answer those of us who incredulously ask, “Should we really rejoice during afflictions,” Paul says it twice.  “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, ‘Rejoice.’” Get it?   He doesn’t allow for loopholes.  Always means always. 

       Paul isn’t naive about life.  He’s more realistic about the world and the spiritual and physical enemies we face than we are.  He knows that we live in a fallen world.  He knows we will face evil.  He knows we will face overwhelming stress, broken relationships, illness, shattered dreams, the deaths of friends and loved ones and finally our own deaths.  Paul knows, as Janet explored last week, that we are called on to suffer for the spread of the gospel – in whatever way that suffering appears. 

       But Paul still writes that we are to rejoice.  In fact, he says that our ability to rejoice even in hard times is a sign that we are really in tune with the Spirit of God.  Paul writes in Galatians that joy is part of the fruit of God’s Spirit working in our lives.

       After years of observing people, French philosopher/theologian Tilliard de Chardin writes that “joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.  Where God is, joy is.  If God is in us, joy will radiate from us even in times of pain and loss. 

       But if we are going to believe that, and if we are going to live it, we first need to know that joy and happiness are not the same thing.  Our word happiness comes from the Old English “hap.”  So a hap is something that happens.  That would be a good slogan for a tee shirt, “haps happen!”

      This last January I got in my car to drive to church.  I was dressed in my usual impeccable style.  But I didn’t make it very far op the street before I realized that I had a flat tire.  I opened the trunk only discover that I didn’t have a tool to loosen the lug nuts.  I was now 0 for 2 on haps.  But then Tony Lopez from our church drove by in his landscaping truck.  He and his workman saw my problem.  They had the tool I needed.  Better yet, they changed the tire since they were better dressed for the job.  Now they didn’t do it to get a mention in a sermon.  It was just a kind thing to do. And I was now happy.

       But the point is that none of that, the good or the bad, had anything to do with my joy -- except for the joy of being part of a church family where we express tangible care for each other.   My joy has to be rooted in something much deeper than the amount of air in my tires.  It must be rooted in what I know God is doing in my life and the world.  It has to be rooted in my core identity in Christ that no external event can shake.

       We Christians aren’t joyful because we are blind to injustice and suffering.  We are joyful because we are convinced that these things, in light of the power and purpose of God, are never ultimate. Trouble doesn’t have the last word.  God has the last word and it is a word for our good.

       That doesn’t mean that we place a fake smile on our face and never lament.  That’s neither human nor biblical.  As you read the Psalms, you quickly see that there are lots of psalms of lament that say things like, “I’m catching it the neck God and You don’t seem to care.”  In fact, forty to fifty percent of the Psalms are in whole or in part psalms of lament. 

        That’s okay.  We need the recognition of true pain in our lives and in our world or we aren’t really living in joy.  We’re just living in denial.   As Christians we have to be honest and say that the world sometimes really bites.  Cancers, marriages on the rocks, wars and conflict are all around us.  And we don’t hope in simple optimism or by taking a chill pill or in denial.  We hope in the recognition of a greater reality that supersedes the genuine pain.

       Paul calls us to rejoice in the Lord always and give thanks in everything because we know that God is still in charge.  In fact, we can only look at the sometimes horror of life in the face if we know it doesn’t have the last word – that it’s not ultimate.  Otherwise it would simply overwhelm us.  

       Next Sunday is Palm Sunday – the day of Jesus’ triumphal entry in Jerusalem and the beginning of Holy Week. Jesus demonstrates the place of both joy and pain on this day.  As Jesus approaches Jerusalem , Luke tells how He weeps over the City.  He sobs for it.  He knows what will happen to it because of its failure to recognize Him as its Lord.  But as He enters the City he then fully embraces the celebration.  Some priests try to rain of the parade.  They tell Jesus to order His joyful followers to be quiet.  Jesus responds that if the people are quiet, rocks and stones will start to shout their welcome.  

        Jesus demonstrates on Palm Sunday what theologian Walter Bruggeman calls the essential “two step” of our dance with God – lament and joy.  We recognize evil for what it is.  Jesus knew very well that the cheers of Palm Sunday would turn into the mocking jeers of the crucifixion in only five days.  But He also knew that crucifixion would be transformed into resurrection.

        We need to know the same thing if we are going to experience joy the way God’s word commands.  To simply say “rejoice always” is kind of stupid.  But that’s not what Paul says.  He doesn’t say, “Rejoice always!”  He says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”   There’s a big difference between rejoicing and rejoicing in the Lord.  To rejoice “in the Lord” means to rejoice in the fact that resurrection power is operating no matter how threatening the situation.  It’s to recognize that in God, everything is okay even when everything is all wrong.  We also rejoice because we know that “the Lord is at hand”   He’s not far away where He can’t hear us.  He’s up close.

       The close presence of Christ is what leads Paul to what he then says in verse 6.  He writes, “Have no anxiety about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” 

       Paul is urging us to pray.  We need to keep our eyes on the larger sphere and always remember that we are playing to a larger audience.  We are to pray about everything.  We can talk to God about every aspect of our life.  He is a loving parent close at hand. 

       Prayer is our thrilling privilege.  We must take advantage of it.  Prayer is not a spiritual narcotic.  In is an active, open, confident, responsive aggressive lifestyle that makes a difference in the world so we don’t just survive it but transform it.

       Paul also says that our whole life style is to be one of thanks – which clearly goes along with joy.  It’s hard to be thankful and sour at the same time.  I Thessalonians 5:18 says that we are “to give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ.”

       Now it’s very important to understand what this doesn’t say.  It doesn’t say that we are to give thanks for everything.  It says we are to give thanks in everything.  There’s a big difference. 

       To give thanks for everything is to say things like, “Thank you for my spouse’s pain” or “Thank you for the ongoing war in Iraq ” or, in local terms with the housing market we’ve been dealing with.  For our church it’s “Thank you for spiraling building costs so we’re in a tight financial place and can’t do the things we’d like to do until it’s taken care of.” 

      To give thanks in everything, on the other hand, is to say, “I thank you that you are in charge and, even in a time of crisis, thank you that You haven’t created a church here that has a critical spirit.”  It’s to say, “Thank you that you promise a time when there will be no more war or pain.”  Thank you that this thing I’m going through right now is not the end point of my life.” 

       Paul says that this attitude of thankful, trusting prayer is a great alternative to a lifestyle of worry.  The word translated anxiety in verse 6, merimnao, means anxious, harassing care.  It’s also the word Peter uses in his famous sentence in 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all you anxiety on him, for He cares about you.” 

        Now remember once again that Paul didn’t write these words as he lay on the beach on the Isle of Capri sipping an umbrella drink humming “Don’t worry, be happy.”    Few things were going right for him, humanly speaking.  Things were also hard for the Philippians.  The very fact that he has to say, “Stop worrying about anything” shows that many of the Philippians were anxiously wringing their hands.  

       Let’s talk about worry.  If we don’t understand what Paul is saying here, we will start to worry about the fact that we worry and think that all worry is sin. 

       It’s not.  The fact is that there are things to be concerned about.  Psychologist Arch Hart writes that the “only people who never worry about anything are those we call sociopaths.”  They are sick because they never imagine the consequences of their behavior.  He writes that about those that never worry, “I don’t want to live next to them nor do I want to drive on the freeway with them.”  

        There is an appropriate worry.  In chapter 2 verse 19 Paul commends Timothy for his concern for the welfare of the believers in Philippi .  He uses the same word, merimnao, he uses here in chapter 4. Over in 2 Corinthians, Paul describes his anxiety for al the churches. 

       Not all worry or anxiety or concern is misplaced. 

       What Paul is talking about here is the generalized worry that forms a gray background to our days and makes us unable to seize joy because we are emotionally seasick through the whole voyage of life. 

        It’s the worry that is actually magical thinking – “If I worry that the plane will crash then it won’t crash so if I worry it won’t happen.”   It’s a way we try to exercise control.  And it’s self-fulfilling; “I worried last time that the plane would crash and it didn’t so worry works.” 

       Or it’s the worry that is simply advance interest we pay on problems we many never really have. 

        It’s the worry that simply recycles back on itself.  It doesn’t lead to constructive action. It just goes on and on and on. 

       It’s not the short worry we all experience when we trying to understand what is threatening us.  It is the obsessive worry that grabs hold of us and won’t let us go. 

       Prolonged worry can become a habit.  As Arch Hart points out, “It undermines our trust in God’s provision for all our needs and can even lead into physical illness.” 

       This is the stuff we need to get rid of.  This is the worry that Jesus tells us to give up in the Sermon on the Mount by exercising our faith in God.   And now, here in Philippians 4:6, Paul tells us that we can exercise this faith and banish unproductive and harmful worry by coming to God is regular, detailed and thankful prayer. 

       The great final result of this kind of prayer is peace.  Verse 7 promises, “And the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.”   The word guard is literally garrison – like a military garrison put in place on the walls of our minds and hearts to keep out destructive invaders.  This peace is given whether the specific requests of prayer are granted or not. 

       Lloyd Ogilvie wrote:  “A few days ago I stood with the widow of one of my best friends who had just been killed in his airplane.  She was smitten with grief but spoke of peace.  I reminded her of the ‘peace that passes understanding’ and she said, ‘I never realized what that meant, but now I know how it feels.’  God’s mysterious peace was a garrison to her mind to maintain her mental equilibrium; and to her heart to give her emotional stability.”

         The unpredictable things of life can become the way we experience the unexplainable peace of God.  This acts acting as a garrison in our hearts and minds – letting us know that God is still in charge, that God still loves us, and that in the Lord, everything can still be okay even when it’s all wrong. 

        That’s great news.  So let’s rejoice!  Again, I say, “Rejoice!”