Waiting for a Sign

As we continue to go through this unsettled time together, we can go to the word of God to find encouragement for these difficult days. The Word of God is where we find hope in the most hopeless of situations. It is where we go to find what God has to say to us this morning.

Paul in Rome

Paul had always wanted to go to Rome in order to preach the gospel. He knew that Rome was the place to go if you wanted to spread the gospel around the known world. But, the circumstances of his ministry in Rome were not at all like he would have planned it. We know how it works, you plan the trip, you go from church to church, or home to home and you share the message of Good News - Jesus gave his life in your place, and forgiveness is available for all who confess and trust in Him. There would be a great revival, and Paul would move on to the next location. But that isn’t at all how it went.

Instead, Paul was locked in a Roman prison. He was unable to schedule meetings and preach, but in this prison, he wrote several of his letters while locked to a different soldier every 8 hours while he was on house arrest. It was while he was in this prison that he wrote one of my favorite books of the New Testament, the letter to the church in Philippi, where he wrote these words:

Philippians 4:4 NIV

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Always - not only when your 401K is booming - always. Not only when you are feeling great, but even when you are sick - always.

Then he said,

Philippians 4:5–7 NIV

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 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.

"Do not be anxious about anything." Don't be anxious about anything. There’s a tough command today. Have you been anxious about anything? I think the news media wants to keep us anxious about everything because it keeps us watching their channel. Their ratings are one of the few things that are booming during this pandemic. I think if we were totally honest with one another, we would admit that we have all experienced some anxiety recently.

I think we all would have to admit to that if we were totally honest with one another. It doesn’t matter how holy you are, there is an uneasiness about life, and we have this natural fear of the unknown. Sometimes we have to admit that we battle anxiety, and we might even find ourselves getting a little worried. I don’t worry near as much about getting the Coronavirus as I do about giving it to somebody else, but there is still this level of worry - or we might use the more sanctified term, “concern,” but we all know what it is like to have that anxiety.

Sometimes we battle anxiety, during normal times, like way back in the old days, you know, like back in February when things were normal. We might have experienced anxiety about the “normal” things of life. Those who are graduating from High School always have some level of anxiety as they look forward to the next step of their lives, but I really feel for the class of 2020. They don’t even know if the plans they had made for the next step of their lives is even going to be available, whether it is the work force, which has shrunk by many millions over the last couple of months, or college, which they don’t know whether they will be having in person classes in the Fall or not. Uncertainty about the future always causes anxiety.

I have talked with literally hundreds of people over the years who have had medical tests run, and then they have to wait for the results. Most people agree that the worst part is not knowing what is going on. The waiting is hard, because we don’t know what the future holds, and that breeds anxiety. Always has, always will. That was during “normal times.”

Now, anytime you open up your phone and go to a news app, or you scroll through social media, or you turn on your TV, you look at any form of the news. When we do, we are just blasted with stress-causing news. There is even this little ticker that gives you the updated toll of death and sickness. This many people have been diagnosed, this many people have died. This many people have been laid off from work. This many restaurants may not re-open ever. The stock market is… you get the idea. They just go on and on, and it is a difficult time for all of us.

And there are people that are all over the spectrum when it comes to anxiety. Some people, just by personality are more prone to anxiety than others. Some might even be enjoying staying home and doing some family things together for the first time in a long while. But staying at home and home schooling isn’t that easy, and most parents I know today are thinking that teachers should probably make a lot more money than they do. And kids are getting an education that is probably very different than what they would have gotten had school continued through the year. I know I would have been trying to figure out how to make chores a learning experience for my kids if they were still at home. You know, we would have studied the scientific properties of water when you add some soap, and what effect that has on a dirty floor. Those would be the kind of lessons I would have done.

There are different levels of stress. Some are worried about getting sick, or you know others that have gotten sick, or you’re going through treatments, or you have surgery scheduled, and nobody is able to go to the hospital with you. Many of you have been laid off from your jobs and you’re just hoping that the job will still be there after this whole thing has passed. And then there are just these rules that leave us separated from our friends and extended family, our loved ones. Separation causes all kinds of things, depression and anxiety for many. I read this week about a Pastor of a mega-church that committed suicide this week, and this depression and loneliness is very, very real for so many people. Honestly, it feels like we’re under attack from so many different angles. One of the things I am led to do when I am under attack is to pray.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we pray that you would come to us this morning wherever we are physically, and your Holy Spirit would comfort us as we trust in you. God give us the desire to seek your face and to trust you in all things, even when we don’t understand. Help us to trust you even when things don’t go as we planned. Help us to show the love of Jesus to those in our circles of influence, and help us to rest in you. In Jesus precious name we pray, amen!

Paul tells us as he writes from a Roman prison that we are to present our requests to God with prayer and thanksgiving. We could say it this way, "with Prayer and Praise." We're gonna be thankful, and we're gonna pray. With prayer and with praise, we're going to "present our requests to God." When we pray and when we praise, we "present our requests to God." Paul said, "The peace of God, "which transcends all understanding," in other words, we can't necessarily explain it, even in our human comprehension. That peace of God will guard, your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Prayer and praise. When we pray and we praise, God gives us his peace.

You could say Prayer and Praise Precedes Peace. What does this peace do? This peace, it guards our hearts and minds. It guards. In other words, a lot of people right now, what they are feeling is panic. You may feel anxious, you may feel worried, you may feel afraid. But what you want is peace. How is it that we get this peace? What is it that we do to experience the peace? The peace is preceded by the prayer and by the praise.

Craig Groeschel says it this way: that Prayer and Praise are the Pathway from Panic to Peace—Craig Groeschel.

- Peace guards your hearts and your minds. Peace guards. "Whatever you do, don't drop your guard!" Whenever anxiety attacks, don't drop your guard.

What guards you? Peace guards you. What brings peace? Prayer and praise brings peace. Don't drop your guard. Whenever your enemy attacks, whatever you do, don't drop your guard. Peter tells us his own version of this. He was telling us how to deal with anxiety and other things, and he said this in 1 Peter 5:7:

1 Peter 5:7 NIV

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

If you're anxious right now, if you're afraid, if you're worried about your job, if you're worried about your health, if you don't know what's coming, what you do with that anxiety is you cast it onto God. Now, Peter was a fisherman, and so when he's talking about casting, you can imagine him. He's talking about taking this thing and just hurling it. Hurl your anxiety, your cares, your fears, your worries, your burdens on God, because he cares for you.

Wherever you are, if you're in a hospital room right now, what I want you to feel is that God is near. He is with you. He's not gonna leave you. He will never forsake you. He cares for you. If you're worried about how you're gonna feed your kids, he cares for you. Then Peter gives a warning, and he says,

1 Peter 5:8 NIV

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

The devil's always coming after you. The devil is always swinging, and it only hurts if you drop your guard. Be on guard, be alert. Your enemy is on the attack. How does he attack? The devil's target is your mind, and his weapon is his lies. What does he do? He'll tell you, "You're not gonna be able to pay your bills. "You're not gonna be able to make rent. "Your marriage is not going to survive this." He'll tell you, "You're gonna get sick. "You're gonna be all alone. "There's not gonna be a ventilator for you. "If God really loved you, "then he wouldn't be allowing this to happen in your life." and the devil comes at you again and again. His target is your mind. His weapon is his lies, and that's why you have to tell yourself again and again, "The devil is a liar."

He's always swinging. Guard your mind, guard your heart. Prayer and praise, don't drop your guard. To be honest with you, as a pastor, I am very anxious for us to get back to in person worship services, and I want to be able to get back to seeing you. I want to be able to get back to visiting and praying with people before surgeries or when they are in the hospital. I want to be somebody that leads with faith, and I want to be smart about how we will do that as a church.

But to be totally transparent with you, there are times when I just feel a little bit overwhelmed, just like the rest of you. Sometimes, the anxiety just kind of gets to me, and I have to go to God, and take it to him, and take it to him in prayer and with praise. What do we do? We keep our guard up. We go to God with prayer, and we go to God with praise. Whenever anxiety attacks, whenever you feel worried, don't drop your guard, prayer and praise. Keep your guard up, prayer and praise. Let's talk about prayer, and let's talk about praise.

Sometimes, I hear people say "All we can do now is pray." Sometimes I think about what God must feel like when somebody says that, "All we can do now is pray." In other words, you're in big trouble. All you've got is the power of God. Listen to me. Prayer should never be a last resort. I’ve had people tell me before that they are not able to do what they once did in the church, and they will tell me that all they can do is pray. When they say that, I always tell them, “then pray!” Prayer is always our first line of offense. We can pray. We are people of prayer. We've got our guard up. We're going to the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present God, with whom nothing is impossible. If we have the faith of a mustard seed, and sometimes that's the only faith I have, is a little bit of faith, we can say to a mountain, be removed, and as God hears that prayer, he will remove that mountain, if we go to God. I'm gonna go to God like the persistent widow in Luke 18 who comes to him again and again with this relentless type of faith and prayer.

Sometimes my prayers look like this.

When I have no idea what my prayer should say, God still gets it. Now, hopefully that’s not the way my pastoral prayers sound on Sunday morning, but sometimes prayer just comes from the heart, and it is confusing because we are confused. Sometimes my prayers are just me crying out to God in anguish, "Help, send help. "I need your mercy, I need your grace." We're talking about prayer. We've got the armor of God, and we can pray in the Spirit at all times, believing that our God is with us.

We pray and we praise, we praise. We thank God for who he is, not just for what we see, but we thank him for his character and for his nature. We don't just stop with the prayers about what we want, but we pray and we praise. Paul said it this way. He said, "Rejoice in the Lord always." In other words, anybody can praise him when things are good, but it takes real faith to praise him in the middle of a storm. In other words, what we're gonna do is we're gonna praise him when we feel like it, and we're gonna praise him when we don't. "I will bless the Lord at all times," scripture says. "From the rising of the sun until the moment that it sets, "let the name of our Lord be praised." We can praise the Lord even when we are staying at home!

Paul wanted to go to Rome to preach, and he found himself instead in Rome as a prisoner, locked up, awaiting potential execution. He said, "Rejoice in the Lord always. "I will say it again: rejoice." Take your prayer and your praise. "Pray about everything, worry about nothing. "With thanksgiving, present your requests to God, "and the peace of God," a peace from heaven, "will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Don't drop your guard! How could the apostle Paul praise God when he could have been executed? If you read in the beginning of Philippians, he says,"It's become clear to everyone in the Roman leadership "that I'm actually in chains for Christ." In other words, he's saying, "They thought I was the prisoner, "but I get a new guard locked up to me "every eight hours a day, who is the real captive audience. "I'm telling them all about the grace "and the goodness of Jesus." He's saying this, he said, "Everyone knows, everyone in the palace guard knows "I'm in chains for Christ," and then he said, "Because of my chains, most of the other Christians "are becoming more confident in the Lord, "and they're sharing their faith without fear." What I see is I see some followers of Christ, that what the devil meant for evil, God is gonna use for good. You're gonna become more confident in your faith, that you're gonna share the gospel without fear. In fact, when I see what God could be doing, it makes me wanna pray, and it makes me wanna praise, because he is working in all things, in everything, even in the bad things, to bring about good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

We're gonna pray, and we're gonna praise. We're not gonna drop our guard. We're gonna see God working in places that other people overlooked. Don't drop your guard, don't drop your guard. Don't let the anxiety of this world overcome the peace that God gives you in your heart. What do you do? You pray to God about everything, and you praise him in all things. Wherever you are, praise him. Praise him today. I'm talking about the kind of praise that makes the devil mad. I'm talking about the kind that no one can stop, no matter what you see. "Let everything that has breath give him praise." What happens when you pray and when you praise, you start passing from fear to faith. You start moving from worry to his peace. You're the people of God. You have the power of the risen Christ dwelling within you. You have the very same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.

Is this a very difficult time? Unquestionably, it's hard. Are there many, many problems to be solved? Yes, but if you're in Christ, remember, you are an overcomer, by the blood of the Lamb and by the words of your testimony. You are more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus.

Don't drop your guard. Let's all pray together.

The good news is that God sent Jesus, his only Son, who was perfect and without sin, to be the innocent sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. He gave his life. God raised him from the dead so that anyone who calls on his name, God will forgive every single sin you've ever committed. He would save you, not just from eternal hell, but he would save you for a life of peace and joy and ministry to make a difference in this world. In fact, wherever you're watching from, if you know something is missing, if you're hurting, if you're afraid, if you need his forgiveness and you need his peace, call aloud on him today. That may be the very reason why you're here. "Jesus, I need you, Jesus, forgive me. "Today I give my life to you." If that's you, just click right below me. You can type in in the comments, "Jesus, I'm giving my life to you," and as you're doing that today wherever you might be right now, just pray aloud. Pray, "Heavenly Father, forgive my sins. "Jesus, save me, make me new. "Fill me with your Spirit so I could follow you, "walk with you, live for you, "show your love in all that I do. "My life is not my own. "I give it all to you, in Jesus's name I pray."