[0:00] Father, you know the different things in our hearts, in our minds, in our wills that we are anxious about. You know if we sort of have a bit of a relief from anxiety right now because we're together, or if being together has caused more anxiety.
[0:18] Father, you know what's going on. And you know how hard it is sometimes, Father, for us to bring these things to you in prayer. We ask, Father, that the Holy Spirit would move very powerfully in each one of our lives and bring your word home to us in a very real and personal way.
[0:35] Bring Jesus more real to us and what he's accomplished for us on the cross. Make that more real to us. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated.
[0:46] Amen. We might be one of the first churches to have offered services this week just for a variety of reasons.
[0:57] We were one of the last churches to actually have a church service as well on the 15th of March. I don't know how many of you were there for that, but it's good to see you here this morning. One of the things you can just do for us in the weeks to come is pray that the Lord will help us have wisdom about how to manage the different things that have to be managed as we just go through this, the different regulations and all.
[1:21] I don't know if you can notice, but it's sort of actually really interesting. This is the stage which was here on the 15th of March because the Ottawa Little Theatre was closed. So all the posters are about dead, death, actually.
[1:33] So it's sort of very interesting. As you're looking at this and you're looking at me, it's the dark garden, cold secrets, west of death, one last look, five down.
[1:44] The other thing about this, if you're a guest, this is actually a very classic Anglican setup because just behind me are bottles of alcohol and a library. And on one level, nothing says Anglican as much as a library and alcohol while you read the Bible.
[2:02] So those of you who are just listening to this as an audio, you just have to imagine that's the stage set up, posters about death, maker's mark, and books, and the Bible.
[2:16] Those of you who know me know that I don't do seeker-sensitive things very well. We don't talk about Mother's Day on Mother's Day. We don't talk about Father's Day. If you're going to come here next week for Father's Day, I'm not going to talk about Father's Day.
[2:27] I'll just say Happy Father's Day. That will be about it. But believe it or not, we're going to talk about anxiety this morning. And that's just because we're going through the book of Philippians and we're going to look at a text which is all about anxiety.
[2:39] And if you're here as a guest or if you're listening to this later on through a podcast and you don't know much about Christians, you should know that Christians are very conflicted about anxiety and they're very conflicted about the biblical teaching on anxiety.
[2:55] And in fact, ironically, the biblical text like we're going to look at today often makes Christians more anxious rather than less anxious. Because if you're listening to Matt read the text, it sounds as if the Bible is forbidding you to be anxious, which in an odd way, if that was actually what the Bible was saying, if you feel anxious and then the Bible says you shouldn't feel anxious, it would make you more anxious.
[3:21] So we're going to look at that. What does the Bible say about anxiety? You know, some of you maybe are anxious because we're here today. A bit uneasy about what it's like to be with other people.
[3:35] And anyway, there's lots of anxiety. So let's look. It's Philippians chapter 4, verses 1 to 7. Philippians chapter 4, verses 1 to 7. And there's like four or five different topics in these seven little verses that we're going to look at.
[3:52] There's four or five different topics, any one of which I could make as a sermon. I don't have that much time to do them all. And I'm just going to read the text. But we're really just going to look at two and a half verses. And I'm going to say it over and over and over again because I want us to really sort of camp and memorize it.
[4:08] I just don't have time to deal with the other issues. So look, this is how it begins. Therefore, my brothers and sisters whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
[4:19] And we could talk a little bit about standing firm in the Lord and what it means that Paul talks about them as the beloved. And it's sort of bringing to a close the stuff that's gone on in the previous three chapters and entering us into sort of some of the more practical type of exhortations and encouragement that the letter is going to begin.
[4:38] And then it talks about something which is always relevant, which is Bill Hybels famously said that whenever two or more are together, there is friction. And we know that's true in churches.
[4:49] We know it's true in families. And we know it's in friendship. And so the very next part addresses it in a little bit. And we won't really. I'll just read it. Verse two. I entreat Iodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.
[5:03] Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
[5:13] And we could talk about conflict and what it means to have a same mind and what it means to sort of deal with each other, knowing that we're all written equally in the book of life.
[5:25] If you think about a conflict right now, and then you have to think about the fact that you're going to spend eternity with that person, then maybe you should be trying to deal with it. And we could talk about that. We don't because there's other things to do.
[5:36] And look at the next thing. A great thing to preach about, but I don't have time. Verse four. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Rejoice. We could talk about that. This exhortation to rejoice. I don't have time.
[5:47] Next bit also, really good stuff, worth meditating upon. The very next verse, verse five. It goes, let your reasonableness. And some of your Bible translations say gentleness.
[5:59] And some of your Bible translations say forbearance. And the original language, if you triangulate this idea of forbearance, reasonableness, and gentleness, it's the three words together sort of encapture this virtue that the Bible says that you should try to pursue.
[6:15] What does it go again? It goes, let your reasonableness, forbearance, gentleness be known to everyone. And that would be a really good thing to talk about because we all need those things.
[6:26] But we're going to talk about anxiety. And so verses five, B, six, and seven, a very famous text in the Bible. And if all that comes out of this sermon is that you desire to memorize this passage of Scripture and meditate upon it, then I've done a good job.
[6:43] And in fact, those of you who like to have sermon points, there's no sermon points this morning. And the reason there's no sermon points is if you all went home and remembered my pithy little saying and didn't remember the Bible, I failed.
[6:57] I want you to remember the Bible because that's God's word written rather than just I come up with a pithy little saying, you know, that tickles your ears or something like that. So what is it that the Bible says?
[7:08] And those of you who listen to it, you'll hear how it is that this verse is often intimidated and depressed Christians. It doesn't sound wise. But I'm going to suggest that if you think about the text, it ends up being extremely wise and very practical.
[7:26] Here's how it goes. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, 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 your minds in Christ Jesus.
[7:45] And just some of you notice this. It does look almost as if Jesus is saying, or the Bible is saying one of two things. It looks almost as if it's saying the Christian shouldn't be anxious. And the other thing is it almost talks about, well, maybe you begin like you're a bad Christian like me, but after you become a better Christian, you'll be less anxious because the peace of God is going to guard your heart.
[8:05] And that's just how that normally goes. And let's read the text again, and then let's just unpack it a bit. So is the Bible saying that Christians shouldn't be anxious?
[8:32] Simple answer, no. It's not saying that. If you look at it, it's a big but. I know I love saying that. There's a lot of big buts in the Bible.
[8:43] Let's put it that way. That's a good thing to get tattooed, I guess, on your arm. I like the big buts of the Bible. And this is a big but. It's not saying that you should never be anxious.
[8:55] It's talking about where you go with your anxiety. That's what's going on. Right? It's saying the Lord is at hand, which we're going to get back to in a moment.
[9:06] Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything. So it's anything and everything. It's saying, you know, it doesn't matter if you're anxious just because, I don't know, you can't remember your PIN number for your bank machine.
[9:20] Or it's just something because somebody didn't greet you the right way in church and now you're getting anxious about it. Or you just got a cancer diagnosis, a really big thing. Or you're unemployed and you're maxed out on your credit card.
[9:32] Those are big things to be anxious about. Or you're moving. That's a big thing to be anxious about. But it's saying, for everything, the smallest thing, that if you even shared it with your best friend, they'd go, really?
[9:43] You're anxious about that? Like you're too caught up with being a mature adult to actually want to acknowledge that you're anxious about something so small? Or something that everybody would recognize, obviously, is a matter that would cause anxiety.
[9:55] The big getting a cancer diagnosis. Something like that. Like a serious, serious, serious. I mean, they're all serious. But it's saying, what do you do with your anxiety?
[10:06] Because here's the thing. You can't be human without being anxious. You cannot be human without being anxious. And the Bible doesn't tell you to stop being human.
[10:20] The Bible addresses human realities at the deepest level in the context of the fact that the triune God actually exists. And so the Bible is unfailingly realistic in a way that is compassionate and just and merciful as it tries to get us to understand who we are as human beings in a world where the triune God really exists.
[10:44] And the fact of the matter is, if you think about it for a second, every human being is an unending torrent of needs. Every human being is an unending torrent of needs.
[10:59] If you talk to my friend Jason at the back, he would talk about, tell you that human beings are contingent, which is a $153 word, which means we depend on something else.
[11:10] We depended upon our mother and father for us to be born. We depended upon our mom to keep us in the womb. We depended upon our parents to carry us. We learned language from other people.
[11:21] We're dependent upon the ozone layer. We're dependent upon gravity. Like, we are one, we want to pretend that we're gods, but we are one unending torrent of needs that will continue until we die.
[11:37] And if we are an unending torrent of needs, we will experience anxiety. What will it be like in the new heaven and the new earth? Well, that's a whole other thing that we can't talk about because the Bible doesn't reveal what it will be like to be in redeemed bodies in a redeemed relationship with God, the triune God.
[11:55] But right now we are an unending torrent of needs, so we will always be anxious. So the Bible isn't saying if you follow Jesus enough, you will turn into an angel. No.
[12:07] What the Bible does is it helps you to understand and become more human. And so there will always be anxiety. The question is, where do you go with your anxiety?
[12:18] What do you do with your anxiety? And that's a big human problem. It's part of the human experience as to how you deal with anxiety. For a lot of people, once anxiety gets to a certain level, they take the Jack Daniels method of dealing with their anxiety or they go and get some legal marijuana to help them to deal with their anxiety.
[12:36] In our culture, it's very common now to go towards learning a certain meditation technique from some type of Hinduism or Buddhism or to learn some type of yoga technique from some type of Hinduism from Hinduism or to practice Buddhist mindfulness as a way of dealing with the anxiety and the stress that we have in our lives.
[12:55] But one of the things which is common to all of those types of things is that all they do is they just either numb you to the anxiety you're feeling, which is what Jack Daniels does, or if it's not Jack Daniels, it's shopping or, I don't know, some type of adrenaline junkie type of thing.
[13:16] But it either just numbs you or helps you to have a bit of a break from it, but that which causes the anxiety was there when you began the meditation and it's still there when you ended it.
[13:26] And you actually aren't dealing with the anxiety. You're just taking a break from it. I don't know if bookstores are open yet, but once the bookstores are open, you can go to the Indigo bookstore and you can see a completely different way of trying to handle anxiety, which is the secular method, often mixed with different spiritual things.
[13:45] There's a huge section of books, self-help books, to basically tell you how to manage your emotions, how to manage your job, how to manage your spouse, how to manage your kids, how to manage your money, how to manage this and how to manage that and how to manage this.
[13:59] It's all ways to try to think through how we can stop feeling anxiety and handle it. And here's two truths about all those books. One is, none of them work. Because if they worked, there'd only be one book.
[14:15] And we'd all read it. Right? And the other thing about them is if you read those books like I have, what do they do? They almost always, after the first week, make you feel more anxious, not less.
[14:29] Because you know what? The author seems to be able to do this. Why can't I? Like, what's wrong with me? And now you have 53 new things to be anxious and down on yourself about than you had before because you can't manage the secret.
[14:43] You can't manage the process. No, I'm not saying that you can't learn certain things that help. I'm not saying that there's better ways or worse ways to handle certain situations.
[14:53] I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, the fact of the matter is, is that we will always have anxiety in our lives. And the Bible isn't saying never be anxious. It's saying, listen, all the different things you're anxious, how do you deal with it?
[15:09] What does it say? Listen to what the text says again. And this whole thing, it's very, very wise. This is why it's so wise to try to memorize this text. Listen to it. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
[15:28] And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So where do you go with your anxiety, whether it's a small thing or a big thing? You bring it to Jesus.
[15:38] You remember that the Lord is near. You bring it to Jesus. The smallest thing, the biggest things, you bring it to Jesus, you bring it to other Christians who can pray about it for you as well. And in a sense, the text is reminding you that it's not just that you can pray about this issue, and I'm going to talk about this more in a moment, but that you don't have to face it alone if you're a Christian.
[16:01] Like Jesus is with me. I'm anxious because I've had a breakdown in a relationship with a person I don't know how to deal with it. I don't have to deal with it by myself. Jesus is near. And who is he?
[16:13] He's not just Jesus. He's the Lord. The Lord is near. And the Lord is near to them as well. So you can pray about it, and there's this remembrance, this reminding, remember the Lord is near.
[16:28] Remember the Lord is near. Remember the Lord is near. Have you remembered that the Lord is near? But some of you might say, George, though, doesn't it talk about this, the peace that surpasses all understanding? Doesn't that sort of imply, because I've talked to lots of Christians, by the way, who said I used to be very anxious, but now I know this peace of God.
[16:44] I don't feel anxiety anymore. And I've heard testimonies about that. I've had all sorts of people say things like that to me over the years. I no longer feel anxious like I do. George, you know, if you really let go and let God, if you really just are fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit, if you really are motivated in your spiritual disciplines, if you're really just following Jesus, you'll have this peace that surpasses all understanding, which means that you'll no longer be anxious.
[17:11] And we listen to these things, and we want to listen to these things, because on one level, we want to actually wish that there's the day will come when we're no longer anxious. Just before I say something about this, you know one of the things which is at the heart of this?
[17:25] Bit of a time out here. What motivates our desire to read self-help books to think that we can learn some type of method or set of techniques by which we will no longer be anxious?
[17:37] What is it that makes Christians wish they can, believe that they can listen to a testimony about being fully surrendered to Jesus or fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit or fully committed to the Rosary or fully committed to Bible memorizing or whatever it is, it will mean you no longer are going to be anxious.
[17:55] It's actually appealing to our desire to be God. It's actually appealing to our desire to be God. to refuse to acknowledge that I am an unending torrent of needs.
[18:14] And if I was just an unending torrent of needs, that can be depressing, but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, they don't need, God doesn't need me, but He loves me, not with a need love, but a gift love.
[18:29] I am an unending torrent of needs and the triune God is an unending fount of blessing and goodness. But go back to these Christians who say these things.
[18:42] I have one word to say to them. I don't say it to their face. Inwardly, I say this. You are in denial. I don't think you're so holy.
[18:54] I'm a bad person. I'm sorry. I don't want to encourage you to be... But the fact of the matter is that's not true. I'm going to describe the three reasons why that's not possibly true. The first one is that there's four.
[19:05] One I've already talked about. You're in an ending torrent of needs. So that means there's going to be anxiety there. And so people who say... Christians who say they're so surrendered to the Holy Spirit that they're never anxious anymore, I say to them, you are in denial.
[19:20] How do I know they're in denial? Because I'm Exhibit A. Some of you have heard this story before and after the service, we have a doctor in the room. Maybe he can remind me what my condition is.
[19:32] But I... I... I... Quite a few years ago, I had a racing... I keep wanting to put my heart here, which shows how much I know about medicine. The heart's closer to this side.
[19:43] And I had a problem of racing heart. My heart was just racing. And at the same time, it felt sometimes as if my heart was pounding or the odd pound, almost as if it was going to pound out of my chest.
[19:54] And sometimes it would feel as if I was missing... My heart would skip a beat. Now, I was a typical guy. I still am a typical guy. So I did what all typical men do. Don't tell anybody about it, which is not the right way to ever handle it.
[20:09] So eventually, I got so worried about it that I told my wife. And my wife did the typical wife thing. Why haven't you gone to a doctor about this yet? Oh, yeah.
[20:19] There's doctors. That's when you're supposed to go. So I went to the doctor. I was misdiagnosed and all at first as if I had a very serious heart condition and valve problems and all this other really depressing stuff, which just made my heart go way worse.
[20:33] And I finally went to the Ottawa Heart Institute. They did a whole barrage of tests on me. At the end of it, he said, you have this condition. He gave me the long name. He said, you have a condition when you have too much stress in your life, you're going to have these heart symptoms.
[20:49] You're young and healthy and strong. You don't need drugs. And I was at the time I was in a rural church. He said, next time you start to have this, you need to take two weeks off and go fishing. That's the solution.
[21:00] Or you need to go talk to somebody. You have too much stress in your life and it's showing up in your body and you're not handling it right. And you know what? I would have said that I had the peace of Jesus and wasn't anxious.
[21:14] It was a huge wake-up call to me that I was either not recognizing my anxiety or I was numbing my anxiety in ways that definitely were not healthy.
[21:27] So here's the thing. One of the reasons that Christians can say that they now have the peace of Jesus and all of that and that they no longer feel anxiety, sometimes when they say that, if you're saying that, it means you're in denial probably.
[21:41] There's two other reasons. One other reason in particular. And I don't mean to offend you. One of the ways to reduce anxiety in your life is to stop doing hard things for Jesus. By the way, that's not a point to do something.
[21:55] I'm just telling you that's what happens. You know, so the Holy Spirit starts to whisper to me that I should share the gospel at some point in time with the fellow that I've become friends with who's gay and I start to think maybe I should share the gospel with them and I can feel the Holy Spirit pressing me on and say, no, I'm not going to do something like that.
[22:15] Well, that's an easy way to reduce your tension and anxiety in your life. Or you're working in your workplace and your boss is doing something which is just unjust, unfair, breaking the rules.
[22:27] The powerful people in the company say you have to go ahead and do this and you just feel the conviction from within you that you have to tackle your boss and confront them for the evil or the wrong that they're doing and you decide you don't do it and your stress goes down.
[22:42] Or you get the conviction of the Holy Spirit that you have to start being more financially generous. I know that when I was beginning to learn how to tithe, there was some real stress in my life. All of a sudden when I had to increase the amount of giving that I gave by $60 every two weeks, that was a stressful thing.
[23:00] You do it and the roof didn't fall down. I still ate. My kids still had clothes. But you see, if you stop doing the hard things that God is calling you to do, you will feel less anxious.
[23:17] But that's not a sign of holiness. It's a sign that you're no longer following Jesus. And the third thing is is that you're becoming a sociopath in a Christian way. Sorry.
[23:29] There's a famous actress who I'm not going to tell you but it was about four or five years ago they had a thing in the National Post about the things that you wish that you could have if you could wish one thing what it would be. And one of the things that this famous actress said is she wished that she'd ever feel any guilt for the rest of her life.
[23:44] And I thought to myself she's just wished that she becomes a sociopath. Why is it that nobody in the paper realized she just wished to become a sociopath where you feel no guilt?
[23:56] Because the fact of the matter is is if you become more and more you don't care about people like you really just don't care about people at all and you don't care about right and wrong you'll feel less anxiety.
[24:08] But you know what if you love people if you love your friends if you love your nephew or your niece you love your kid there's always going to be anxiety.
[24:22] There always will be because life can be really hard and it breaks your heart to see what they're going through. And the only way you stop being anxious is to start killing love and killing concern and killing your conscience and who wants that?
[24:40] If you wanted that coming into the service hopefully now you don't. So whatever the peace that passes all understanding means it doesn't mean thank you Jesus as a result of the Holy Spirit you're now permanently in denial permanently stopping listening to Jesus and becoming a sociopath.
[24:59] No! That's not what the peace of Christ means it can't. Listen to the text again. The Lord is at hand do not be anxious about anything 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 your mind in Christ Jesus.
[25:22] It's such a beautiful text. I'm going to read it again because if all you do is remember the text I've done a good work. If all you do is you go home and you start to wrestle with God with this text that's what my job is.
[25:34] I'm a herald. I'm a pointer. Listen to it again. The Lord is at hand do not be anxious about anything 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 your minds in Christ Jesus.
[25:54] So what does this peace mean? Does it mean it replaces anxiety? No, it's referring to something different. In the Bible the word peace primarily refers to an objective state of affairs.
[26:06] not an emotion. It refers primarily to an objective state of affairs not an emotion. Now the objective state of affairs will start to influence your emotions.
[26:19] It will influence your affections. It will influence your plans. It will influence your courage. It will influence your desires. state of affairs. But it's an objective state of affairs that starts to influence how you feel.
[26:34] It would be as if you go to a doctor and they treat that you go through some surgery and you have the drug treatments and you're restored to health. The health is an objective thing and it starts to have other types of effects.
[26:47] Right? You get your health and all of a sudden you have energy. You get your health and you're in less pain. You get your health and you feel like you can tackle things. You get health and you want to go like you know what I mean like it's an objective thing and what it is.
[26:59] So the way to understand it is to think of you know that people don't make them anymore and maybe some of you do. But if you imagine that as a bit of a project in somebody's garage you wanted to make the world's most elaborate mobile.
[27:14] And so you get the fishing wire and you get the fine pieces of wood and you have it be really elaborate. You have different lengths of wood some like this some like this and you have different lengths of wire and you have different objects of different weight and the fishing line some are long like this and some are short and you work on it and you work on it until it's all completely balanced and really beautiful and that's peace.
[27:39] That's peace. And at the heart of peace is peace with God. At the heart of peace is peace with God.
[27:53] If you just turn in your Bibles with me to John chapter 20 John chapter 20 there's this very short three verse narrative there's more to the narrative but there's very short parts of two and a half verses which at a narrative level and plant an idea into your head that now that I start to point it out you go oh yeah.
[28:20] That's the way narrative works, right? It's planted there but one of the main ideas of what happens as a result of Jesus' life, death and resurrection is that human beings can now have peace with God and you can't get that mobile right if you don't have peace with God.
[28:42] You can't get that mobile right if you don't have peace with God and look what happens so John is an eyewitness of all of the events in this he writes a biography of Jesus it's an eyewitness biography and the very first words that Jesus speaks to somebody after his resurrection is to Mary Magdalene we know from other biographies that Jesus saw other people but none of the first words are recorded these are the first words of Jesus other than the words recorded to Mary Magdalene these are the first words recorded by Jesus that Jesus spoke that are recorded when he speaks to his disciples in the upper room look at verse 19 on the evening of that day so it was in that morning they discovered that the grave is empty the grave clothes were left behind and Jesus had risen from the dead the first day of the week the door is being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jewish leaders Jesus came and stood among them and said to them what's the first thing he says peace be with you and then what does he do he ties this message of peace to his crucifixion look what he does next when he had said this he showed them his hands in his side he shows them this part of the hand and he must have lifted up his jersey or whatever he was wearing and showed the the wound of the spear that went into his side that showed that he was dead and then he says to them again peace be with you he directly connects his death upon his life and death and resurrection to the fact that they now have peace now the fact of the matter is is that
[30:17] God doesn't have to have Jesus God the Father doesn't have to have Jesus do something so that you know he's no longer at war with us because God is never the Father is never I mean how could the Father be at war with us I mean he doesn't even have to blink and I just would stop existing like that's just like and the fact of the matter is is that God's unfailingly good he's unfailingly just he's unfailingly merciful he's unfailingly kind he has nothing he's not at enmity with us but we're at enmity with him and we're at enmity with him and we can't fix our enmity with him and if you don't think you're at enmity with him if the enmity with him comes up when he his presence and his sovereignty and his rule goes against my desire would I have to reconcile with that person would I'm not allowed to sleep with that person you want me to be generous it's not my money it's yours what do you mean it's not my money and yours I need to actually speak up to my boss about justice I need to repent of racism like how dare you say that like you know whoa you know it's that's when we start to realize our enmity against God and we can't fix it ourselves and that's what Jesus does the demands of justice so that the war that our enmity can be over the demands of penitence so that the war could be over the demands of apologies the demands of a new life the demands of a new way of living all of these demands which we could not accomplish to bring about peace
[31:52] Jesus does on our behalf through his sinless life and his sin bearing death and his resurrection and when we put our faith and trust in him I have peace with God at an objective level and now you see the power of the teaching and how it's all connected George you have all these anxieties and George as I've shared in some of the last things one of the main problems that George has and if George is all like you is I keep getting amnesia I walk out of here and within minutes or hours or the next day I forget about the fact that the Lord is near I forget about the fact that not only is the Lord near in terms of he's present with me now but that one day hopefully soon I will see him face to face and I forget about the fact that in Jesus by faith with him I have peace with God I forget about the fact that the Lord is near it means that my destiny is secure I forget about the fact that my identity is now rooted in the fact that Jesus is my Savior and Lord he loves me and he died for me and that's my primary identity and I forget his presence
[32:58] I forget my destiny I forget these things I forget that the one whose judgment most matters and a lot of our anxiety is over judgments about ourselves and judgments of others and senses of what it means to be a man or a woman or to be hip or not hip or alt-right or progressive or all those things that are so connected to us all those judgments we impose on ourselves and others say and all of our fears there's only one judgment that really matters and that is what the Father says at the end of our life and when you put your faith and trust in Jesus you already know what he will say welcome welcome I am so glad you're here I have loved you with an eternal and unfailing love from the moment you were conceived in your mom's womb and I love you so much my son died and I love you so much the Holy Spirit I just so love you and I am so glad you are here welcome and so that as we pour out our hearts remembering the Lord is near and sometimes when it says the peace that surpasses all understanding what that means is that in every
[34:14] Christian's life and we will in heaven only realize it fully that there is every one of in our lives times that the something of the supernatural about how we have responded to anxiety and we don't realize that it was just a surpassing of our understanding as a gracious gift friends what does the Bible say oh I have the wrong text what does the Bible say let your the Lord is at hand do not be anxious about anything 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 your minds in Christ Jesus don't be afraid of your anxieties pour out your heart to the Lord there's nothing too small nothing too big and not just for yourself as you look around your neighbors as you look around the church and you see the anxieties that others have pour out your heart and pray for them as well pour out your heart and pray that the Lord will meet them in their anxiety and that rather than turning to Jack Daniels and rather than turning to adrenaline junky stuff or rather than turning to excessive shopping or rather than turning to whatever it is pray that they'll turn to the Lord and pray for me a sinner who gets amnesia like you and needs to learn to pour out my heart to the Lord please stand
[35:56] Father we are these things that you know us perfectly and still you love us we thank you Father that you know those things about us that are really immature and childish and you know those things that are mature and still you love us you know those things about us that are very shameful and you know those things that are very excellent and still you love us we give you thanks and praise that you do not weigh our merits, but pardon our offenses. We give you thanks and praise that Jesus knew everything there was to know about us when he died upon the cross, and still he loved us, and still he died for us. And we thank and praise you that when we could not make peace with you, because we found you as our enemy, that you still loved us and sent Jesus to be the one who makes peace with you, that he is our peace. Father, we ask that you deliver us from amnesia, that you help us to remember our identity in Jesus and our destiny in Jesus and his never-failing presence in those things in our lives that make us anxious. Father, make us mindful of these things, and all these things we ask in the name of Jesus and all God's people said, Amen.