This Week's Light Service Sermon

Light Service Sermons for the Month
Putting the Life Back Into Life
Putting the Peace Back Into Your Life
DATE: November 8, 1998
TEXT: Isaiah 26:3-4, Philippians 4:4-7
Robert Fulghum tells of a tabloid newspaper that carried a story, stating simply that a small-town emergency squad was summoned to a house where smoke was pouring from an upstairs window. The crew broke in and found a man in a smoldering bed. After the man was rescued and the mattress doused, the obvious question was asked: "How did this happen?"
To which the man replied: "I don't know. It was on fire when I lay down on it."
I wonder, how many of us here today have given a similar answer to the question: What has happened to the peace in our lives? As we get up each morning and move through our day, what are the responsibilities at home, the deadlines at work or the demanding personal expectations that become our burning bed that we simply lay down on? What are the stress-filled, pressure-packed circumstances that rob us of peace and make us close ourselves off to the love of friends and family? And, perhaps more importantly, what prevents us from opening our lives and accepting God's invitation to bring peace back into our lives--to find rest in the presence of God?
The Good News I want to share with you today is that Jesus Christ is again extending this invitation for peace to each of us. An invitation to open up our lives to all the possibilities that God intended for us to enjoy. An invitation that we can accept by hearing God's plan for peaceful living and then living out this plan each and every day.
But before we talk about it, let's pray together…
What is this peace which passes all human understanding that you offer dear God? Where do we find peace among all the blaring horns, the glaring headlines, the uncaring people? As we bring these questions and others to our mind this morning, open our hearts and minds to your word and your will for us in Jesus. AMEN
In his NT letter to the Philippians (4:4-7) Paul writes: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry 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.
In looking at these verses more closely, we see that Paul has outlined for us God's three-fold plan of Praise, Poise and Prayer which can help us to more fully experience peace in our lives.
The first part of this plan is found in verse 4 where Paul encourages us to: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Here Paul is saying that there are really two ways to look at the world--two ways for us to encounter the people and the events of our lives: optimistically or pessimistically. In other words, we can decide whether to rejoice in or curse at our circumstances.
There were two farmers. One was a pessimist, the other an optimist. The optimist would say, "Wonderful sunshine." The pessimist would respond, "Yeah, probably scorch the crops."
The optimist would say, "Fine rain." The pessimist would respond, "I'm afraid it's going to flood."
One day the optimist said to the pessimist, "Have you seen my new bird dog? He's the finest money can buy." The pessimist said, "You mean that mutt I saw penned behind your house? He don't look like much to me."
The optimist said, "How about going hunting with me tomorrow?" The pessimist agreed. They went. They shot some ducks. The ducks landed on the pond. The optimist ordered his dog to get the ducks. The dog obediently responded. But instead of swimming in the water after the ducks, the dog walked on top of the water, retrieved the ducks, and walked back on top of the water.
The optimist turned to the pessimist and said, "Now what do you think of that?" To which the pessimist replied, "Hmmmmmm, can't swim can he?"
Are you living a life of Praise? Are you looking forward for the possibilities God has for you or are you pessimistically looking down, shuffling your feet--trapped by feelings of guilt or shame? Paul says, "Rejoice in the Lord always? Live a life of peace--through praise.
The second aspect of God's plan for peaceful living--Poise--is seen in Verse 5 and the beginning of verse 6. It reads, 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything… This quite honestly, may be the most difficult thing for many of us. But it is precisely when we are able to maintain our poise when things are falling apart that we can find calm in the middle of the storm.
The only survivor of a shipwreck washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He cried out to God to save him and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a rough hut and put his few possessions in it. But then one day, after hunting for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened; he was stung with grief.
Early the next day, though, a ship drew near the island and rescued him.
"How did you know I was here?" he asked the crew.
"We saw your smoke signal,' they replied.
Though it may not seem so now, your present difficulty may be instrumental to your future happiness.
When the Hmong began their exodus from Laos and Cambodia in the mid-1970's, Ponara Eng was among them. He was 6 years old when he left his homeland but, as you will see from this video, he still remembers vividly the events of those days.
SHOW VIDEO (5 Minutes)
Remembering that God is in control can help us to maintain our poise during life's most difficult situations. Trusting that he is working for our good and that he will never let go of us when we face difficulty or failure can help us to find peace through poise.
Which brings us finally to--Prayer! God's final aspect of peaceful living. Paul writes, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
In 1948, a Romanian Christian pastor was captured and imprisoned by Communists. For sixteen years he was moved from one prison camp to another--brutally beaten, drugged, tortured. His faith was attacked every day. After years of imprisonment, he was at the breaking point. And then he and all the others prisoners were given postcards with which to invite their family to visit. The hope was rising in them as they shaved and washed and were given clean shirts. But then hour after hour passed as they sat in their cells and no one came to visit. They didn't know then that the postcards had never been sent.
And as night came, the prison loudspeakers began to blare…No one loves you anymore…No one wants you anymore…Christianity is dead…No one loves you anymore.
For this Romanian pastor, prayer was the only thing that helped him keep his sanity. Conversations with God reminded him that someone did love him and was there to listen. Prayer was what kept his faith believing that Jesus loved and was right there with him.
It is in talking with God that we learn to praise him, wherever we might be, for all that he has given to us. It is in talking with God we learn that poise in difficulty does not come out of our own strength, but from a confidence that God is there. To ignore our need to pray is to lose our ability to hear God's invitation and miss the giftedness of life. Or, to put it another way, a life without prayer is the same as "standing knee-deep in the river and dying of thirst." It is through our prayer that we develop lives of praise and poise and in doing so, experience the peace of God, which passes all human understanding.
And this is the same peace which Jesus Christ hopes to give us in the Communion meal which we will share together in just a few minutes. A meal in which Jesus comes to us through his body and blood so that we might be strengthened to live lives of Praise, Poise and Prayer and from this put the peace back into life.

AMEN