Article

Dealing With Anxiety

Transcript:

Pastor Dan: Hello everyone. Coming to you this time from our basement here in our house. I hope you all are doing well and staying healthy in this time, and just wanting to come and share another little devotional today. But first just wanted to give you a couple of updates about things and maybe just some helpful hints as far as you’re looking for content they were putting out. I want to keep directing you to our website so that you can find some of our services and other things like this that we’re putting out. If you go to that watch live tab at the top of our website, click on it. You can find there that each day or we’re going to be replaying some of our previous weeks services. They’re not on demand there. In other words, you can’t just click and start one when you want, but you can see there there’s a little tab that says “schedule.” You could see when each service will be playing from which week. And so hopefully if you missed one, you can go back, click on it and see it. Also on our website you see there’s a COVID-19 resource page. There’s all kinds of things. If you click on that—devotionals like this, there’s old messages, there’s helpful ideas for other things. So just please go keep going to our website. Looking there, there’s some things also on, on Facebook as well, but primarily everything is on our website that you’ll be looking for.

Today I just wanted to read a couple of words from the book of Philippians chapter four. I know that there’s a lot of anxiety. We’re all feeling in different ways at this time, maybe for a lot of different reasons and thought of this passage, just wanting to read it and just share a couple of quick thoughts today with you about it. Philippians 4:4-7 “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 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.“ The Word of the Lord. So just a couple of things here. Obviously this well known passage urges us to be rejoicing in the Lord in all circumstances. And we face all kinds of different circumstances. We’re facing a very unique one right now in our country and in our world. And the example I always think of in connection with this is the example of water. You think of water and what happens is you put it to different circumstances.

So put it to the circumstance of a freezer and it becomes solid. Put it under the circumstance of heat on the stove, and of course it can become steam becomes a gas. Put it just at room temperature. It’s that liquid water. In different circumstances, water adjusts to those circumstances, but it never stops being what it is—H2O—it’s water. That fundamental piece of who it doesn’t change. And I think as we think of this time and this passage about rejoicing in the Lord, that’s really the calling for us. And there’s different circumstances in our lives we face. The circumstance we’re facing now, but we’re supposed to remain joyful in the Lord. Our identity is rooted in him. So no matter how the circumstances might change, that fundamental shouldn’t change. But in the midst of that, we maybe adapt to our different circumstances.

We adjust to the situation we’re in, like we’re adjusting how we worship together now or maybe how we gather for this time being. But it doesn’t change that primarily, our joy is in the Lord. And the passage really talks about how that shows up. And when we fundamentally don’t change how we’re generous. The passage says that we’re gentle to all. And really that gentleness means that we’re looking not just at ourselves, but at those around us and how we can meet the needs of others. And again, that points back to we are in Christ. It talks about being not anxious. And we know we’re going to have some anxiety. But the passage here talks about not being anxious. So anxiety not being fundamental to who we are. Rather joy being fundamental. We’re not driven by our anxiety.

That’s not who we are in Christ. And so while we deal with that in prayer is really where the passage points us. That’s where the anxiety gets replaced by joy—as we’re with the Lord as we know he is near, as we’re reminded how we are identified with him. Then that anxiety goes down. And so that’s replaced and filled instead by that joy. Then the passage talks, too, about being guarded by God’s presence and as it closes. And what a beautiful picture of Phillippi, the city that Paul was writing to, as a city guarded by Roman garrisons. And the reminder here is that God’s Holy army, as it were, surrounds us, protects us, in all circumstances, no matter where we are and gives us his peace. And so, friends, just that reminder that as we’re in this different circumstance, we might feel that anxiety rising, that we’re guarded by the peace of God in Christ, that it’s the Garrison surrounding us and that we keep going back to that identity we have in Jesus Christ.

And because of that we can have joy in any circumstances in the Lord because of what he’s done for us in Jesus Christ. So just a quick reminder today of, of God’s word and the joy he gives to us and just want to have a word of prayer as we close. Father, we thank you so much for the joy we can have in you every day. We thank you for, Lord, being with us in different circumstances and we pray that we would know you’re with us. You’re near right now. Lord, keep us turning to you in prayer. Keep us being gentle and the way we treat each other, whether it’s just at home in our families, in our communities, in this time and it’s different circumstance. And Lord, help us to see and know that you are guarding us, surrounding us with your peace in Christ, that you protect us in every way that our life truly rest with you. Lord, we pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen. Well, peace be with all of you. Hope to see you again soon.

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