Exchanging Anxiety for Peace

I read a story this week about four brothers who left home for university and became successful doctors and lawyers. Some years later, they chatted after having dinner together. They talked about the Christmas gifts they gave their elderly mother who lived far away in another city.

The first said, “I had a big house built for Mama.” The second said, “I had a hundred thousand dollar home theatre built in the house.” The third said, “I had my Mercedes dealer deliver an SL600 to her.” The fourth said, “You know how Mama loved reading the Bible and you know she can’t read anymore because she can’t see very well. I met this preacher who told me about a parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took 20 preachers 12 years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $100,000 a year for 20 years to the church, but it was worth it. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse and the parrot will recite it.” The other brothers were impressed.

Shortly afterwards, their mother sent out her thank you notes. She wrote: “Milton, the house you built is so huge but I have to clean the whole house even though I live in only one room. Thanks anyway.”

“Marvin, I am too old to travel and don’t see well enough to drive. I stay home, and I get my groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes. The thought was good, though. Thanks.”

“Michael, you gave me that expensive home theater that can hold 50 people, but all of my friends are dead, I’ve lost my hearing and I’m nearly blind. I’ll never use it. Thank you for the gesture anyways.”

“Dearest Melvin, you were the only son to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift. The chicken was delicious. Thank you.”

Giving gifts at Christmas is one of the great traditions associated with our holiday. Rooted in the gifts that the magi present to Jesus and inspired by the generosity of Saint Nikolaus of Myra, most of us have probably experienced a time when someone gave us a Christmas gift that was meaningful to us.

In addition to giving gifts, I bet most of us have also participated in some form of a gift exchange. Maybe you have a big family and so, to reduce the amount you have to buy, everyone draws a name and you only have to buy 1 gift, instead of 30. Or maybe you have played a white elephant game at your office party, where everyone brings a small gift and you can either keep the one you have or steal someone else’s.

Through our advent teaching series, my heart is that each one of us would have a gift exchange with Jesus. That we would give him our anxieties, our despair, our apathy, our discouragement, and our darkness and we would receive from him the gifts of peace, hope, love, joy and light.

Today, we are going to begin by exchanging our anxieties for God’s peace.

Now, I want to make it clear, that when I am talking about anxiety, I am not talking about clinical, excessive and/or pervasive anxiety. For that, I want to encourage you to talk to your doctor and mental health professional. I’m talking about the type of anxiety where your worries keep you from experiencing the fullness of life in the Kingdom.

I read that President Benjamin Harrison and his wife were so intimidated by the newfangled thing called electricity that was recently installed in the White House they didn't dare touch the switches. If there were no servants around to turn off the lights when the Harrisons went to bed, they slept with them on. Their fears affected their lives.

For many of us, we too let our fears affect our lives. Some of you are afraid of being parents to your kids like your parents were to you, so you overcompensate for whatever fault you see in them and usually take it too far the other direction. Some of you are afraid of confrontation so you allow others to hurt and minimize you. Some of you are terrified of letting others really know you so you keep people at arms length to protect yourself. Some of you are afraid of what going all-in for Jesus would cost you and so you compartmentalize your faith instead of letting Jesus transform every part of you.

When we allow our anxieties and worries to overtake our senses, our minds, there can be some significant adverse effects in our lives. Scottish pastor Ian Maclaren said, “It does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but it does empty today of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit to cope with it when it comes.” Most of us have at least one fear that keeps us from experiencing the fullness of life that Jesus has bought for us. And today, we are inviting you to exchange those fears for God’s peace.

If you were to write down a list of the things you are afraid of - and I don’t mean reasonable fears like of bees or small children- but of those deep seated fears that weigh down our lives, I bet that at the root of all the things on the list is a lack of control. Most of our fears are truly about the things we can’t really control. And so we act on that fear with negative behaviours.

Some people will shut themselves away, others will avoid intimacy, others will lash out with what looks like anger at others. Some will manipulate, some will bully, and some will coerce people, all to gain some sense of control.

But when we try to control the things around us that we aren’t meant to control, what we are doing is trying to take on God’s job for him. Our fears reveal a lack of trust in God that He will work out that thing that makes you anxious and afraid. But that’s not how we are called to live. God calls us to live by faith, not by sight. We are to trust God wth everything in our lives and when we do, peace enters our hearts. The apostle Paul says,

Philippians 4:6–7 NLT

6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

We experience God’s peace when we give him our anxieties and worries. It’s a gift exchange that works in our favour.

In our passage today, we are going to look at the story of Joseph fleeing to Egypt with Mary and Jesus. Joseph had a lot of reasons to feel anxiety and worry but instead of letting those feelings entrap him, he chose to act in faith. So join me as we read in the gospel of Matthew, chapter two, verses 13-23:

Matthew 2:13–23 NLT

13 After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14 That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, 15 and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” 16 Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. 17 Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 18 “A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.” 19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. 20 “Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” 21 So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. 22 But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. 23 So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

This passage invites us to wonder: What if we gave Jesus our anxiety and accepted his gift of peace? The Apostle Paul wrote

2 Thessalonians 3:16 NLT

16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you his peace at all times and in every situation. The Lord be with you all.

What would happen in our lives, if we gave up our fears and instead walked by faith, walked in peace? I believe that Joseph’s story here teaches us three things:

1. We will hear the voice of God more clearly

When anxiety and worry overtake us, it fills our minds with these scenarios. You know the ones: you’re standing in the shower and having a fight with a person in your head, or you’re trying to sleep but you can’t stop imagining the worst case scenario, or you miss your turn and six more while driving because in your worry, your imagination has taken off. The problem is that while your mind is active with worry, you can’t hear what God is saying to you.

But if you will give God your anxiety and worries and receive from him his peace, you will position yourself to hear his voice. The prophet Isaiah wrote...

Isaiah 26:3 NLT

3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

Joseph had a lot of things to worry about. In addition to the worry all new first-time parents experience, he knows who Jesus really is and he knows who Herod really is. He knows that Herod was so anxious and paranoid about losing power, that he murdered his wife, her two sons, her brother, her grandfather, and her mother, and even his own firstborn son. It was obvious that Jesus was a threat to Herod and so Herod was a threat to Jesus.

But despite all this, Joseph was able to hear God speaking to him through the angel. He heard God well because despite brutal circumstances, he had a peace that came from knowing that God was with them. When we exchange our fear for his peace, we position ourselves to hear God better.

The second thing our passage us is that if we exchange our anxiety and fears...

2. We will have courage to follow God’s leading

Joseph didn’t just hear God. He had the courage to do what God says. I’ve had some crazy dreams in my time. I’ve had dreams we can’t talk about at church, dreams where I have flown great distances like a superhero, and dreams that have felt so real, I bolt out of bed not knowing who, where or when I am. But I’ve never had a dream where I knew clearly that God spoke to me and commanded me to pack up my family in the middle of the night and move to another country.

When we allow our fears and our anxieties to take control in our minds, it can often lead us to act impulsively. Some of us react to our fears with a fight reflex, where we confront other people not to bring harmony, but to dominate. Some of us react with a flight reflex where we do anything to get out of a situation. Some of us react with a freeze reflex where we emotionally and somewhat physically just shut down as a means of protecting us. And Pam taught me this week about one I hadn’t heard of called Fawn where some people end up over-agreeing with someone and trying too hard to make them happy, often to end conflict.

These impulses can be ruinous in our lives. But when we give our anxieties and fears to God, we overcome our impulses and can, like Joseph, have the courage to follow God’s leading. The author of Proverbs challenges us to...

Proverbs 3:5–6 NLT

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

That’s what Joseph demonstrates for us. Now, some might say that Joseph leaving with the family for Egypt was a flight response to his fear about Herod. But I don’t think so. If it was truly a flight response, then God wouldn’t have had to say anything through the angel in Joseph’s dream. No, Joseph left because he exchanged his fear for peace and in that peace he was able to hear God’s voice better and have the courage to follow his commands.

I wonder what God might call each of you to, if you would just exchange your fears for His peace. That’s something worth pondering this Christmas.

The third thing that happens when we exchange our anxieties and fears for God’s peace is that...

3. We position ourselves to be used by God to accomplish his purposes

By putting aside his own anxiety and trusting in God, Joseph was able to be used by God to fulfill God’s plan. Because he was in a position to better hear God and then had the courage to follow God’s leading, God used him to help validate Jesus as the Messiah

To the Jewish people of Jesus’ day, one of the most important aspects of the Messiah would be that he fulfilled what was written about him in what we call the Old Testament. There are at least 350 prophecies written about the Messiah that Jesus fulfills. Matthew records about 20 of these prophecies to show his readers that Jesus really is the Messiah.

In our passage, because Joseph obeyed God and took Jesus and Mary to Egypt, he fulfilled three prophecies, written in Hosea, Jeremiah, and in Isaiah. By trusting in God, Joseph was used by God to accomplish his purposes of establishing Jesus as Messiah.

For us today, God wants us to exchange our fears for His peace, so that, like Joseph, God can use us to accomplish his purpose in the world. It’s a crazy thing to believe, but the omnipotent God of the universe has chosen to make us the instruments of his redemptive work in people’s lives. God uses us to live out our faith publicly so that we may show others the transforming power of the love of Jesus. Later in his gospel, Matthew quotes Jesus saying...

Matthew 5:16 NLT

16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

God speaks through us as we do what we are called to - when we invite people to church, to join our small group, or out for a coffee to talk about how faith intersects with life. God uses us when we serve in kids ministry, youth ministry, sound ministry or our hospitality ministry. God chose us to be the means by which others would experience Him.

But in order for God to use us, we have to trust him and that means we give him our fears and anxieties - especially our fears about what others think of us - and receive his peace - the peace that comes from knowing we are loved with an everlasting love, revealed to us through the incarnation, life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Conclusion

The heart of good gift giving is not giving someone something that you want, but instead giving them something they would want. My wife didn’t buy me a video game last year because she wants to play it, she bought it for me because she knows that playing those games is something I enjoy and is a way that I de-stress. When it comes to Jesus, what Jesus really wants to receive from you this Christmas are your fears and anxieties and in exchange, the prince of Peace wants to give you a peace that passes all understanding.

Pray.