10/8/23 Philippians - Part 11 “Worry or Worship”

Worry or Worship

Philippians 4:4-7

There was once a woman who for 10 years worried that someone would break into her house.

Every night when she went to bed, she would begin to experience anxiety over the possibility of a burglar entering her home while she was sleeping.

Day after day, week after week, month after month passed by…. finally an entire decade had lapsed – 3,650 days….and not one of them was free of worry and anxiety for this poor lady.

Finally, one night around 1:00 am she and her husband were awoken by a noise downstairs.

So, her husband climbs out of bed, goes downstairs, turns on the light, and lo and behold, there’s a burglar in the kitchen.

The husband was a bit startled, but after gaining his composure, he calmly asked the burglar a question.

He said, sir, before you leave with some of our treasured belongings, would you please take a minute and come upstairs to say ‘hi’ to my wife – she’s been waiting 10 years to meet you!! 😊

The moral of this goofy little story is this:

A burglar can steal from you once…..but the burglar of anxiety can steal from you - decades!!

Here are some current facts about anxiety in our country - According to a well-known medical website:

1)     Anxiety disorders currently affect over 42 million adults in the US with nearly a third of all people experiencing an anxiety disorder at some point during their lives – making anxiety, by far, the most commonly diagnosed mental health disorder in the history of the world.

2)     Women are nearly twice as likely to suffer from anxiety as compared to men.

3)     Anxiety causes many harmful physical conditions such as: Chronic pain disorders, high blood pressure, asthma, IBS, muscular problems, sleep problems, heart palpitations, restlessness, sweating, dizziness, etc. etc.

We Americans tend to worry about the strangest things as well….we filter our air to protect our lungs, we use antibacterial soap to protect against disease – and yet at the same time, 20% of adults smoke, 20% of adults don’t wear seatbelts, and 75% of people with phones admit to texting while driving.

It seems as though we like to worry a lot about perceived dangers, while ignoring some of the actual dangers in life.

Well, at least the Holiday season is just around the corner which means everyone’s stress level will be going waay down, right?....we wish!

According to a recent poll, 64% of Americans claim that their level of anxiety goes waay up during the holidays….can you relate to that?

There can be a lot of reasons for SAD (Seasonal Anxiety Disorder): the stress of traveling, family get-togethers, the loss of a loved one during this time of year, less sunlight during the day, time constraints, a busy schedule…. Unfortunately, many things can cause us to feel stressed-out during the holiday season.

Well, no matter what might be causing you anxiety today, the bible provides a spiritual remedy for dealing with unwanted stress and worry in your life.

Our passage for today from Philippians chapter four is one of the most widely known - and most comforting passages in all of scripture.

It powerfully reminds us that when it comes to anxiety, or worry, or stress, we are not left defenseless against this joy-stealing burglar of the soul.

Even though the effects of anxiety are often physical, Paul reminds us in today’s passage that the war waged against anxiety is primarily conducted in the realm of the spiritual.

Does anyone have Ephesians 6:12 memorized? …. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Anxiety is a spiritual weapon of our enemy – an invisible burglar looking to steal your joy and peace.

Therefore, if we are to successfully defeat anxiety, we must do battle against it with spiritual weapons, not physical ones.

Let’s back up a bit and look at verse 4 of our passage for today (Philippians 4:4)

In this verse, Paul begins a series of directives that build upon each other until we reach verse 7 where these verses culminate in one of the greatest promises in all of scripture.

Verse 4 begins by telling us to ‘rejoice in the Lord always’…and just so we don’t forget, Paul tells us again to ‘Rejoice!’….this time with an exclamation mark!....this is obviously an important and essential part of being a follower of Jesus Christ.

A typical cultural definition of Rejoice is “To feel great joy or delight”

But biblical joy – to quote a band from the 70’s - is more than a feeling….

John MacArthur describes biblical joy this way: “it is the deep-down confidence that God is in control of everything for the believer’s good and His own glory, and thus all is well no matter what the circumstances.”

Jesus refers to this deep, abiding joy in John 15:11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made complete.”

Complete joy doesn’t come and go – it remains a part of us regardless of our circumstances or life situation.

Later in chapter 4 of Philippians, Paul says that he has “Learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” (Philippians 4:11)

Paul can claim this truth about himself because of JOY!....whether he was in prison, walking thousands of miles on a missionary journey, sewing a tent (Paul was a tent-maker by trade)…… If was in need or if he had plenty – Paul was content, he had a deep-settled joy in his heart.

Does anyone remember the old Sunday School song that goes: “I’ve got joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart…” “Down in my heart to stay”?

That little Sunday School has a deeper meaning than what many of us realized when we sang it as little children…Joy, unlike simple happiness, really is in our hearts to stay – IF we have the person of the Holy Spirit residing within us.

How is your heart joy this morning?

You know that machine that records your blood pressure?...I think it’s called a blood pressure monitor?....They stick it around your upper arm and it clamps down, making all of the veins in your lower arm pop out…right?

What if they made a “Joy Pressure Monitor” and strapped it around your heart to measure the “Joy-pressure” in your life…would it measure a healthy level of joy consistent with being a follower of Christ – or would the machine fail to detect any Joy-pressure in your heart whatsoever…?

Maybe you need to call the “Joy Specialist” (AKA The Holy Spirit) to help improve your level of heart-joy this morning….

Take a look at verse 5 of today’s passage (Philippians 4:5)

Paul moves from ‘rejoicing’ to ‘gentleness’.

If our hearts are full of joy, we will also be full of gentleness.

It’s interesting – the Greek word translated ‘gentleness’ is Epieikes and carries with it a deeper meaning than any single English word can convey.

A few synonyms that help describe its multi-layered meaning are: Sweet Reasonableness, generosity, goodwill, friendliness, and charity.

Perhaps the most accurate corresponding English phrase to describe Epieikes is ‘Gracious Humility.’

Paul is basically telling us that our gracious humility should be evident to everyone around us….that people should be able to notice something about us that distinguishes us from the rest of the world.

Gracious humility runs against the grain of our culture’s obsession with self-love, self-esteem, and self-fulfillment – which all lead to more instability and anxiety.

Then we have verses 6&7 of our passage for today (Philippians 4:6)

Bible underliners?....If verse 6&7 aren’t already underlined in your Bible – I highly suggest doing so.

These verses are nothing short of life-changing for many people who have learned the secret of defeating anxiety once and for all.

Not long ago, I gave a book to our daughter Lexy. The book is written by Max Lucado entitled “Anxious for Nothing” and it is based entirely off of these two verses of scripture.

Lexy happened to be reading this book by a hotel pool one day while on vacation and a lady stopped – saw what book Lexy was reading – and said to her: That Book literally Changed my Life!”….what she was really saying was “Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7 changed my life”

She had been suffering under the weight of anxiety for many years and God used Max Lucado’s book to turn her attention back to these two verses of scripture where God gives us the instructions on how to completely dismantle the enemy of anxiety and worry in our lives.

Let’s back up a second….the end of verse 5 (Philippians 4:5) reminds us that ‘The Lord is near’…. And it’s the realization and experience of this truth regarding God’s close spiritual proximity to us that helps us to fully experience victory over worry and anxiety.

The writer of Hebrews (In Hebrews 13:5) quotes Deuteronomy 31:6 which says: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.”

This truth that God is always near to us ought to convince us intellectually, that we really have nothing to be anxious about.

God is in complete control…and as far as our tomorrows go?....He is already there!

There’s a beautiful song by the Collingsworth Family called “Fear Not Tomorrow” and it carries with it the message that we need not fear tomorrow because God is already there!....Remember, God is timeless!!

Well, sometimes it can be one thing to cognitively understand that God is in complete control….and another thing to experience the truth that God is in complete control.

December 11th, 2020 was the longest day of my life….and, I’m guessing, it most likely was for Lisa as well.  A few months earlier, our daughter Lexy had been diagnosed with an extremely rare and dangerous tumor that was growing in the sheath around the spinal cord in her lower back. It would require extensive neurological surgery that, if not done properly or completely, had the potential to render her crippled – or worse.

The day of her surgery arrived, and since it was during Covid, they just allowed one other person to be in the hospital with Lexy during her surgery and subsequent days of rehabilitation….so Lisa stayed at the hospital and I stayed at home.

I remember feeling so helpless at home with our oldest daughter Lindsay and my parents as we waited for updates from Lisa as to how the surgery was progressing.

The surgery was originally expected to last 5 or 6 hours…when hour 7 went by, then hour 8, I remember thinking ‘this can’t be good’ – they must have run into a problem and they’re not telling us.

But during that hour 8th hour….Through the constant prayers, the tears, the encouraging texts and phone calls, and through scripture, I felt a wave of peace come upon me….and later, Lisa would tell me the same thing happened to her.

For me, this was the hour in my life when I was given the opportunity to actually experience verses 6 & 7 of today’s passage.

Finally, after 9 hours of surgery, we were told that Lexy was being sewn back up and that the Doctor said everything had gone to plan.

Before this, I intellectually understood verses 6 & 7, but I had yet to fully experience the supernatural peace of God in a time of intense trial.

My family and I had walked through ‘the valley of the shadow of death’ that night and we were comforted by the rod and the staff of the good shepherd…

I know that many of you have been through something similar in your life….and many of you can vouch for the truth of these two verses.

Verse 6 (Philippians 4:6) gives us two basic commands – one in the negative, and one in the positive.

The negative command is to not be anxious about anything…and that really does say anything!....the world – especially our Western society - is full of anxiety over everything (Have you seen the news lately?)

But Paul is expecting Jesus-followers to use the supernatural freedom that we have in Christ to rise above the temptation to succumb to worry and anxiety.

How do we do this?

The answer lies in the positive command: Bring the burdens of our heart to God in prayer.

Whenever Jesus was troubled, what did he do?.... he prayed!

Why do we so often forget the therapeutic benefit of prayer?

The world preaches its counterfeit practices such as Eastern meditation or yoga, but, ultimately, these cannot provide lasting, supernatural peace because they fail to engage the source of this supernatural peace: the one true God.

One thing I’ve come to realize in my 52 years on this earth….It is impossible to  worship God and worry at the same time.

Have you ever noticed that when we are worshipping God (whether its reading the Word, praying, singing hymns or praise songs)….when we are worshipping God, it is impossible to be overcome with anxiety at the same time.

It’s like the Holy Spirit puts a shield of defense around our mind as we engage in glorifying God.

There’s a scene in the original Lord of the Rings movie where Gandalf the grey is fighting the evil Balrog on the end of a bridge and at one point he slams his staff on the ground and shouts to the Balrog “You Shall Not Pass!”

This is how I envision the Holy Spirit working against the burglar of anxiety in our lives as we engage in worship of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

As long as we are focused on worshipping our savior – anxiety shall not pass into our minds!

Have you ever seen the bumper sticker that says: Know God, Know peace….No God, No peace!

This truth is communicated through another amazing biblical passage about defeating anxiety that comes from the lips of Jesus himself in the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 6 beginning at verse 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Matthew 6:25-27)

Then Jesus ends that iconic passage with this statement in verse 34 “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)

Remember that old Country-Gospel song: “One Day at a Time”?

There’s a lot of wisdom in those lyrics about simply trusting God and taking on the challenges of each day as they come along…and not to be overly stressed out by any particular event or circumstance.

Verse 7 of our passage for this morning (Philippians 4:7) reveals the reward received when we joyfully submit to the authority of God through a mindset of steadfast trust in His faithfulness - the reward?

Peace.

There’s a lyric in a Zac Brown song that says “There’s no dollar sign on a piece of mind, this I’ve come to know….”

….and if the world’s peace of mind is seen as priceless, how about the eternal, supernatural peace of God?

A peace that emboldens us to face whatever life throws at us with grace and confidence.

A peace that empowers us to consider the big picture of our eternal destiny over the temporal condition of our own humanity.

A peace that baffles the esteemed elites of this world.

A peace that drives out fear and ushers in pure contentment in any and every situation….now that peace is priceless!!

And if you don’t have that kind of peace in your life right now, you can have that peace today…this passage of scripture provides you with the ultimate prescription for the illness of anxiety.

It’s a prescription that is guaranteed to work – and the bottle filled with prayer, praise, and God’s Word never runs out!

Let’s Pray.