Perfect Peace; a Glorious River

 

Always be full of joy in the Lord.  I say it again—rejoice!  Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do.  Remember, the Lord is coming soon.  Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:4-7

The writer of the hymn Like a River Glorious, which we sang earlier in the service, was Frances Ridley Havergal.  She lived a short life (1836-79) in the middle part of the 19^th century.  She wrote about 50 hymns, many of which are still in church hymnals around the world.  This hymn came about because a friend wrote her a letter, in which she shared her struggle with faith, particularly about her salvation.  Frances wrote back to her quoting one of Paul’s other letters:

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.  Romans 5:1

She went on to say that this peace is ‘yours already, purchased for you, made for you, sealed for you, pledged to you – by the word of the Father and the ‘precious blood of Jesus!’  Apparently, Frances recognized the vicious circle that many Christians get into, struggling to feel at peace.  The harder they struggle, the less peace they feel, which makes them struggle more.  But God’s peace is a gift already given.  We don’t have to fight for it.[1]

When it comes to struggling to feel at peace, I find two dangers and one safe place. 

Danger #1.  Always struggling, never finding

Some of us are perfectionists (how many of you are married to one?).  In Frances Havergal’s day there was a rash of that amongst Christian churches.  Many were trying to be the perfect Christian.  Somehow, they’d forgotten that job had already been filled…perfectly…on Calvary. 

As Methodists we sling around the term perfection.  Sometimes we say it like the man who just announced to a worldwide audience on CNN that he had achieved perfect humility.  Rather, we are to be going on to perfection in love as John Wesley had it.  This means acting with humility, kindness, and grace towards others – NOT perfectly knowing everything and doing everything without flaw.  That’s not a possibility for fallen humans, albeit redeemed. 

Somehow, grasping at perfection, as if it is something you could master within you, misses the point Paul made about finding peace.  He spoke to real people who had the same kinds of sin problems we do; they weren’t perfect and they knew it.  So Paul told them rejoice – and then he said it a second time again…I say REJOICE.  I believe he said it in his best capital letters voice so they’d get it.  People who are forever struggling over finding peace are like folks who bring an elephant gun to a mosquito fight…they make a lot of noise, but kill very few bugs.  Struggle doesn’t produce peace; rather it’s a formula for a spiritual coronary.

Danger #2.  Hardly struggling, despairing finding peace

This is the other side of struggle as a vocation, pursuing peace as if a prize to be locked away in a trophy closet; this is fatalism, resigning to the difficulty of peace in a warring world, and writing-off having any part of it.  This is losing the desire to even pray for peace, the essence of despair, giving up! 

Paul’s letters are filled with military and athletic competition analogies.  Paul encourages us to run the race ^{(Galatians 5)}, fight a good fight ^{(1 Timothy 6)}_,  and when it comes to being God’s worker in the field, Paul encourages us to give everything we’ve got to please God. 

Work hard so you can present yourself to God and receive his approval. Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth.  2 Timothy 2:15

But as God’s co-laborers, we’re not struggling to find peace; in His vineyard we are laboring to show others the Prince of Peace.  We haven’t given-up in despair and unbelief.  There, in the fields of God’s vineyard, when we labor shoulder to shoulder, not complaining, but learning to rejoice in all things, we are the very essence of the hard-working servant hearing well done, enter into thy Master’s joy…that’s a place of peace and rest!

These are two dangers, the first is always struggling, and the second is never hoping…and then:

The Safe Place – Resting in His Unchanging Grace  and finding peace like a glorious river…Always!

In the second verse of Havergal’s Like a Glorious River, we have the image of Moses hidden in the hollow place, the cleft of the rock, both metaphors for being like the children’s song, He’s Got the Whole World (where?) In His Hand. 

And covered there with the hand of God, there is no foe, surge of worry, or care, that can touch us.  Nothing can assail or corrupt God’s plans; He is entirely unhurried by both joys or sorrows and trials. 

And in that condition, you and I experience the river, gloriously and victoriously, in perfect grace and peace; it is there we experience God’s grace and peace fuller and deeper every day.

And so, to the business of the day, which the apostle Paul called the peace that passes understanding.  It’s found not in struggle, or giving up hope…that perfect peace is found in surrendering to the safe place of communion with God.  It is when we place our hand firmly in His, trusting him fully for that peace.

We do this because, as Frances Ridley Havergal understood and wrote,

they who trust him wholly find him whole true

stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest,

finding, as he promised, perfect peace and rest.

This is the essence of that glorious river of communion, the peace of a heart unhurried and unworried, firmly planted in Christ, and in sweet fellowship with all who are in that communion with Jesus.

Our Prayer

As we move to this place of perfect peace and rest in communion with our blessed Lord, I want to give Frances Havergal the last word from another hymn she wrote.  The hymn is very short, but it helps us open the front-entry door to perfect communion, and thereby perfect peace:

In full and glad surrender, I give myself to thee,

Thine utterly and only, and evermore to be.

O Son of God, who lov’st me, I will be thine alone;

And all I have and am, Lord, shall henceforth be thine own.

Reign over me Lord Jesus, O make my heart thy throne;

It shall be thine, dear Savior, it shall be thine alone.

O come and reign, Lord Jesus, rule over ev’rything!

And keep me always loyal and true to thee, my King.[2]

Come, sweet Holy Spirit, embrace us with thy power and love as we dine together in perfect peace and rest.

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation 

---

[1] Perfect Peace – Frances Ridley Havergal (Excerpted from Women in Christian History, Petersen & Shreeves)

[2] The Methodist Hymn-Book with Tunes, Methodist Conference Office, London, 1933, page 567 (Hymnary.org)

The Peace Formula

[i]

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!  Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do.  Remember, the Lord is coming soon.  Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.             Philippians 4:4 - 7^(NLT)

Stress is a word much tossed about in our society.  It seems life is more stress-filled today than filled with joy or peace.  I wonder just how many of us in this room today are under some kind of debilitating stress?   

I saw a cartoon that had a man sitting on the exam table.  His doctor was giving him a stress test.  The doc says, It’s called a stress test:  I listen to your heart while you review a copy of your bill.

 About thirty years ago I served a church on Parker Road.  It was there I met Mrs. Juanita Parker.  Granny Parker was a Godly woman who knew how to pray heaven down. 

Granny was already in her 70's when I met her.  She'd lived all her life on just two farms – her father's, and the one she and her husband worked.  She had given the two acres our church was built upon. 

Like anyone, Granny had her share of joy, sorrows and pain.  If you set a spell on the front porch she would talk with you all day about life, financial doings and the like.  In all, her life had been ordinary and wonderful, hard work and family.  A well-spent 70-odd years…Until that rooster came!  "Granny" Parker always had trouble with that rooster! 

I recall one Wednesday night in particular; Granny had just come into the church for Prayer Meeting.  She was bleeding from her leg and arm.  Blame rooster done it again!  Brother Russell, he's mean as Satan, himself.  That was the first I'd heard about that rooster. 

It seems that this bird had decided that Granny didn't belong in the yard with all his hens.  Whenever Granny ventured too close to the hen house, he'd come flying at her with spurs thrashing and slashing.  He got her a few times. 

Had that bird been a human, he would've been arrested for disturbing the peace on Parker Road.  But, he was a rooster, so one afternoon Granny ventured out the back door toward the hen house, carrying her garden hoe and calling, here chick-chick. Here, chick.  The hens knew what that meant; they all came on the dead run for chow.  That old rooster came too; he was bent on protecting his territory, but he made a slight miscalculation.  You see, over seventy years of handling problems, weather, crop failures, depression and stubborn barnyard animals, made Granny a formidable foe with a hoe.  She watched out of the corner of her eye as that whirling-dervish of a rooster came squawking and flapping his wings, brandishing those spurs like Freddie Krueger.  At the last second, Granny Make-My-Day Parker side-stepped the leaping rooster and swung the hoe like a Ninja sword.  R.I.P., bird!   (I think he was in one of those casserole dishes the following Sunday at dinner on the grounds.)

We all have our rooster events.  We all have those irritating circumstances of life that disturb the peace. 

For some it is a job that just gets under the skin.  It may be a neighbor that won't respect your privacy; it could be a bully who is a grade or two ahead.  Maybe it's traffic at rush hour. 

Now, I do not suggest the Granny Parker rooster method for every circumstance.  However, each problem needs to be confronted.  Otherwise our peace is disturbed, and sometimes taken away altogether.

Paul confronted a problem at Philippi.  Two of the ladies couldn't get along, and it was one of those rooster events in the church.  Paul pleaded for unity and cooperation, but he went further – he gave them a formula for peace that works! 

We live in an age of edgy, worried, peace-less people.  We exist in a pressure cooker of racial tensions, family crises, financial and generational stress.  And there is a whole internet-full of advice on how to have peace.  Most of them haven’t a chance of bringing real peace in your life.

The feel-good approach doesn't work; that’s where you attempt to don’t worry—be happy.  You can do it with positive thinking or substances.  But drugs and simple optimism wear off too quickly. 

The don't feel at all approach is worse.  You can only ignore a problem until it engulfs you and your stoicism.  Then it may be too late to do something!  That's like having an early lead in a football game, and playing defensively for the rest of the time.  You're on the field, but you're not really playing – just holding-on till time ends.

There are plenty of ways to seek for personal peace; only God’s way will provide real and lasting peace.  In our text Paul lays out the great formula for dealing with a rooster event, a disturbance of your peace.  The formula is P + P + P = P.

Praise

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!  Philippians 4:4^(NLT)

Praise is such a vital part of the believer's life.  Without praise we are prey to depression.  How can you get to praise from the pits?  Good question!  Praise is a matter of finding God's hand print on everything that happens!  When something happens that is really disturbing – perhaps if the dog bites you, or a financial crisis, or perhaps the death of a loved one, you don’t rejoice because you have suffered a difficult circumstance, you praise the God who walks through the circumstance with you.  He has a purpose, even when we can’t see it.

Paul says, Rejoice...rejoice!  There are no qualifiers in that sentence.  It does not indicate we should rejoice just when things are good -- we must praise the Lord always! 

Praise, plus:

Poise

Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do.  Remember, the Lord is coming soon.  Don’t worry about anything;    Philippians 4:5-6a^(NLT)

William Barclay calls this gentleness (which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit) your willingness to meet a man half-way.  Poise is that, and more.  Anxiety is a divided mind.  It is virtually the division that distracts from the main purpose.  James ^(1:7-8) says that a double-minded (or divided-mind) man is unstable…his prayers are not likely to be answered.  Poise is keeping focused on the reality of God’s care and purpose for your life…not the circumstances and storms that surround you.

I went to a clergy meeting a few years ago.  It was an important meeting, and I had cleared my schedule.  All pastors were to meet for a workshop, lunch and information-sharing.  When I arrived at the retreat center there were only a few cars there; I am usually early anyway, so I wandered over to the large meeting facility.  When I opened the door to the meeting room it was hard to see, as there were no lights on at all. 

Suddenly, I was startled by movement in the semi-darkness.  Can I help you, the disembodied voice offered.  When my eyes located the source of the question, and with my pupils finally dilated sufficiently to make out the smiling face of the woman who runs the place, I asked, isn't the District Clergy meeting here?  She answered, Yes; you're a little early.  I said, OK, I'll just take a little stroll.  The voice continued, You're about 24 hours early, but don’t worry – it's our little secret!

Poise has to do with stability in spite of circumstances.  It is closely related to faith.  Paul here says that the Lord is at hand.  Beloved, if we can ever truly come to the understanding that Jesus is near – closer than the breath in your mouth, we will remember that anything happening in our lives must be approved by Jesus first!  You can have poise when you live like that!  Life’s unexpected and difficult stuff will still happen; bad things may come our way, but there will be a difference.

Praise, plus Poise, plus,

Prayer

instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  Philippians 4:6b^(NLT)   

Prayer is the tie that binds.  The word prayer comes from an ancient verb that means to tie or bind to.  In a sense, when you bow before God you are binding yourself to His decisions, His plan.  Of all the models for prayer, the Lord's Gethsemane prayer is the one I take for my example.  Not MY will, but Thine....  A prayer binds us to accept God's decision. 

What a burden that will take off your shoulders.  Have you got some major disturbance of the peace going on in your life?  Pray; bind yourself to God's answer.  Then, you can rest your worry-bone.  It is God who will work it out!

Praise, plus Poise, plus Prayer, equals:

Peace

Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.   Philippians 4:7^(NLT)

What is meant by the peace that passes understanding?  Literally, it is that which is above our comprehension. 

God's Peace Doesn’t Make Sense?

Exactly!  In the worst rooster circumstances of life you can have the peace that doesn't make sense.  Jesus promised that His peace isn't like anything else in the world.  It will guard your heart, your mind, your life.  And the world can't take it away!

Choices

We have choices.  Stress and a world system that will depress and dissect you, or peace that comes in the form of praise that brings poise through prayer. 

Are you going through a ROOSTER kind of day, week, month – life?  Praise, Poise and Prayer adds up to Peace…from the Prince of Peace.

Go to VIDEO

---

[i] Title image:  via Wikimedia Commons