01/13/2025
Peace that Passes Understanding
Do you know what was considered the Bible verse of the year in 2024? According to the Bible app, You Version, it is Philippians 4:6, which reads: “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” The app found more engagement from readers with this verse than any other verse. The app also saw increased interest in a global trend for prayer. Another app, Bible Gateway, found Philippians 4 was also their most read chapter in the Bible last year.
Not exactly a shock. We live in a dangerous world getting more dangerous, so anxiety and unrest has become the norm. War and rumor of war is ever present now. Chronic turmoil is in the news with natural disaster, war in the Middle East, China and Russia getting cozy, and bitter political divide at home.
What’s there to worry about?
Gen Z, for instance, is a whole generation with anxiety at an epidemic level. According to a Harmony Healthcare IT report, 61% of Gen Z have been medically diagnosed with an anxiety condition. A Gallup survey found that 47% of Gen Zer’s ages 12 to 26 often or always feel anxious. Little wonder Gen Z has been labeled “the anxious generation.”
A primary factor in Gen Z angst is what is popularly referred to as the “Self-esteem movement.” This movement has included mantras like “trust your feelings,” “if you believe it, you can do it,” “words can damage you,” “accept yourself just as you are,” “if it feels right, it is,” to name a few. Perhaps we can see why this generation struggles more than previous generations with majoring on emotions. It becomes a petri dish for anxiety. For instance, the unintended consequences of majoring on positive emotions creates feelings as the default position for problem-solving. We understand the positive of Gen-Z being transparent about emotions, but they also can (like any of us), at times, be controlled by feelings.
So, perhaps you’re a Boomer reading this instead of a Gen Z’er. Anxiety comes from the negative possibilities in life, but it can also come from the positive memories of life. As Jill and I prepare to sell our home, it creates a sentimental journey over the last 20 years. Each room has memories of family gathered and laughter filling the place. I remember giggling from my youngest granddaughter running through the bedroom and the boys riding a homemade sled down the 14th fairway in our last snow. Scenes from all the kids, now adults, gathered round the fire on the back porch, telling stories and making fun of each other. Yes, each memory is a chapter in our lives. Heck, even the stench of sweaty football gear in the laundry room smelling up the whole house now seems like a fond memory. The sights and sounds each tell a story.
Yeah, even being sentimental, while healthy on some levels, can mean you get locked into your emotions “getting all up into myself.”
So, I’m not alone. A majority of homeowners (66%) over 55 have an emotional attachment to their homes and find selling a home stressful as a result. The sentimental value of selling the home is the biggest challenge of selling for 28% of Gen X and Boomers. As Boomers pass on, they are leaving an unusual number of heirlooms to their children, obviously emotionally attached to the memory from each item. Sentimentality also partially plays into the “doom and gloom” forecasts from our generation, believing the old days so much better from our experience, sentimentality as thick as Bay area fog.
So back to Philippians 4. Let’s broaden the context of v. 6 to include verses 4 through 7.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness (also interpreted as “gentleness”) be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
To overcome anxiety and to find a “peace that passes understanding,” how does this happen?
Notice how v. 4 gives a redundant exhortation to rejoice, or find joy, in the Lord. The fountain for our joy is not in circumstance, which can be as fickle as the winds blowing the LA fires but rejoice in the nearness of God regardless of the challenges life may throw at us. Why does Paul say “rejoice” twice? Because it is counterintuitive to assume God is near when the fire is raging. This is a mindset…a life view…a faith formation…we must have to have capacity for joy. In the struggle, my champion is Jesus. He is “at hand.” The struggle doesn’t mean he is absent. The struggle means I can rely on his being near.
So how does this happen? Primarily as we seek God in “prayer and supplication”, pouring out our hearts with requests to him. Worrying isn’t prayer. Seeking an anchor for my joy in the God who is near, entering into his presence through my faithful high priest, Jesus; that is prayer.
Emotionally, we can’t always see this. Whether it is the angst-ridden mindset of the Gen-Z’er or the sentimentality of the Boomer, while it is healthy to identify and experience our emotions, Paul tells us to move beyond our emotive reflex in our circumstance. In a world of anti-reason and subjectivity on steroids, we are told to do something foreign to the secular mantra of feelings. We are told to “think”. That’s right…think.
Listen to the apostle in v. 8:
“8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Don’t simply try to feel your way through the struggle. Think about the reality in these ultimate realities. We can think, because God has spoken. We know what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise…we can know these things, even though secularism says they are unknowable. How do we know them? We look to the author and finisher of our faith. Jesus, whose death and victorious resurrection, embody truth, honor, justice, purity, lovely, commendable, excellence, and most of all, is worthy of our praise.
So here is the deal: no matter what circumstance or trouble or struggle you may find yourself, if Jesus is alive when Paul wrote these words and is alive when you and I read these words, we can find the peace that passes understanding. If Jesus is not alive when Paul wrote this and when you and I read this, well, frankly, there is no antidote for anxiety because there is no antidote for death. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.” The word “vain” means empty. Our belief…our faith…our promise…is empty if Jesus did not come back from the dead.
The New Testament is clear, if we die with/in Jesus, we are raised with/in Jesus. If by faith we embrace his death and resurrection, we die with Christ so in his resurrection, we might walk in newness of life. In Colossians 3:1-4, Paul says to “set your minds” on this truth:
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
The exploration of a life to overcome anxiety is more than an intellectual premise, but it certainly isn't an absence of our thinking. It is rooted and grounded in an audacious claim rising above all possible audacious claims. It is a promise of a new reality. Death is not final. Whenever we face struggles in life, we realize the worse that can happen to us has been addressed and dramatically defeated by Jesus. He is risen.
“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”
Look at the deadness in your life. Look at the anger. How is that going to be turned into forgiveness? Look at the insecurity. How is that going to be turned into confidence? Look at the self-centeredness. How is that going to be turned into compassion and generosity? How? The answer is that the dead stuff gets taken over by the Spirit of God . . . The minute you decide to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit comes into your life. It’s the power of the resurrection—the same thing that raised Jesus from the dead.”
Tim Keller
Think about it!
Other Quotes
“Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God's own commitment, that the best is yet to come.”
J. I. Packer
“No matter how devastating our struggles, disappointments, and troubles are, they are only temporary. No matter what happens to you, no matter the depth of tragedy or pain you face, no matter how death stalks you and your loved ones, the Resurrection promises you a future of immeasurable good.”
“Few people seem to realize that the resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone to a worldview that provides the perspective to all of life.”
Josh McDowell
“A dead Christ I must do everything for; a living Christ does everything for me.”
Andrew Murray
“Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to sn**ch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about.”
N.T. Wright
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:6-7
