Part 1: The Lord is at Hand

We live in a world that’s full of anxiety, fear, and worry. I know because I’ve always been the type of person who is prone to all of those things. When I was a kid, I refused to stay at any of my friends’ houses overnight, because I knew that I would be the only one who would have trouble falling asleep. Then I would lie there with my eyes open, watching the shadows make creepy shapes on the wall, and listening for bumps in the night. One time I got up the courage to stay the night at my best friend’s house, but I was too scared to go to bed, so I made him stay up all night with me.

I recognize that we live in a world that constantly tries to make us afraid. Every year, tax season rolls around just so that we can worry about how we’ll find the time—and money—to do our taxes. If you turn on the news, all you’ll discover is that there are new things to be afraid of every day. We worry about money, our families, and our health. Everything under the sun is something that we can potentially worry about.

But God is not a God of fear. We were not created to be the kinds of people who worry about our lives. That’s why Jesus, in the sermon on the mount, directed us not to worry. We’re called to be the kinds of people who have such a great faith and peace about us that other people recognize it and wish they could have it, too.

But how do we develop that kind of peace? That’s what these articles are about. In Philippians 4, Paul makes the claim on two separate occasions that we as Christians can, in fact, have peace. This is not a command that God gave us but left us unprepared to fulfill. Paul knows that we can have peace, and he wants to show us how!

The conclusion that Paul comes to in this section of his letter to the Philippians is that, if we follow his simple instructions, we can have peace. “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you,” (Phil 4:9). So what are those instructions? How can we have the peace of God? In this first article, we’ll discuss the reason that we can have peace in God, then in the two following articles we’ll discuss two things that Paul says we can do to develop that peace in our lives. So what does Paul say is the main reason that we’re able to have peace in God?

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;” Philippians 4:4-5

Paul opens this passage by advising the Philippians to rejoice, which is some really difficult advice to follow. However, most of what Paul talks about in the following verses will help teach the Philippians to rejoice. Before Paul advises the Philippians on how they can attain this joyful attitude, he connects the idea of rejoicing to the word reasonableness.

Reasonableness here is a tricky word to translate, but the idea seems to be that you know when justice is truly just.^[1] In other words, you’re wise enough to know when someone needs to be punished—the just reward for their action—and when they need to receive mercy. Reasonableness means that you can reason out how much kindness should be given in a certain situation.

Paul says that they need to be so reasonable—so good at discerning how to gracefully handle difficult situations—that everyone around them would know. This seems to be the result of their joyfulness. If the Philippians rejoice as Paul advised in verse 4, then they will become reasonable people. Then Paul tells them why they need to rejoice. He says rejoice because the “Lord is at hand.” In other words, Paul is telling the Philippians that they should rejoice because it will attract people to Christianity, and they can rejoice because the Lord is at hand. But what does it even mean for the Lord to be at hand? There are three options, but all of them lead to essentially the same conclusion, so it really doesn’t matter which you pick.

Option one is that he means Jesus will return soon and, because of Jesus’ imminent return, the Philippians have every reason to rejoice. Option two is that the Gospel has already been fulfilled in Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and glorification, and the Philippians should be rejoicing because of their salvation in Jesus. Option three is that, spiritually speaking, Jesus simply is right here with us and, because He’s so close, we should rejoice. Ultimately, all of these options mean the same thing: There is something hopeful about the idea that Jesus is at hand and that should cause us to rejoice!

Last spring, I took a mission trip to Panama and, as I was traveling back home (to northeast Arkansas), I noticed an odd feeling inside of myself. We had to fly from Panama to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Memphis, and I noticed,  as soon as I could see the lights of Memphis—even before we landed—I started to feel this peace come over me. I felt like I was back home and everything was right with the world. Even though I still had to drive an hour and a half before I would be officially home and could finally sleep in my own bed again, I felt like I was home.

What I discovered when I arrived home was that my parents had felt the same way. My mom used one of those websites that lets you track flights and watched the little digital airplane fly across the country until it landed at Memphis. According to her, she felt a lot of relief once she knew I was back in Memphis.

Again, I was not home, yet I felt comfortable knowing that I was almost home. I think that’s what it means for Jesus to be at hand. He is not with us in as many ways as we would like Him to be. We can’t reach out and hug Jesus even though we wish we could. And yet, even though Jesus isn’t here physically, He is almost here. Whether that means that He is here spiritually or metaphorically or simply that He will be here soon, it ought to be a comforting thought to all of us.

This should change the way that we look at the world. We can rejoice because Jesus is near to us! That should change the way that we live our lives. Whenever little “coincidences” happen to us that make our days better, we no longer think of them as “coincidences.” That’s Jesus at work in our lives!

That beautiful sunrise might happen every morning, but it’s always God telling you that He loves you. Spend time looking for those things in your life. If Jesus really is at hand—and He is—then your life should be different. Spend time thinking about those little moments where you can see God clearly working in your life. Maybe get together a group of friends or family members with whom you can spend time talking about those “God moments.”

Our lives can become more joyful when we recognize that God is at work behind the scenes. It grows our joy and our trust in Him. So, next time you see one of those little “coincidences” that makes your day better, don’t just move on, recognize it as a way that God says “I love you.”

Despite all of the cares and worries that this world shoves onto us, we can have peace. God is constantly doing things in our lives that can bring us peace if we will only recognize them. Peace is something that’s incredibly difficult to grasp and even harder to hold onto, but God wants to give us the means to do both of those things. That all starts with recognizing that our peace comes from him, and he is at hand!

 

Gabriel Childs is the son of Sonny Childs and enjoys sharing his thoughts with others

 

^[1] William Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Westminster Press, 1975), 75.