Are you anxious? Or is it just me? There's a silly song my mum used to sing about me growing up. She still sings it. She still sings this song about me when I start to worry. You know, mums, they know that you worry. My mum knows it. So she's got this song. It's an old kind of wives' tale kind of song. It's one of those. It's a silly song. You wouldn't believe it. particularly true but she sings it and here's how it goes. It's a song about the day you were born and the day you were born shapes your life and it goes like this. Perhaps you've heard it. Monday's child, so if you're born on a Monday, Monday's child is fair of face. Tuesday's child is full of grace. Thursday's child has far to go. Friday's child works hard for a living. Saturday's child is loving and giving. But the child who's born on the Sabbath day is fair and wise and good in every way. Now you may notice I skipped one. I missed Wednesday. Because if you notice this song, and we can look at it later if you really want to, but it doesn't mean anything, it's a silly song, but in the song, every day is positive. Every day of the week, no matter what you're born on, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, every day is entirely positive about the day you were born, about that child, except Wednesday. And Wednesday is the day I was born. And it goes like this. Wednesday's child is full of woe. So everyone else gets, you know, if you're born on a Monday, fair of face, Tuesday full of grace, Thursday far to go, but Wednesday full of woe. So when I start to worry, and it's in my mum's hearing or presence, she starts to sing, Wednesday's child is full of woe. That's you, Russ. You're an anxious soul, aren't you Russ? You're a worrisome boy. Mum would say I'm a worrier. Mum would say I get anxious. Do you? Do you? Anxiety is a complex thing in our world. I've felt it, I've met it, it's in my family, in varying degrees of spectrum. Anxiety is complex. It can express itself with our minds, a buzzing with that kind of circular worrying. Our mind can go into overdrive by overthinking, we can't sleep, perhaps we experience panic attacks. Or there's that ongoing feeling, it's kind of like, it's hard to describe, maybe you felt it, you're tense in your core and it runs through you as if there's electricity humming through you and someone left the lights on somewhere and it just won't go off. Now some might say, well, doesn't everyone get anxious? Like, isn't this just for everyone? Everyone gets anxious and is there any difference between different anxieties that are felt by people? Well, they did a survey in Australia recently. A quarter of Australians have felt anxiety in some way or form, at least. Which means in this room, it's in your family. Perhaps you felt it. There will be perhaps a quarter of us who have felt extreme anxiety in several different ways. And I want to say from the start that there is a medical anxiety, perhaps it's from physical, physiological, psychological, there are reasons that people feel a medical anxiety that needs a particular, can get a particular treatment. You know us here, if you've been around us, go online. We've preached on mental health before. Christ cares for mental health. We've actually addressed this, we see this in the scriptures. I've spoken at my own testimony, my mum's testimony. This is something that if you are struggling with a particular acute anxiety or an anxiety disorder, there is help for you. And we want to give that help and point you out to where that help is. When this sermon is posted online, there'll be helps at the bottom of that, links to go to, places to go. Come and talk with us. But for the purposes of this sermon and for many of us, for many of us, it may not be that level of anxiety we experience. It may be that we do have a common spiritual anxiety, a spiritual diagnosis of anxiety. In 1965, there's a preacher, his name is Martin Lloyd-Jones, and you may have heard of him. We talked a little bit of him from this pulpit, but Martin Lloyd-Jones recognized in 1965, in his day, that there was a spiritual depression. So he wrote a book on it called Spiritual Depression. It's incredibly helpful. In our day, we know that anxiety and depression can often be co-linked. And so I think what Martyn Lloyd-Jones noticed in his day, what we notice in our day, is there is such a thing as a spiritual anxiety. And by the way, you don't have to be Martyn Lloyd-Jones in 1965 to recognize it, nor have to be Reforming Church in 2022, because the Apostle Paul recognizes it here in Philippians 4. There is such a thing as a spiritual worry, a spiritual anxiety. And when Paul writes this, by the way, remember who Paul is? The same Paul who writes Philippians 4 verse 6, don't be anxious about anything, is the same Paul who says in 2 Corinthians 11, I feel an anxiety for the church. He knows what anxiety feels like. And so as he writes Philippians 4 with his spiritual diagnosis, here is the question we do need to ask ourselves, am I anxious? Ironically enough, as I was preparing this sermon and finishing off this week, a variety of things happened in my week, a variety of things happened around sermon preparation, and Amy, my wife, says, are you anxious for us? I said, yes, I am. You can write a sermon on anxiety, but this is not just for people out there, this is for me in here. Are you anxious or is it just me? Come and see how we can rejoice in the Lord again. Two things, rejoice in the Lord and then think in the Lord. What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? Look at Well, 4 verse 4, yes, but Paul starts talking like this in chapter 3 verse 1. Chapter 3 verse 1, Paul does what all preachers do, you know, like, Paul's a preacher. So in chapter 3, which is in the middle of this letter, he starts saying, finally. Have you ever heard preachers do that? Like, they're halfway through the sermon, but they know they want to get the attention. What do I need to do now? If I just said, finally, everyone thinks I'm concluding. And it's like, oh, yes, OK. I'll wake up now. He's concluding, right? But there's 20 more minutes after that. Paul does that finally. Oh yes, now we're listening. Finally. I know it, I do it too, right? He says in chapter 3 verse 1, rejoice in the Lord. And here he says in chapter 4 verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice. Here is a letter that is the most common word is joy. It's rejoice, it's joy. Why is this letter so full of joy? because we lose joy. Joy leaks from us. All the more in our age, joy leaks. See, I think we secretly we know that if you meet Christians, and cards on the table, I mean I hope it's been obvious by now, if you're not a Christian yet, I'm a Christian. I believe this, I believe in Jesus. And I hope that's obvious for us as a church in public too, like during the week, it's obvious that I'm a Christian to my barista. It's obvious that I'm a Christian to people around me who have the time of day to talk about what's my day about, what's my life about. But I think one of the things about Christians is this, when people meet Christians, what do they expect Christians ought to be like? At least we should have some joy, right? Is that how we are? I think joy leaks from Christians, which is why it needs, that Paul says, rejoice. Again, I'll say rejoice, because joy leaks from us and we become not joyful, cynical even. But Paul particularly here speaks about the opportunity for joy before us, because the context is there's a couple of things that can steal our joy. So we've seen this over the last few weeks. One of the things that can steal our joy is suffering from the world. So Paul has already written about looking at our enemies or enemies of the cross with tears. We don't look at people who are against Jesus and against the church and go, yeah I just can't wait to the last day and they're gonna get it. And I'm gonna be there, front row seat, popcorn. Oh yeah, judgment comes. That's not how Christians look at the world. Christians look at the world, our enemies, not with popcorn waiting for judgment to come, but with tears. Praying for their salvation. But we suffer as a result, don't we? We suffer shame and indignation and slander and words said about us and misunderstandings. We suffer. So one of the things that can steal our joy is we suffer for being a Christian. The second thing that can steal our joy is, as we saw last week, is conflict in the church. Conflict among friends. can really steal your joy. And when suffering comes, like it does for Paul who's writing from prison by the way, when conflict comes amongst friends or family which can really cause us to lose our joy, Paul writes verse 5, let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Now that word reasonableness, you might have a footnote in your Bibles, it could be translated as gentleness. That word is used five times in the New Testament and every single time it's used in the context of gentleness. What happens when you're stressed? What happens for you when you are stressed by suffering or conflict? happens to you? Do you find that when you suffer that way, when you're stressed, do you find you become less reasonable? I do. And I always regret it later. What happens for me is when I get more stressed, when the load is on, when the expectations are high, and then there's perhaps some suffering from external sources, and then there's some internal conflict happening between me and friends and people I love, I get less reasonable, I get less gentle. Because I'm a sinner. My sin's already there, but when you load those things on, it's like putting a little bit of petrol on the sin that already exists, and I just inflame more easily, and I'm less gentle, I'm less reasonable, which is why Paul has to say, hey friends. Let your reasonableness, your gentleness be known to everyone. How? Because I'm finding it hard. External suffering, internal conflict, how? Remember, Russ, the Lord is near. The Lord is at hand. Now, it could mean, when Paul writes that, his return is near, because it is. He could come back any moment now. But it could also mean he's just actually closer than you think. He's nearer than you imagined. we imagine God, which is not always a good thing, you know, imagine is the same word as image, it's where we make the idol, we stop listening to what God is like in the Bible and we imagine what he's like outside of the Bible. Humans imagine God as like the Bette Midler song. Now I've already lost three quarters of the congregation because you don't know who Bette Midler is, but in the 80s she had a song, from a distance We see God as from a distance. We think he's way over there. And in the Bible, Jesus keeps saying, no I'm not, I'm near. I'm close to you, I'm right here. I'm among the church, I'm dwelling in you by my spirit. And we go, nah, feels like you're distant. And God keeps saying, nah, I'm actually near. So that when we start getting less gentle, unreasonable, Russ, remember, the Lord is at hand, He is near. And you being unreasonable and gentle and admitting that doesn't mean He's repelled by you, He comes towards you with grace. See, our fallen heart, my heart, often produces anxiety. And what does anxiety lead to? Anger. And anxiety and anger often go together. They're friends that hang out together. And that is then exhibited towards others and we're less gracious and gentle. But if your joy is in Jesus and you remember He is the one who actually comes towards sinners, comes towards the angry, comes towards the anxious and says, I love you. then you know God is near. I'm hesitant to use our kids in sermon illustrations. I'm not sure it's wise, but I think if you see kids and we say it's a whole congregation raises our kids here, but you know what it's like perhaps when you're a kid and you're really angry. So our kids get really angry. I'm like this. My mom could tell these. I get really angry. And I'm frustrated and then I'm sinning. And what do I need? What really helps is when a parent comes and says, I just love you. I love you. God does that, Christ is near. Our problem is though, we functionally don't believe that. We need to believe it. How do we believe it? Verse 6. By cultivating a healthy prayer life. Verse six, do not be anxious about anything, but, and here's the contrast, in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. We've got an old saying around here, it goes like this, whenever you're in a fix, Philippians 4.6. Whenever you're in a fix, Philippians 4.6. And the contrast you can see is simple as this. Here's the Russ paraphrase version, right? Don't be anxious about anything, Instead, pray about everything. Do you see why verse 6 is here? Meeting anxiety, unreasonableness, ungentleness, anger, is actually incredibly practical. It's practical because it's as practical as this. Are you practically relying upon God in everything? And how to do that? It's not mystical, it's simply by praying. Having a posture of prayer, but also having in your day structures of actually praying, of saying the last thing I want to do before I close my eyes on the pillow tonight is to pray. It might be three seconds, three minutes or 30 minutes, is to pray. And to practice these things. Paul says in this section, practice these things. He says to Timothy about his ministry, practice these things. One of the things that happens for us is, we start to not be in those healthy habits of discipleship because we're just not practicing them. We're not in that habit of practicing them, even when it's like we don't feel like it. Sir Tim Kelly in his book on prayer has this phrase, what's helpful is in the dry times we need to move from duty to delight. Sometimes it's just a good structure to say, I don't feel like it, but I'm going to pray. And I've been helped by this. When I'm having dry times, a dear friend said, perhaps you could just pray with thankfulness, trying to think of the things you can thank God for, the very breath you took in your lungs, that the oxygen moves through your body. The one who created the universe, the one who owns eternity, who is himself eternal, who was and is and is to come, the one who is bigger than the universe, as big as that is, is the one that gives you this brief life in the midst of eternity. Do you think that he's still in control? Perhaps you could thank him for that. Practice these things. Can you see what God is showing us? See, I think functionally we don't because we tend not to believe that God is in control. We say, yes He is, we love talking about His sovereignty, but actually believing that He's sovereign is another thing for us. See, here's what happens in anxiety for an anxious person. One of the continual and exhausting questions for an anxious person is this, can I manage all this? It's exhausting. Can I manage life? Can I manage my day? Can I be in control of all the things I need to be in control of? An anxious person is constantly asking that exhausting question. Can I be in control of all this? The answer is no. But we don't believe that. We start to believe I'm in control of everything. And that makes us more anxious. And in our spiritual anxiety we can't manage it all. We need to trust the one who does. And prayer is an expression of trust. How do you know if someone really trusts God? Is they're prayerful about everything. We've got a phrase for our gathered prayer service. We're starting up again tonight. Gathered prayer here at 5 p.m. is that we rely upon God in everything through prayer. Now why are we having a gathered prayer service? Like, we pray at church, don't we? We pray in our groups, don't we? Pray in our one-to-ones, don't we? Why? Because there's something we see in the Scriptures significant about a congregation praying together. Not just from the front, not just a person leading us, but persons in the congregation who would perhaps lift their voice or pick up a microphone and pray as a congregation. And so we want to start this again tonight. And that structure, that duty, helps us move to delight. It makes it part of our life, congregationally. Because prayer is practical faith in God who is in control. And we do so with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving helps us remember that He's actually in control. All the things that have brought me to this point in life, He's been in control of. And we thank Him particularly because we approach not the throne of demand, but the throne of grace. Verse 7, And then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Would you like that inner peace? Friends, you may not know why you're suffering. That's the Book of Job. You may not know how to see every conflict resolved. That's last week's passage. But you can know the peace of God. You can know right relationship with God. You can know the One who is in control of all things and give your anxieties to Him. And you can start that joyous life by being prayerful. And I want to talk about joy for a moment because in our world we get joy so mixed up. See we hear joy and what do we think joy is? We think joy is happiness. So we hear joy in the Bible and think, oh that must mean don't worry, be happy, But that's not what joy is in the Bible. That's not what it's about. And it's easy to see for a few reasons, namely in this passage. Who writes this and where does he write it from? Paul's in prison. You see, joy is not determined by your external circumstances. You think, I'll have joy if things in life get easier or better. That's not Paul. That's not Jesus. who for the joy set before him endured the cross. It's not set by our external circumstances. Happiness is. Happiness will go up and down on the graph depending on your external circumstances, not joy. Secondly, Peter writes this. Peter, we've already seen this last year, writes this. In this you rejoice, the future inheritance, but now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials. Notice this. Peter says you can have joy in grief. You can be grieved by trials and yet have joy at the same time. Rejoicing in the Lord is not the same as don't worry, be happy. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that he is sorrowful yet always rejoicing. 2 Corinthians 6 verse 10. So firstly, rejoice in the Lord because we can. And secondly, think in the Lord. Verse 8. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. It might be you suffer from a world of enemies, it might be you suffer from conflict with friends, and they're bringing all sorts of anxieties, but what we often do with our anxieties is we overthink them. Like, that's all we think about, we continually think on them until we're in overdrive on our thinking. And what happens for those who are anxious is we stay on a treadmill, and that treadmill is called what-ifs. What if this? What if this happens? What if that happens? What if this happens? What if that happens? And we go, what if, what if, what if? And Paul says, stop the treadmill. Get off that treadmill and change the what ifs to whatevers. See, it might be the what ifs, you focus on your ranks and your anger and your bitterness, that constant churn of thoughts of others who hurt me, who hurt us. Our focus becomes self-talk and we remind ourselves of how much of a failure I am. But here is, instead, whatever, focus not on you, but focus on something else. might be you look at other people who have hurt you and you think whatever is true about them that might be the case whatever is honorable at them but actually I think because all scripture is through Christ notice this about this passage you can actually replace the whatever's with Jesus look at verse 8 You could read it this way. Finally brothers, Jesus is true. Jesus is honourable. Jesus is just. Jesus is pure. Jesus is lovely. Jesus is commendable. Jesus is of excellence. Jesus is of worthy of praise. Think about Jesus. This is the study of theology. We often think theology is of books, learning doctrines and sentences, but that's not theology's ultimate aim. Theology, theos, God, ology, study of, to study God is to think on Him and have joy, is to think on Him and have your life changed. Someone once said, the end of theology is doxology, is to glory in God. And so think on God. Think on Christ. Replace the thoughts that you have had, the what ifs with the whatevers on Jesus. And notice what follows that in verse 9. We read in verse 9, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. So not only do we receive the peace of God, which we've already seen that phrase earlier, but more than that, we don't just receive the peace of God, we get the God of peace. We get God himself. Are you anxious? Well you could be anxious, maybe a quarter of us, maybe all of us, but remember this friends, you're safe in the Lord. We started by slowing down the anxious treadmill and hearing God's Word. You see, one of the things I've noticed about counselling people with anxiety is this. They're not helped. People who are anxious are not helped by just rattling off a bunch of Bible verses to them, like drive-by counselling. It's not how they're helped. People who are anxious are helped by slowing down. and spending time in a passage, one passage like this. Studying God, reflecting on Him, rejoicing in Him, thinking on Him. That's what we did just now. That's what this sermon was doing. You can't find an antidote to anxiety in just passing people by and giving them a coffee cup verse. You can't be kind of the coffee cup Christianity that says, oh you're anxious, just be happy. What you need to do is help people to really reflect and think on Jesus, at his word. You also can't find an antidote to anxiety ultimately in a bottle of pills. For certain anxieties, people are incredibly helped. Members of my family have been incredibly helped by medication. But we've got to be careful about reliance on things and treating everything with that, especially when it comes to a spiritual anxiety. Because a bottle of pills can become a bottle of alcohol. And depending on those things leads to a bottled up life. You can't, it won't work. Medication even has its limits, though it's helpful. Because in the end, if it's a spiritual anxiety we have of functionally not relying on the Lord, a bottle won't fix that. It's not pill power, it's not even willpower. The only thing that's going to change it is joy power in Jesus. And that will mean we get helped in all areas of anxiety. Friends, Your elders know, we know there is a variety of anxieties in the room. We know that at times, for couples, we can be often anxious about each other. Anxious about our marriage, our relationship. Well friends, the God of peace is with you. He wants you to be calm and cared for in your anxiety. For parents, some of us have little kids, but particularly parents of older kids who have moved out of home, we get anxious about our children. We get anxious about, are they going to continue with the Lord? The God of peace has them in His hands, friends. For singles, we get anxious about our singleness. But remember this, the God of peace is with you, you are never alone. For seniors among us, anxious about our senior years, the God of peace will guard your heart and mind. Perhaps it's going to work. Going to the workplace can be a great place of anxiety for people. A friend of mine, Christian friend, she worked as a radiographer. Every morning she threw up before going to work. The God of peace is with you. He's with you in the workplace. Perhaps you're looking for work, you just can't seem to get it. The God of peace is with you. He cares for you. Perhaps you need medical attention for an anxiety. The God of peace is with you. He loves you. He comes towards you to care for you. And how do you know? That can be nice to say, How do you know? Why is that real? Because when you look to the God of peace, and his name is Jesus Christ, he's the God who comes into our anxious world, who says to his friends, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Jesus experiences anxiety before the cross. Jesus not only experiences anxiety so he understands your anxiety, Jesus, when he goes to the cross, what does he do for us at the cross? He cries out that terrible cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus loses his peace at the cross. Jesus gives up his peace at the cross for you to have peace. For you to know that he is there for you. He is with you. Ultimately, our anxiety doesn't come from poor planning. It doesn't come from misplaced trust. Sorry, poor planning. It comes from misplaced trust. We get spiritually anxious because we set our minds on things we could lose. We place things in our life that become idols, little gods, God replacements. They can't bear the weight of what we worry about. Only Jesus can handle that. Only Jesus can handle our worries. And he tells us in Matthew 6 in a cross-reference reading, don't be anxious, because he's got this. We have trouble believing it though. So as we do say finally, and we'll pray, that's what we're going to pray for. Because friends, here's what I know is going to happen next. I've given you 33 or so minutes, whatever it is, of helps from the scriptures, taught and explained every verse, all seven imperatives in this text. But you know what the thing that you're going to lose, you're going to leak as you leave this, that I'm going to leak, is not knowledge of the imperatives of the rejoicing, let your reasons, it's not those things. We're going to walk out of here and go, do I really believe that? And the rest of that week is going to be, do I think I'm in control or do I actually believe he's in control? So friends, that's what we need to pray about. We need to ask him to help us to believe this. To believe that our future is incredibly bright, free from anxiety, forever with him. To believe that whilst anxiety feeds on uncertainty, and it does, We can now look to Jesus, because who is Jesus? He's the God of peace, right? Jesus is certainty personified. Don't be anxious about anything, but pray about everything. Let's do that. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we recognize now that Jesus is true. He's honorable. He's just. He's pure. He's lovely. He's worthy of praise. And so we pray for one another because we love one another. Help us to help one another by listening, loving, and looking to Jesus together in our anxieties. Help us to have that posture of prayer, that culture of prayer, those structures in place in our life that help us to pray to pray about everything. And so we do pray about everything. We pray for one another now, in everything, and help us to have that life as a church, a church of prayer, to come to you, to rely upon you in everything, because you are the God of peace. And so we pray, we ask, God our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, help us to believe this, to believe upon Him, to know that he is at hand. And we ask this with thankfulness that he is rejoicing in Jesus, thinking in Jesus, being safe in Jesus, praying in Jesus' name. Amen.