10:30 am, Sunday, Oct 15, 2023 ~ FBCA (Ex 32:1-14; Philippians 4:1-9) J G White

Once upon a time there was a crisis… overseas. A war broke out in Syria. Millions of refugees fled, and thousands started to flee to Canada. A little country Church stepped out and sponsored a family of eight to come to their nearby town. A couple years later, the town Church had the opportunity to bring more of the same family to their town, six more people. Many in the congregation were ready for their Church to be the sponsor, raise the money, do the work. But at the last minute, what we here would call the Board of Management, balked at the idea. The Board of six people declared they would all resign if the Church dared take the financial risk – they needed to raise $40 or $50,000.

Anxiety won the day, and that church did not act as the sponsoring body. The nearby, little country church did. Under the leadership of one person from the town Church, ~$77,000 was raised. Praise God.

Joy & Anxiety… or, Joy and Freedom from Anxiety. Perhaps this is one of the greatest needs of our age, and a great longing. Is it just my own age and stage? This seems to me to be an age of anxiety. Churches are in anxious survival mode. Parents are anxious about so many threats to their children. Everyone gets anxious about pandemics and politics.

In our OT story today we can see the element of community anxiety, and a poor response. ‘Where is our leader and His invisible God? You, his brother, make us a god we can see.’ The rest is history.

On the personal level, broken relationships are common to us all, and a common source of stress. On a trip the other day, I was near Fredericton, and had a passing thought for my cousin who lives there. Sadly, he has just about become an enemy to his own parents, and others in the family. We almost dare not try to make contact with him, not knowing what to expect.

And I have experienced other awkwardness. The relative who served time in prison for crimes at her work, and that turn of events fragmented her relationships with brother and sisters. The person who will have nothing to do with her sister, my wife, yet in a time of illness needs all the support she can get. The Christian couple who joined my church in Digby with great enthusiasm, but after a couple years was infuriated with my theology and teaching, and left the congregation when it all came to a head, and they found themselves alone in their particular attitudes.

Our fourth and final week with the Bible book called Philippians has their friend and leader, Paul, write this to the congregation: I urge Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. You also… help these women… The anxiety of relationships is real, be it in community, in family, or in a church. The answer to this stress can be a matter of encouragement by others, of receiving the help of others who care for them, and of Christians remembering the common Friend and Leader they have: Jesus.

In our Faith, we turn our anxieties to prayers, as best we can. This might be a life-long learning process for us. See what Paul said? Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Thankful prayers for help. What’s ‘supplication?’ Really asking for something. What’s ‘thanksgiving?’ The attitude of gratitude. It is one thing to have a sense that God knows our every need before we even say it or pray it. But to help us in anxious moments, it is good for us actually to make a request, name it, and put it alongside some things for which we are grateful. (Many of the Psalms do this.)

And the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds, said Paul. Something above and beyond our natural hearts and minds is available. We are not alone in our anxieties, and our coping skills. There is God, a God of peace.

Some of our greatest emotional stresses come from deep and damaging things that we’ve experienced. The healing journey can be a huge journey, in the midst of traumas. It takes many blessings, and much work, to pick away at the things that trouble us. These things I point out today from Philippians chapter four are but pieces of a beautiful puzzle of healing and help and hope. So, as I tell this next story, remember that there is surely a lot more to this than one helpful moment of counselling and prayer by a pastor. This is surely but a highlight in one person’s longer journey.

Years ago, Richard Foster was working at a family counselling centre. He experienced some power with healing prayer when he met with a man who had lived in constant fear and bitterness for twenty-eight years. He would wake up at night screaming and in a cold sweat. He lived in constant depression… he had not laughed in many years.

He told Richard Foster what had happened those many years before that had caused such a deep sadness to hang over him. He was in Italy during the Second World War and was in charge of a mission of thirty-eight men. They became trapped by enemy gunfire. …He had prayed desperately that God would get them out of that mess. It was not to be. He had to send his men out two by two and watch them get killed. Finally, in the early hours of the morning he was able to escape with six men—four seriously wounded. He had only a flesh wound. He said that the experience turned him into an atheist.

Foster said, ‘Don’t you know that Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God who lives in the eternal now, can enter that old painful memory and heal it so that it will no longer control you?’ After talking, the man agreed to have Foster pray for him – having faith for him.

He invited the Lord Jesus to go back those twenty-eight years and walk through that day with this good man… (Prayer, 1992, pp.218-219)

To make a longer story short, the next week the fellow came to counsellor Foster with a new brightness, and said he had been sleeping, sleeping through the night, for the first time in years. It was a breakthrough. Sometimes, in the long journey out of anxieties and trauma, there are breakthroughs, thank God.

The next bit of holy counsel today is about building good habits of the mind. For years I have been appreciating this verse: Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. We know it can be easy, so tempting, to dwell upon whatever is alarming, whatever is shocking, whatever displeases us, whatever we didn’t want, anything that’s a failure and anything we disapprove of. Our social media, our news and our entertainment fill our view with terrible, horrible stuff. We know what happens when we piece together a quilt of all this negative stuff.

All the troubles of the world – and of ourselves – have got to be balanced by training ourselves to dwell upon the beautiful and the good. Take note of such things! Hold on to those good pieces and see them stitched together by the Spirit of God into a beautiful comforter. This is part of our training in the School of Jesus.

Unlike the disciples of two thousand years ago, we spend time with our Master differently. So much of Jesus’ influence upon us is from our Text, and from the servants of Christ we have known. We learn, and remember, and put into practice, the practical lessons we learned from others. Paul had written, Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. We could say the same about Moses. Did you notice today how Moses prayed for his people to be shown mercy, when they had forsaken the path of their newfound faith? Moses asked for mercy, and got it for them. Sometimes we need someone to bless us; sometimes it is our work to find mercy for others who are in trouble.

The God of peace will be with you. The word ‘peace’ is like the word ‘love,’ it has a few big meanings. The latest world conflict – in Israel and Palestine – has us all alarmed and probably anxious. The ‘peace’ we wish for there is on a different scale than the peace of individual souls with God, or between family members or neighbours or co-workers. To pray for the peace of Israel, and Palestine, and their neighbours, is, at least, to point in the right direction. Even when we see not much over there pointing in that direction.

The world needs a God big enough to hold these warring peoples in strong hands. A Spirit good enough to battle the evil of the powers that seem to be in control. A Deity human enough to reach in and touch and bless the fleeing people, the struggling millions who are suffering and terrified.

The God of peace will be with you?

The peace of God will guard your hearts and minds?

This is the One we proclaim. Our hearts and minds are stirred up, for good reasons. Even as we lament and cry out to God, we can find ourselves given strength and serenity. We find in Christ the power and the wisdom to make a difference, brining our own bit of peace to this anxious world. As Paul said, I pray for you: may God fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.