It’s Christmas time again, in a little over the week we will be celebrating Jesus’s birthday. Many of us will be visiting family, eating big belly busting dinner followed and maybe preceded by Christmas cookies. And of course ripping open presents.
What a hectic time of year.
I mean, how many of you have finished your Christmas shopping?
Mailed all your gifts and cards?
Done all your baking?
How many of you are wondering how you are going to pay for all of the fun of Christmas?
If that wasn’t enough there are all the parties, trying to get work done before the holidays.
It all builds up and before you know it you are like Clark Griswold going nuts from the strain and stress and anxiety of trying to put together the perfect family Christmas.
We are not alone in facing anxiety in life. Everybody at some time or another has faced it. 2000 years ago the good people of Philippi felt it.
And so when Paul wrote them he encouraged them not to be anxious but to place it all on the wide shoulders of Christ.
As we face our own anxieties.
Be they the looming deadline at work
Getting the checkbook to balance when the cost of living is rising faster than your paycheck
That huge science project your teacher just assigned
Despite the fact that we want to avoid creating anxiety in our life. We seem to do our best to create more even when we have good intentions.
There have been a few times I wanted to do something for Julie, and that is a good thing, right? Well, she had a specific way of doing it but I being the rather stubborn I refused to do it her way even though it really didn’t cost me anything to do it her way, which of course got her mad and myself mad. All of this anxiety created because we were both too stubborn to give an inch toward the other.
In our sin we create anxiety and it frightens us
But we are not alone in our fear anxiety
I once heard a story about two guys named bill and Joey who were both on the High School dive team. Bill and Joey were best friends and often practiced diving together. Joey was the better of the two friends but Bill didn’t mind too much but he was bothered because his friend never did well in dive meets because he would always get so uptight during the meet. So, during one competition Bill tried to get Joey’s mind off of the competition by acting like they were in practice. Bill started joking and acting silly and on the first dive, he jumped off yelling, “Joey, watch me, I am an eagle”. Joey followed and pulled off a near perfect dive. On the next go around Bill did the same thing yelling “look at me I am jumping over the moon”. Joey again followed with a near perfect dive. Later they began to announce the winners of the competition. As they gradually worked their way up the awards, Bill started getting nervous for his friend. When they finally announced that Joey had gotten 2nd place, bill was thrilled for his friend because he had never ranked that high before, but he wondered who managed to beat him. Boy was Bill surprised when they announced he took first place.
Bill and Joey had been plagued by there anxieties to the point that it hampered their ability to perform.
The trick in facing our fears and anxiety isn’t so much going for positive affirmations and ego boosts or even distracting ourselves from our fears
It is Christ Jesus The son of God
When I said we are not alone I meant it because
Christ has been there
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark records that Jesus felt deeply troubled and pained while John writes that And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
Sweating drops of blood, don’t you think that he was feeling our pain?
The apostle Paul knows that we collect our anxieties like a pack rat collects knickknacks and he encourages us to toss them into the hands of Christ, the God of peace; he also encourages us that instead of filling our heads with worries and doubts we should fill them with things that are honorable, just, pure, lovely, and all things worthy of praise.
Christ can fill up on the good stuff and leave no room for the bad, good things such as honorable actions.
Sergeant 1st class Randall Shughart was a member of the Army Special forces and in 1993 he volunteered for a mission that left with little chance for survival but the sergeant could not bear to see his fellow service men be left on the battlefield wounded and at the hands of an angry mob, and so, he and a fellow sniper fought their way through the enemy filled mazes of Mogadishu Somalia to the four critically injured crew members of a downed Blackhawk helicopter. After pulling the crewmen to safety, he placed himself between them and an overwhelming number of enemies defending his comrades until his ammunition ran out, it cost him his life but it saved the crew of the Blackhawk. For his actions, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Sergeant Shughart did an incredibly honorable thing sacrificing his life
Nevertheless, it pales in comparison the honorable actions on the pinnacle of Calvary. Where one man placed himself between us and all the armies of Satan himself, in order to rescue us from his wicked clutches. The God of peace that lonely good Friday gave us a peace, which surpasses all understanding and engulfs and overwhelms our greater anxiety.
It does not end there because our anxieties never cease.
It always seems that just when things are getting better the next crisis comes along. Either you do something to mess things up or somebody does something that hurts your. Either way your in a lot of pain and afflicted with anxiety.
But God’s love does not stop just because more anxiety comes our way.
There was a man who struggling to get by because he wasn’t able to earn enough for his family. One generous soul saw his plight and decided to help him out. Now he wanted to remain anonymous so he would just slip an envelope under the guys door. When the poor man opened it he found a large sum of money and a note that said “more to follow.” This continued for a long time and because of the others generosity he no longer had to worry about supporting his family.
That is how it is with God’s love. God’s love is the purest, most lovely thing ever. It is what drove him to the cross for us. God didn’t have to got the cross but he loved us too much not to go to the cross.
With his dripping blood he fills us with a righteous love that is so lovely and pure it outshines and abolishes all our sin and anxiety.
And as an added bonus for us, there is always “more to follow.” God’s love and forgiveness never runs out.
So as more anxieties come our way and we trip and stumble over our best intentions there is always more that is worthy of praise.
Usually when we think of something worthy of praise we think of great acts of heroism like the sacrifices of the medal of honor recipient who I shared with you earlier but sometimes these acts of praise are quite simple but none the less very special.
There is a story told of an African boy who brought a Christmas gift to his teacher. It was a superb seashell that could only be found at one particular beach several miles away. The teacher exclaimed about its beauty and added, "Oh, you shouldn’t have gone so far for a gift for me." The boy smiled and said, "The long walk was part of the gift." The teacher could only sit in wonder as this child as she realized this little boy cared enough for her to walk all the way to shore on his own. A feat of love worthy of praise and remembrance.The God of the Universe made a similar long walk
The long walk from Divinity and infinity to the humility and dependency of a human infant. He showed us how to walk through life. He made the long agonizing walk up to the cross and was carried to the grave. Then He walked away from the tomb. The long walk was part of the gift, and it was all for us. He did it for us so we would no longer have to walk in anxiety but in the joy and peace that only comes from the God of peace.
A gift freely given that is something truly worthy of praise.
As the popular Gospel song goes “because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives all fear is gone”
In fact why don’t we sing it together turn with me to page 16 of the praise book.
Because Christ lives we can face the day and sleep soundly at night for the God of Peace is truly with us.
