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.
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.
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.
Amen.
We might be one of the first churches to have offered services this week just for a variety of reasons.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
until it's all completely
balanced and really beautiful
and that's peace.
That's peace.
And at the heart of peace
is peace with God.
At the heart of peace
is peace with God.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.