“Rejoice in the Lord always.
Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is
at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God
which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 4:4-7].
“And a servant of the Lord
must not quarrel but be gentle to all…” [2Timothy 2:24a].
Continuing to reflect on this
passage (see previous post):
Paul is experiencing
harshness, yet he writes of gentleness. There is harshness in prison, there was
hardness in the process of going to prison; Paul’s Christian life, on the
exterior, has been one of harshness, consider these words of his to the
Corinthians 2Cor. 11:23 – 28):
“Are they servants of Christ? – I speak as if insane – I more
so, in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number,
often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine
lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I
was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on
frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from
my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the
wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor
and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often
without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is
the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.” (NASB).
From the time Paul met Jesus Christ until his execution in
Rome he was hounded by adversaries bent on his destruction. Some of these
adversaries were Pharisees he had once known as friends and colleagues, others
were professing Christians. Paul was persecuted by those both within and
without the professing church – he was attacked on all sides and from within.
In addition dealing with these attacks he also had the “daily pressure…of
concern for all the churches.” There appears to have been little respite for
Paul. And yet he writes, “Let your gentleness be known to all men.” “And a
servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all…”
In 2 Corinthians 7:5 Paul
writes, “…we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within.”
How do our worst days in the
business world compare to the days, the life, that Paul describes in these and
other passages? Yet he exhorts us to gentleness and to peace. To the Romans he
writes (Romans 12:14 and 18), “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not
curse…Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.”
The serpent’s goal in the
Garden was to disrupt the relational peace of God and man, and by extension the
peace between man and man. It is no small thing that Jesus says, “Peace I leave
with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do
not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful,” (John 14:27). Jesus
speaks these words on the night of His betrayal, on the eve of His crucifixion!
The world’s message, and the
message often heard and seen in the business community, is that only the strong
survive, that retaliation for a wrong is not only acceptable but expected and
justified, and that using anger as a weapon (often a weapon of mass
destruction) is a sign of a leader. (Perhaps I should reiterate an earlier
clarification, that not all anger is sinful and that we are not talking about
truly righteous anger which is often the result of witnessing injustice and
other sinful behavior).
In a sense, every new day is a
day in the Garden with two central trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil, and the Tree of Life. Our enemy tells us that if we’ll eat from the
former tree that we’ll be as God, that we’ll be in control. There is no
gentleness or peace to be found in the first tree, and when we attempt to be in
control life spirals out of control. If we desire to be like our heavenly
Father and Lord Jesus we must learn to eat of the Tree of Life; Jesus Christ is
that Tree and as we partake of Him we are transformed into His image. The enemy
misdirects us, his ploy again and again is deceit – when we chase his mirage
and drink of his water our mouths are filled with sand – Living Water is only
found in the Tree of Life – Jesus Christ.
There is little if anything in
life that is cosmically mundane. The observer may have seen little difference
between the two central trees of the Garden, they may have looked similar – we
don’t know. Or, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil may have surpassed the Tree of Life
in appearance – as it often does today. Compare the following:
Genesis 3:6, “When the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and
that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate;
and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”
Isaiah 53:2, “For He grew up
before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has
no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, or appearance that we
should be attracted to Him.”
Our daily obedience to Jesus
Christ in the details of life is not mundane; it shapes our souls for eternity,
it influences those around us for eternity, and it is on display for the
universe to witness. When the enemy says, “Has God said that you shall not
respond in anger to this person? Did God really mean that you should be gentle?
God will understand if you in anger blow this person away,” we need to look to
our Lord Jesus, submit our thoughts and hearts to Him, deny ourselves, and
allow Him to live in us and through us (Galatians 2:20).
The peace of God, and the
gentleness to which we are called, are alien to this age, to this world. The
mass of humanity is eating from one tree, will we choose to eat from the other?
Blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be called sons of God.”
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