Rejoice Always and Don't be Anxious

Gracious God, as the Bible is read and taught to us today, deliver us from unbelief and disobedience. Help us to exhort and encourage one another that none may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Produce in us the fruit of your Spirit for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. What is something that brings you joy? Small joy, big joy? A quiet coffee overlooking some feature of nature? Spending time with your grandchildren or children? Watching an adult go six, seven? Achieving something you've never done before? How do you express that joy? Maybe a smile? Do you tell a neighbour or a friend? To give thanks to God. Now what is something that makes you anxious? Maybe something uncertain you've got coming up? Or you watch the news with all its doom and gloom? Or there's a relationship that is there's tension there. What do you do with that anxiety? Today we're going to look at both expressing joy and dealing with our anxiety to seemingly opposite emotions and we're going to do that in light of the fact that we are to live for Jesus, our Savior and our Lord who is going to return. Now over the last four weeks we've been looking at various passages in Philippians. We've seen how through faith in Jesus who died for our sin and was raised as Lord we're saved and that through that same faith in Jesus we are then made citizens of Jesus's kingdom and we look forward to being with Jesus in his glory. And then what we have in Philippians chapter four is a series of encouragements and exhortations for God's people as they live as members of Jesus's kingdom while we wait for his return. Am I going to look at three of those exhortations this morning? Two in detail, one very briefly. The first one is Rejoice always. Verse four of chapter four in Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord again I will say rejoice. Not once but twice is the command to rejoice. Now what does it mean to rejoice? Well it's to celebrate, to be joyfully, to give an expression to our joy. A Rockhampton Rejoice when the government announced that Rockhampton will host the 2032 Olympic rowing. The billboard across the bridge had some very celebratory crocodiles. Last weekend half the people who watched the grand final rejoiced because their team won. Here in Philippians we are called to rejoice in the Lord to express our joy in the Lord. And the Lord here is Jesus. Paul makes this clear in his letter for example in chapter two verse 10 he writes at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus is Lord and we are to rejoicing him always. But how can we do this when life throws us lemons? When our circumstances are less than desirable? When our health might be failing? When the ebb and flow of life storms are at our door? How can we have joy let alone express that joy? How can we rejoice? Well Paul gives us an answer. Paul is in prison and first century Roman prisons were not pleasant places to be. He's facing the real possibility of death for proclaiming Jesus. And yet if you read through the letter of Philippians Paul rejoices a lot. Paul rejoices that God is at work in the Philippians. He rejoices that the gospel is being proclaimed and spreading. He rejoices that God answers prayer. He rejoices in Christ who is exalted. And he rejoices that he's going to get to share eternity with those who have faith in Jesus and that that eternity is secure. It's not the situation that Paul finds himself in that is causing him to rejoice. But the eternal spiritual reality of God at work through Jesus Christ. This is really helpful for us today. When we place our faith in Jesus Jesus gives us a join him. A salvation that we can be thankful for no matter what our earthly situation is. Even when things are pear shaped we can be confident that God is at work in his church. Growing mature disciples adding to the church those who are putting their faith in Jesus. Rejoicing doesn't always mean feigning happiness or just pretending that everything is okay all the time but it is to express our joy in Jesus. It means rejoicing doesn't depend on our feelings. We can feel down sad frustrated unhappy and yet we can still rejoice in the Lord because it's about the joy that comes from knowing Jesus and not from whatever our external circumstances might be. So how do we practice rejoicing? We express our joy. In church we often sing songs of rejoicing. Last week we had our favorite hymns event. It was a great afternoon of rejoicing in the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. We can rejoice in prayer. We can rejoice in the quietness of our hearts. Thankful to God for his goodness. We can rejoice to each other by expressing the joy that we have. One simple way that we can practice this exhortation to rejoice is that every time we pray to start the prayer with I praise you God for and then choose one thing about Jesus to praise God for. His life, his death, his resurrection, your salvation. Jesus's work in the church if you're feeling brave. Another way that you could express your joy is you could try writing a song. One of the hymns that we sung last week at the Our Favorite Hymns was It Is Well With My Soul and we heard the story of Horatio Spafford who wrote it. I hear that just experienced financial ruin. His family were going on holidays and his family went before him but the boat that his family were on struck another boat. It sunk within 12 minutes and he lost four of his daughters. When Horatio was then making the same trip to meet his wife he penned the words, When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul, That is rejoicing always. It requires a confidence in Jesus' death and resurrection for our salvation. A joy that can only come from him. And if you don't know that joy I invite you, God invites you, Jesus invites you to come today and place your faith in Jesus. He is our precious Lord and Saviour. Only he can give us the joy of knowing our eternal salvation is secure, our sin eternally forgiven, our eternal life sure so that we can rejoice always. So rejoicing the Lord always again I will say rejoice. Well the next exhortation is verse five and it's to live out our Christian faith with Christlikeness that people can see. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Reasonable here is often translated gentleness and it's the sense of letting the grace filled life that you have in Christ be on show. The life that comes from in part from rejoicing always and in a moment the life that comes from not being anxious because we trust Jesus Christ. But it's the life transformed by Jesus needs to be on show. Our faith made known to everyone in word as we proclaim and rejoice in the gospel and indeed as we live a life that matches the transformed life that we proclaim. And we can do this because we know the Lord is at hand. Jesus is going to come back again. We know the end of history. Jesus is going to come. The world as we know it will end and the new heavens and the new earth will begin. And all those with faith in Jesus will be there with him. And knowing the end of history enables us to live for him now even though it might mean suffering. But also we want to make our faith known don't we? We want other people to know the joy that we have in Jesus. It's one of the reasons the draft mission statement we're going to look at in our workshop today is based on the great commission of Jesus to make disciples. It reads we know and share God's love for us in Jesus and invite people to trust in him. We want people to know the joy that we have in Christ. So that was the brief exhortation. The next exhortation we're going to look at is the way in which we approach anxiety. And this is one we struggle with isn't it? Verse 6 Do not be anxious about anything. This is hard because it's not like anxiety has a switch. You can't just go, oh God says in Philippians do not be anxious about anything. Okay switch off the anxiety and I'm not anxious anymore. Nice if it did work like that but it doesn't. According to a national study of mental health and well-being in Australia one in five people in a year in Australia will experience anxiety levels that could be diagnosed by a doctor. It means that you probably have experienced anxiety at some time or another. You may even be experiencing it now. Our Philippians uses a broader definition of anxiety than the medical world which captures apprehension and worry and being disproportionately concerned about something. You think about anxiety of interactions with a person that just is able to push all of the right buttons excessive apprehension over a job interview, awake at night worrying about a family member or something that is outside of your control. And then we read verse 6. Do not be anxious about anything. And notice here there's no loophole. It covers everything. So how can we do this? Well we need to read the whole verse. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Prayer, supplication, requests, three words that mean we need to short-circuit anxiety through entrusting it to God in prayer. We need to bring to God our anxious situation. Not because he doesn't already know what our anxious situations are. He knows what we need even before we ask. But because in prayer we're expressing our faith in God and we're asking God to do what we cannot do ourselves. It means we can pray about that family member who is making unwise choices. It means we can wake up in the middle of the night and when we're stressed about our workload we can bring it to God in prayer. Or in those moments when we're feeling the fear and uncertainty of the future whether it be related to money or job or health we can pray and we're to do it with thanksgiving knowing the goodness of God. Now this is not a natural thing to do to pray. Our world has many ways of dealing with anxiety from seeing doctors to going on holidays to taking up mindfulness and ice baths to working less pushing for the four-day work week to working more never stopping working. Many people feel the need to hold on to their anxiety in the hope that they can just somehow deal with it. That they're strong enough to be able to get rid of it. Now some of these methods for getting rid of anxiety they do have a benefit particularly seeking medical assistance for chronic anxiety. But it's not to be the Christians first port of call. Our first port of call is prayer. Yet often it's not what we do is it? I remember being rebuked by a member of the last church that we were at. I told him I was worried about something and I couldn't sleep the previous night because I was worried about it and he asked me this question did you pray about it? And to my shame I had to say no I hadn't. Yet God couldn't be clearer here but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving bring your requests to God. So why do we struggle to pray? Well here's a couple of reasons. We might doubt God's power believe that God is too small that God is not able to handle our anxieties because he's not powerful enough and so that person doesn't pray because they don't think God can do anything about the situation. They believe the devil's lies that God is too small to do anything but our God created the heavens and the earth. He's spoken it came into being. Our God is powerful beyond our comprehension. He can answer prayer and he does with infinite power. Our God is not too small. The second reason we might not pray is that we doubt God's love for us and believe that he doesn't care. God's looking after the whole world after all killing caring for its billions of souls. Why would God care about poor little old me? And so instead of prayer this person wallows in self-pity anxious but not bringing it to God and deep down falls for the deception and thinking we're not important enough for God to care about us yet God does care. He knows the number of hairs on your head. He breathed life into our being right from the very moment of conception. God cares about you. He cares about us and he showed us he cares by sending his only son to die on the cross for our sin so that we can have eternal life. The third reason we might not pray is because of our own sinful pride and we believe that we don't need God. We don't need God to help and so we don't pray. This person might not put it in those words but nevertheless they refuse to pray and so they operate in their life without reference to God trying to deal with anxieties without reference to God and yet the Christian should pray because we trust that God is powerful enough that he is infinitely wise and good and that he cares for us and we should come before him depending on him rather than trying in our own sinful way to rebel against the Lord. And when we pray God makes a promise. Verse 7, And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus instead of worry God's peace. And God says and God says it will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Now this can mean one of two things. The first is that God is promising that he will guard our eternal salvation in Christ Jesus. Roman soldiers in Philippi they kept the peace by placing a garrison of guards around the city to keep it safe. In the same way God protects the heart of the Christian salvation in Christ Jesus so no one can steal it away. The second thing this verse could mean is that God will give us an experience of peace which is found only in Jesus Christ. I think the emphasis in this passage is on the first meaning that God will guard us he'll set a garrison over our heart so our salvation will not be stolen away. But when we know that we have peace with God through Christ when we know that God is powerful good and wise and that we can trust Him with our anxiety God uses that to give us a peace about the situation in which we could never have otherwise. How does he do it? Well it surpasses all understanding. We can know that he does. God is at work. So pray when you're anxious and know God's peace. And we might need gentle reminders to pray when we're anxious. We might need a brother and sister in Christ to ask have you prayed about it? We might need to be that brother or sister to someone else and pray with them. To add to that to pray when you're anxious it's really helpful if you're used to praying and asking God for things when you're calm and not anxious by having a daily pattern of prayer. If you're not sure what to pray begin by using the Lord's prayer. But when you're praying do not be afraid to use your own everyday words and just talk to God. Express your worry asking to take care of it. You can be honest with God. He is good and wise and powerful. He hears our prayers and he will know what to do. He will give you his peace especially when we're anxious. So today we've seen that we are to rejoice always. I'll say it again rejoice. We're to live out our faith in a way that makes it known. We're not to be anxious about anything but instead pray trusting God knowing that he will give us his peace. And all the while we do this knowing that the Lord is at hand. He is near. He's coming back. Let's now ask God to help us with those things. Heavenly Father we are rejoicing you. We rejoice in the salvation that you have given us in Christ and we praise you that you are at work in us and in our world. Help us to rejoice always knowing that eternal joy awaits us with Jesus even when things are hard in this world. We ask that you would help us to let our reasonableness be known to all as we live for Jesus. That we might share Christ with them and that more and more people would come to know him. And finally Lord we ask that you would enable us to not be anxious about anything but that you would by your spirit move us to pray about those things. Thank you that when we trust you and depend on you in prayer you promise your peace which surpasses all understanding and that you'll guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus in whose name we pray. Amen.