Untitled Sermon (2)

 when I when I was a young boy my dad owned a small flooring shop in Charleston SC and I loved this shop is this dream to always open a business of his own and the shop did really well for years in fact if you go on to YouTube and search Magnolia flooring commercial I think you can find a commercial where you can see me and my younger brother browsing flooring samples with our mom and one of the commercials but in 2008 our country was hit with a Great Recession and as a consequence of the Great Recession my father's flooring business really took a hit and I remember the strain it placed on my family and particularly the stress that my dad was under to keep this business afloat and it wasn't until much later that I found out he went several years without receiving a paycheck we were living completely off the savings that he had made from the years prior And as the recession went on and the store accumulated more and more debt just to keep the doors open I remember the shame my dad felt when he finally had to file for bankruptcy and the fear that my family had of the bank taking our home until one night this night had laid in bed he got on his knees and surrendered it to God he said Lord I have tried I have struggled I have done everything in my power to provide for my family and I can't do this anymore so I'm trusting everything to you the next morning might have got up he went to work and he locked the doors to the store and closed the business He was surrendering it over my dad wasn't even unemployed for more than four months before he found a new job that paid him more that allowed him to provide for his family and the debt that we took on was miraculously forgiven And after all this experience after all the stress that my father went through he recently told me done no one has enjoyed life Better than I have and that's because he found peace in trusting the Lord I tell you the story because I cannot read the passage we're going to look at today without thinking of my father

Philippians 4:4–9“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. 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. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Christians are supposed to be a joyful People Paul commands the Church of philippians here who rejoice to rejoice you know the word rejoice appears in the entire Bible almost 200 times and of those 200 times almost 60 are commands to rejoice We all know people they just have no joy in them you can feel it when they walk into a room be the warmth in the air just gets stamped out and I'll be honest with you there have been times that my nickname has been error because I had no joy because I was so stressed because I was so anxious about the things in life and I was not rejoicing in the Lord so today as we look through this text I want to show you three components of experiencing godly joy

the first component of joy is right praying 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 us

isaw a book titled the anxious generation the anxious generation we live in one of the best times to be a person we live in one of the safest wealthiest and most just countries that the world has ever produced we have technology and access to basic needs that are answers should only dream of and yet the word that defines our generation is anxiety I mean all you have to do is turn on the news to see that we are not a joyful people because anxiety is the killer of joy you can't be joyful while you are anxious about the future you can't rejoice in the Lord while you are distrusting that he'll provide for you that's why right after Paul says do not be anxious do not worry he immediately commands us to pray because prayer is the antidote to anxiety and Paul uses three different words to describe prayer prayer supplication and Thanksgiving and each of these are really important but for the sake of time I really am just going to hone in onto supplication because that's what I really need you to see supplication is in earnest pleading with God pray boldly come boldly before the flower supplication is an earnest crying out to God how many times have I gone to pray and I look like this oh oh Lord could you please please take care of of this I can't tell you how many times I have sat down and this was basically the disposition of my soul of oh oh Lord could you please just you know help me out here no CRY OUT TO GOD. CRY OUT LORD I NEED YOU NOW! Be bold in your prayers

All right stay with me so we gotta move fast 2nd component to joy is right thinking finally brothers whatever is true whatever is honorable whatever is just whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is commendable if there is any excellence if there is anything praiseworthy think on these things when we pray rightly we begin to think right when we pray to God we begin to think more like God there's a new Gen. Z logo term I want to share with you all I called brain rot I've ever heard of brain rot before I want to refers to is just worthless media just garbage and just sitting there scrolling through it half dead barely watching it I mean it's really bad when secularists are saying yeah this stuff is garbage brain rot inevitably leads to soul rot what are you putting in your minds what are you thinking about what do we meditate on Paul gives us clear list of what we should be thinking about and those are the very first one he says is what is true ohh my goodness the pain we can avoid if we just think about what's true a study in 2006 revealed that the what most people worry about is stuff that isn't even true it's like 90% of the things people are worried about never even happened or mere hypotheticals you know this semester I've been taking Christianity enlightenment and it's really opened my eyes to just how much a person can write and think and still be wrong it's painful it's heartbreaking to read these philosophers who did nothing but write and think and search for the truth and were wrong who rejected the truth who knew of Jesus and rejected him somebody Joyce rejoice that we know the truth we have the truth no one else does no one else has the truth we have it's ours remind yourself of the truth of the gospel the truth of Jesus Christ the truth that Paul says earlier that God is nearthink on what is true

I am thoroughly convinced the reason so many of us have such anxiety is that we are constantly thinking about stuff that isn't true we have the most information available to us at our fingertips in any generation ever before and it's made us all miserable it has it's made us all miserable because we're constantly thinking about stuff that might not even be true or things we have no control over and because the media is the way they are they make sure that the news you see is the worst possible news because that's what gets views that's what gets ratings is the bad stuff so I'm pleading with you every now and then turn off the news It's incredible how many people are experts in things they have no control over fill your head with the gospel why aren't you I just wanna say why are you an expert in tariffs and not in the word of God if you spend nearly as much time as you did reading the news as you did reading your Bible you'd be a much more joyful person

 last verse what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things and the God of peace will be with you you all already know this but it's a specially easy for us here at seminary to believe the things we learn here while we are learning them is a sufficient replacement for living it out When you pray rightly when you begin to think rightly you are to be acting rightly Paul tells us exactly the way we're supposed to behave like him what you have seen me what you have heard in me do these things it doesn't matter how much information you have up here if it's not affecting here the pollen knows we can't do this perfectly he says so in Romans but rejoice because we have a savior who's done the work for us we don't have to do this perfectly.