HOW TO TURN ANXIETY INTO PEACE

HOW TO TURN ANXIETY INTO PEACE Philippians 4:4-7 January  16, 2000 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction An exasperated husband finally asked his wife, "Why are you always worrying? It doesn't do any good!" She piped back , "Oh, yes it does! Did you know that 90% of the things I worry about never happen?!" It's true, isn't it? We do worry about things that will never happen, but the worrying doesn't prevent them. Research indicates that among mentally healthy people the things they worry about can be broken down in this way: 40% -things which never happen. 30% - things in the past which cannot be changed or corrected. 12% - needless worry about their health. 10% - petty miscellaneous worries. 8% - real and legitimate concerns. Somebody once asked me if as a pastor I ever worry. "Of course not. Worry is sin. If I'm going to sin, I'm going to pick something that is a lot more fun than worry!" The fact of the matter is that we all have things we are convinced are worthy of worry--and we are usually quite prompt to get the worry underway. Some people are very hyper about everything, and they worry about it all. James Thurber once said about Mr. Harold Ross, then editor of the New York Times and a very Type "A" and anxious man: "He lives at the corner of work and worry." Is that where you live? Probably not. Most of us are not that bad, but we still DO worry more than we ought to, certainly more than we need to. Jesus clearly taught that worry is less than His perfect will for our lives. In Matthew 6:34, He said, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." In Philippians 4, the apostle Paul deals with the very real issue of how to heal our worries and anxieties and replace them with the "peace of God." Reading verses 4-7 of that chapter, see if you can see four habits he encourages the Christians to develop: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Let's investigate for a few moments together four legitimate habits worth cultivating in your Christian life. Now the dictionary defines a habit as "a thing done often and hence, usually, done easily; practice; custom; an action that has been acquired and has become automatic." We all know there are plenty of BAD habits. Have you ever thought of GOOD habits? Like bad habits, they are acquired by practice and repetition. The first habit that we believers need to develop in order to keep ourselves moving from anxiety to peace is 1. The Habit of Joy One of the answers to a life of anxiety is to get into the practice of rejoicing. Now someone will say, "You can't just tell someone to have joy, and expect them to have it! I have a two-word answer to that objection: PAUL DID! He told the believers, in very a clear and strong pair of imperatives, "Rejoice...(again, I tell you) Rejoice!" There is a very important reason why Paul could just tell the believers to habitually rejoice, and expect them to be able to do it--they were Christians. And Christians have the Spirit of Christ in them. And the FRUIT of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY, PEACE, etc. Here's the point: Joy is a choice for the Christian. While those who have no redeemed relationship with their Creator may not have the reason or resource to express joy continually, the believer in Jesus DOES! And this Christian joy is not another sort of artificial happiness that is pharmaceutical or psychological; no, it is that pure and unrestrained joy that rises only in the heart of one who is intimately acquainted and in love with the living God. Quickly, the believer knows that, even though he has sinned against God, God has willingly forgiven him of his sin through the atonement of Jesus, and he has been restored into fellowship with God; the believer knows that when the crises and problems of this life start to get him down, he is invited to "cast all his cares on Jesus, because Jesus cares for him!"; and the believer knows that, although this world is full of devils, drudgery, dread and difficulties, he knows he is going to end up in a place of unending joy in the presence of the Lord eternally. That's like JOY IN THE BANK, and you can go and make a withdrawal on that joy any time you choose to do so! Paul simply says, "Hey, you believers! Choose joy. Choose it every day. Choose it all the time. Make rejoicing a habit of mind. Let me remind you, saints that every morning you wake up, you have the awesome privilege of deciding whether you will live that day rejoicing or worrying, in joy or in the pits. And if you DON'T wake up in the morning--well, then you REALLY know joy! Make it a practice, a habit, to wake up every morning saying, I CHOOSE joy! I know the God who MADE me, the God who SAVED me, and the God who will TAKE ME HOME someday--so I choose joy! There is another habit worth cultivating here besides the habit of joy and that is... 2. The Habit of Graciousness This is the art of being a blessing to everyone who ever runs into you. I know you are like me, and you find it easier to be gracious to some people than to others. But Paul says here, explicitly, "Let your gentleness be evident to all." What this word, translated by "gentleness," means is primarily "willing to yield", and not just when the sign says "yield!" Something strong in our fleshly nature makes us want to stand for our rights, to demand our rights. But Paul says, if we will develop the habit of yielding our rights in deference to others, like we find in the lifestyle of Jesus, it will... ...make us wimpy? No. ...Eventuate in our having nothing? No....let others walk all over us? No. No, Paul says that when we learn to stop demanding our rights, and start yielding to others voluntarily, we will find peace! It seems like a rather odd prescription for getting rid of anxiety, but the Word of God says, "If you want real peace, let go of anything that brings you security except God!" Nobody has a way with words like Oswald Chambers, who wrote: "All worry is caused by calculating without God." Yes, indeed! Robert Eliot says there are two great rules for managing stress and worry: Rule #1 - "Don't sweat the small stuff," and Rule #2 - "It's all small stuff!" Billy Graham offers some insight that is important: "Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered on anything short of God and His will for us." This is why at Matthew 6:33, Jesus said, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all the things you worry about having will be given to you." Next in verse 5, Paul gives a very important motivation for letting our gentleness be evident to all--The Lord is near. Many people think this short insertion refers to the truth that Jesus is coming back soon, at any time. So, we should always be "ready" in the sense that we are not being selfish, but gracious. That may be true. But there might be an even more obvious reason for living our lives graciously as Jesus did--and that is because He is right here with us all the time! The little children's song explains this motivation pretty well, I think: Oh, be careful little hands what you do; oh, be careful little hands what you do; For the Father up in heaven will squish you like a lemon NO NO - For the Father up above is looking down IN LOVE, so be careful little hands what you do! Our primary motivation in living gracious lives is that the Lord, who demonstrated the gracious lifestyle and who loves us, is very near. In fact, He is not only watching us, his Spirit is inside us directing us and empowering us to live graciously before the watching world. Don't you think that graciousness would be a good habit to cultivate? Do you know how to cultivate a habit? You just start doing it. Be bold,; be decisive and start behaving graciously. The eighteenth German poet, Goethe, was a devout Christian. He wrote this: Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would have never otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can dream you can dream, BEGIN IT. Boldness has genius and magic in it. In a nutshell, that means that, even though the thing you want to do is impossible for you, it is not impossible for God in you. If you want to become a gracious person, begin to be gracious, and God's power will then come to fill you with graciousness. It is that first step of faith in a new and right behavior, which brings His blessing of power to do it. And the contextual promise of that kind of lifestyle change is, very simply, you will have peace instead of anxiety; you will relax more and worry less. Those are the first two habits worth developing: Rejoice & Be Gracious. The third habit we are exhorted to cultivate in our lives is... 3. Confident prayer Paul says, very simply, that, in order to be rid of worry, you must pray. We must learn to stop our old habits that we rely on when we have problems. Usually, what we do is STEW. Then after we stew, we whine to our friends about what a problem we have, hoping to stir up in them some sympathy, and then we think we feel better--"well, if someone will just feel sorry for me, then I'll feel better!" Isn't that ridiculous? But it's what we do. We settle for sympathy and kind words, but they don't really help the situation. Listen, we are often very quick to call on our brothers and sisters to pray for us, and this is right and proper, but sometimes I think we short-circuit what God's will is when we run quickly for others' sympathy and prayer. What God may be wanting is to get US on OUR knees. Let me recommend, on your way to cultivating prayer as a habit, that you stop dwelling on your problems and start going directly to the problem-SOLVER; stop relying on the sympathy of the saints so much and trust in the listening ear of the living God. Jamaican proverb: If you're going to pray, don't worry; if you're going to worry, don't pray. Specifically, Paul says, instead of being anxious, do the opposite: in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Three words here are related to prayer: 1. PRAYER. This is the general word for praying, and it includes all kinds of prayer: praise, devotion, adoration, worship, intercession, requests...This word will not tell you how to pray by letting you know what words to pray. Prayer never begins with words. it begins in the heart, with an attitude toward God. if we are to not worry about anything, we must come to God. 2. REQUESTS--Tell God your needs. This isn't a wave of the hand prayer: "God, please meet all my needs". We are called to share specifically what our needs are--the very things that we are worried about. If it is finances, tell Him; is it stress in your home? Tell Him; Is it difficulty with the boss? Tell Him; is it the fear of losing someone or something? Tell Him; Are you just afraid and you don't know why? Tell Him: "Lord, I'm just afraid and I don't know why!" Now, the promise is clear--God is going to give you His personal answer about these things. So, that leads to the third word about prayer-- 3. THANKS - with thanksgiving. What does that mean? That means that God is very interested in our being thankful toward Him for everything, including the coming answer to our prayers. There is nothing more beautiful than to be in prayer with someone and hear them say something like, "..and we thank you, Lord, for the answer that is already on the way!" There is the story of a small Kansas town where there had been a terrible drought for many weeks and the farmers were in imminent danger of losing their crops and their herds. The pastor of the community church called a special prayer meeting so everyone could pray corporately for rain. They gathered for the meeting, and the pastor told the crowd, "I don't know if God will answer our weakling prayers today or not!" This surprised the people, and they mumbled, "Why not?" The pastor responded, "There's not much faith here!" "What do you mean?" the now hurt people said. "You came to pray for rain," the pastor admonished, "but not one of you brought an umbrella!" Pray with thanksgiving. The promise seems to be that, in the act of prayer, even before the answers are evident, we experience some of God's answer in the form of PEACE. That's the fourth and final habit. It's not a habit really, because it's not something WE DO, per se. It is something God gives us when we pray. 4. Peace There is a divine gift that comes to people when they pray--just because they prayed. I've watched some of you enter a prayer meeting somber and worried about an issue. Then, after the corporate prayers were offered, you walked out in a better, even jovial, mood. Why? Because God's promises are true. He says He answers our prayers and that one of the universal answers is PEACE when we pray. Present your requests to God. And the peace of God (which transcends all understanding) will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, that's a mouthful of promise! First, notice it is the peace of GOD, not some earthly or man-made peace. Jesus told His disciples, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives... When you pray, Christian, don't be looking for some passing giddiness to come to you, and call that the peace of God. The peace of God is something which goes way beyond our ability to define it. It is a steadiness of soul that can carry you through any circumstance the world, the flesh or the devil can dream up to hurt you. Worldly peace won't carry you like that; but Godly peace will. How does he do that? Well, we have a hint in the next phrase, will guard your hearts and minds... This peace of God stands guard over the two areas where worry begins--our hearts and our minds. Wrong thinking is in the mind; wrong feeling is in the heart. When we think wrong, we worry. When we feel wrong, we worry. The Lord comes to us when we pray to set our minds and hearts at rest, because He personally is standing sentry over them. In our recent communiqué from Tim Eckert, he wrote of more skirmishes with the bandits in the desert in Niger. I remember when Charles Schism and I were there two years ago. we were planning a trip out into the desert some 40-50 miles. When we shared this plan with the local police, the chief gendarme told us there had been much bandit activity lately, and that he would send some of his men with us to guard us. We didn't really see any of that kind of action, but it was still nice to look around and see these big men with their AK-47's standing near us as we ministered in potentially hostile territory. God, through Jesus Christ, has made it possible for us to experience a worry-free, carefree life with deep peace in our hearts and minds. It comes when we habitually pray and make our requests known to Him. This peace is a very possible reality for believers. But it will take our devotion to cultivating the habits of the Christian life to more fully experience this incredible peace: Joy, graciousness, prayer and peace. Do you know how many psychologists it takes to change a light bulb? Only one, BUT the bulb has to really WANT to change! Let me ask that of you--do you want to change your habit of worry? Then learn to cultivate these four habits and trust the Lord to take you from anxiety to peace. Let me close with a reference to another important passage of scripture: it is Romans 5:1 - Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ... What an awesome truth--because Jesus died and rose, He became the Savior of anyone who will receive Him. And when you receive Him, the Bible says you are "justified" (made right before God) and then you have "PEACE" with God! INVITATION AND PRAYER FOR BOB AND JAN CLAUS (to Jericho)       [Back to Top]