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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Not too long ago I was talking with a student at the University of Lutheran about their concern about current events of the world and their anxiety over the overall contentiousness of society. And no doubt, it’s a very contentious time in our world politically, philosophically, culturally. Contention seems to be the norm, our new norm, dare I say it. And that can make people mad, or scare people, or both, right? So what do we do? How do followers of Jesus respond in this contentious world?
Well in the epistle reading today, St. Paul has some interesting words of response from God. Paul says in there, and I’m kind of paraphrasing it down here, to these five things. He says, rejoice, be reasonable, don’t be anxious, be thankful, and pray. Now that’s quite a different response that some people have today in our contentious world. Oftentimes their response is much more hurtful and even causes more contentiousness. Examples, social media posts, letters to the editor, radio talk shows, or the comment section of political news articles. People, including Christians, can say, post, blog hurtful things as they respond to this world. It’s contention.
But God directs us to a different response. Again, rejoice, be reasonable, don’t be anxious, be thankful, and pray. Life is full of people who you contend with politically, philosophically, culturally, or however. And life is full of events that cause anxiety. And it’s so easy, so easy to get wrapped up in that, to respond in a contentious culture in a contentious way. But you don’t have to. And in fact, you shouldn’t. Instead, rejoice, be reasonable, don’t be anxious, be thankful, pray.
We’re always going to have contentious times. In fact, really, it’s not a new thing. Paul and the early Christians were in a contentious time as well. A contentious world is not the new norm. It’s been the norm for a long time. The events of this year are not creating a new norm. It’s just highlighting what is already normal, contention, and where that contention is coming from, and it comes from sin. That’s not a new normal either, is it? It’s not a new normal in our world. When we look at the contention in our world, we can see quite obviously that it is sin.
But there’s also what I’m going to call personal financial contention, contentiousness in yourself, financial trouble, job loss, worry about the future, relationship problems, struggles in school, health concerns, aging. You know all too well those contentious times in your life. And in those times you probably don’t rejoice. Some of it may seem, does not seem reasonable at all. It makes you anxious, not very thankful, and you feel like you don’t have a prayer. But God encourages a different response, right? He says rejoice, be reasonable, don’t be anxious, be thankful, and pray.
Now, before this starts to sound like a sermon that’s just about making your life better by dealing with a contentious world with a godly response, I mean, that is good, but wait, there’s more, okay? There’s also, we need to look at what causes contention and causes our hurtful responses. Again, this is nothing new; it’s sin. And the contentious effects of sin in the world is obvious, but it’s also obvious in us, in our own sin. Times when we cause the contention of the world. Times when we don’t rejoice, when we aren’t reasonable, when we create anxiety, when we’re not thankful in life, and we may even pray for God to punish those that we contend with politically, philosophically, culturally, or whatever.
And you know all too well your own sinful responses to this world of contention. You know when you’re the cause of that contention. And the thing is, is that God should respond to our sin in a contentious way. He should come to us and punish us. We even say that in the confession that we deserve His present and eternal punishment. Right? Those are heavy words when we say that. Maybe it just kind of passes by when we say it, but we say we deserve, was it in the older verse, your temporal punishment, you know, right now. That’s what we deserve. God should contend with us, and He should respond in a contentious way, but He doesn’t. He’s anxious to forgive us.
God does not respond in a contentious way; He responds reasonably and anxious to forgive us. And we give thanks that that has come in the sacrifice of Jesus. And God welcomes our prayers to receive that gracious gift of the forgiveness of our sins by faith. And in all of this, God rejoices. God doesn’t look at our sin with contention. He rejoices. Luke 15, verse 10, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. God does not respond to us with contention. Then again, He does. God is contentious, but not against us. God is contentious for us, for you. Jesus contends against sin for you.
This all fits into this idea of spiritual warfare that we’ve been talking about in our Bible class each Sunday morning, that we fight against evil. We’re in war against Satan and temptation and evil in our world, but so is God fighting for us, doing what we can’t win, fighting the battles that we can’t, covering our failures with forgiveness. Jesus has done this through His death and His resurrection. Jesus has come and contended for us and has done what we can’t, has won in all of those battles. So God is contentious. He does respond to our sin with contention, but not against us, but for us.
It’s the works of Jesus for you that forgive those contentious, hurtful, sinful responses that you think you say or do. And from all of that, from what all that Jesus has done, it gives us peace in contentious times. Again, as it says in verse 7 there, familiar words you hear maybe oftentimes after the sermon, the pastor says, to remind you about the peace that surpasses all understanding. This is the kind of peace that God gives in this contentious world, and then we can respond with rejoicing, being reasonable, not being anxious, being thankful, and praying.
I know, I know this is hard to do today. It’s a contentious world that we live in, and it seems easy sometimes—it even seems reasonable to respond with contention, right? It’s a hard world to live in. People are not reasonable. People cause anxiety. People don’t rejoice, or they do so when something bad happens to those that they’re in contention with, right? It’s hard to not respond in that way, but if you have contentious thoughts and want to do contentious things or even say contentious things, drop it.
All right, this is not the response that God would have for us for a couple of reasons. Number one, for the world. The world needs peace. It needs something more than just the contention that it has right now. And the world is only going to produce contention. Again, this is nothing new that we’re experiencing this year. This is not the new norm. This is just highlighting what is normal. And it ain’t good. The world needs different, and God’s people can bring it. Rejoice, be reasonable, don’t be anxious, be thankful, and pray.
People aren’t reasonable; they’re anxious. They appear unthankful, and they probably never pray. They need to see something different, and God’s people can bring it. We have that peace; we know that peace, right? Peace that’s beyond even understanding. We have that, and we can respond with that for the world. Remember I said that, but also for ourselves. We need that peace in our own lives, right? We need that kind of peace.
And Paul goes on in his letter to the Philippians to say, you know, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, pure, lovely, and commendable, if there’s anything excellent, if there’s anything worthy of praise, think about those things, not the contentious stuff. Look over here, get your eyes off of that, focus on God, on His Word, on what Jesus has done for you, and look at these things. And then he goes on in verse 9, and if you see and practice these things, the God of peace will be with you.
So we need that peace for the world; we need it for us. And we have it. The rest of the world is literally contending itself to death for this. We need that, and we have it. A couple weeks ago in the study of Philippians, Pastor Wolf Mueller said, and I totally agree. In fact, I thought this many years ago. Christians should be the happiest people on earth. Really, we, you know, or at least we should be the most content. I love how Paul said it in there; he says, in whatever situation I am, I have learned to be content.
All Christians, this should be us in this world of contention and who knows what’s gonna happen. We can be content, even peaceful. We have God’s love for us in Jesus. And we should be the happiest people on earth, or at least the most content. We should seek to put the content in contentious. Okay? Yes, that was a bit of a joke. But true, right? This is what we have in Christ, of how he’s contended for us and won over sin, death, and the devil by his crucifixion, his death, and his glorious resurrection for us.
And we can respond to this world with that peace that we have, that contentment that goes beyond understanding. Yeah, I can’t explain this. How can we be so peaceful in this contentious world? That’s what God wants for us: that we respond with rejoicing, being reasonable, not being anxious, being thankful, and praying.
In the peace of God, which passes all understanding, may it guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
