Christ Church

The Sinfulness of Worry

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Introduction

In times like ours, there is a lot to worry about, is there not? If we are not worried about the coronavirus killing us dead, we are worried about panicked overreactions to the coronavirus killing our businesses dead. And so we like to think that our situation is somehow unique. We live in the modern age, and so our worry or anxiety is somehow justified. But it isn’t.

Across many historical studies, before the modern era about a quarter of all children did not survive their first year. Another quarter of them did not make it past puberty. And from around 1500 to 1800, general life expectancy was somewhere between 30 and 40 years old. So tell us some more about your great troubles, Methuselah. You might not make it to a thousand?

The Text

“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:4–7).

Summary of the Text

When it comes to our base coat demeanor, Paul gives us our foundational marching orders. He tells us to rejoice always (v. 4), and he repeats himself for emphasis. Rejoice, he says. The KJV translates the next word as moderation, which we would call gentleness (v. 5). We are to do this because the Lord is at hand (v. 5). In the next phrase he says that we are to be anxious about nothing (v. 6). Instead of being anxious about whatever it is, he says that we are to present our requests to God in our prayers and supplications (v. 6). We are to make them known to God, but not because God doesn’t know them. We are to make them known to God so that we can know that God already knows them. Moreover, we are told to present these prayers and supplications to Him with thanksgiving. This is key, as we shall see in a moment. When we do as Paul instructs us here, we find that the anxiety is dealt with. How? The peace of God, which transcends all our understanding, will keep or protect our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (v. 7).

Your Shield and Buckler

Because we do not have great experience with the peace of God, we tend to assume that it is a frail little thing. We know that we ought to enjoy the peace of God, and so we resolve to do better. We set our hearts and minds to higher and nobler deeds, saying to ourselves that we will protect that poor little “peace of God” by means of

The fundamental thing we must notice about this approach is that it is completely upside down and backwards. Our hearts and minds are not to protect the peace of God. It says that the peace of God—which passes understanding, note—will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Trying to protect your peace with your good resolutions is like trying to protect your helmet with your head. It is like trying to protect your breastplate with your stomach. It is like trying to protect your shield with your neck. That maketh no sense, man.

How to Take Up the Shield and Buckler

We miss this because for several reasons I can think of. The first is that Paul says that this peace shield is an invisible shield. It passes understanding. When there is tumult all around you, and you remain unruffled, the people who know the circumstances cannot see what it is that is protecting you. But they can see that you are in fact being protected by something that “passes understanding.” And sometimes we forget that it passes understanding.

The other reason is that we often forget a key word in the exhortation that Paul is giving us, and that word is thanksgiving.

A Few Bullet Points

And so we should be done with our worries. We should be done with anxiety. Here is a small checklist for you to consult from time to time. Why should we not give way to anxiety?

  • We are Christians, and Jesus said not to. If we call Him Lord, we should do what He tells us to do. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things” (Matt. 6:34, NKJV).
  • We are Calvinists, and a worried Calvinist is a theological oxymoron. Either God is in complete control of all things or He is not. If He is not, then you, my friend, need to go run and hide. Good luck. If He is, then . . . “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” (1 Thess. 5:18)
  • Worry and anxiety are a waste of time. It doesn’t do any good anyway. “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” (Matt. 6:27).
  • You start living your life completely out of order. Worry is like thinking there is going to be a famine next year, and eating double portions at every meal now. It doesn’t work that way. “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34, NKJV).

Freedom from Worry is Not Recklessness

Remember that our text presupposes that you actually know the content of your prayers and supplications. Paul says that you are to lay them before God “in every thing.” You know what your burdens are. You feel the weight of them. But when you are free of anxiety, you do not know the inordinate weight of them. “Rejoice always” is not the same thing as a happy happy joy joy approach. “As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:10).

“A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: But the simple pass on, and are punished” (Prov. 22:3). Prudence is like money. It is not wrong for God’s people to have money, but it is wrong for money to have His people. You know you have gone astray when your heart is located where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal. It is the same with prudence. Whenever you are being what you call “prudent,” do the little thieves of worry creep in? God wants His people to have prudence. He does not want prudence to have His people.

Christ the Shield

Worry is like a little greased piglet, and you are not going to able to catch it. And even if you did, what would you do with it then? Worry is not an adversary to be wrestled to the ground. Worry is not an adversary that you can just hit on the head with a chemical rock. Worry is a sin to be repented—as you would repent of lying, or adultery, or theft. You name it as sin, and offer it to Christ. And what does He do? He forgives it (1 John 1:9).

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Psalm 116: The Grace of Answered Prayer

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Introduction

This psalm is a wonderful testimony of praise, giving glory to God for all the things He did to undertake for the psalmist. The Lord delivered him from grievous trouble, and he is not at all ambiguous about the fact that God is the one who did it. But in order to give thanks this way, we have to adjust some of our modernist assumptions about interpreting the events of history. In his penetrating book about the theological crisis that resulted from the American Civil War, Mark Noll astutely pointed out the fact that the war badly rattled American faith in the intelligibility of God’s governance of the world. Both sides were praying to Him, were they not? And every retreated into the assumption that God’s ways are always and necessarily inscrutable. But how then can we pray as the psalmist does here?

The Text

“I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live . . .” (Ps. 116:1-19).

Summary of the Text

The psalm begins with a profession of love for the Lord, because He listens to prayers (v. 1). He inclined His ear to me, and that is why I call upon Him (v. 2). As long as I live. The psalmist has been in deep trouble before, down to the point of death (v. 3). That is when I called upon His name (v. 4). God is gracious, righteous, and merciful (v. 5). God preserves the simple, and it is a good thing too (v. 6). He helped when I was brought low. Calm down, soul, because God is bountiful (v. 7). God has delivered me in three ways—my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling (v. 8). I am going to walk around this place alive, and in the presence of the Lord (v. 9). Paul quotes this next verse in 2 Cor. 4:13, and does so from a similar context. I believed, and therefore I have spoken (v. 10).

I said, too hastily, that all men are liars (v. 11). This appears to have something to do with men who were the instruments of the answered prayer. When I was in trouble I lashed out at men, but then God used men to deliver. How shall I pay the Lord back for all His benefits (v. 12)? I will take the cup of salvation, and then raise the glass (v. 13). The vows that I promised when I was in trouble are vows that I will pay in the presence of all God’s saints (v. 14). As we saw earlier, God delivered me from death, but here it says that the death of His saints is precious to Him (v. 15). He loves bringing us home. In other words, it would have been an answer to prayer either way. God’s slaves are the ones for whom God has loosed the bonds (v. 16). The sacrifice of thanksgiving is the only way to pay Him back, and so we call on His name (v. 17). Again the vows that were promised will be vows paid—in the presence of all His people (v. 18). Thanksgiving for answered prayer will be offered in the courts of the Lord’s house (v. 19). Hallelujah.

Two Different Moments

When He was praying in the Garden, our Lord Jesus modeled for us what true submission looks like. “And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39). And the apostle Paul prayed three times for his thorn in the flesh to be removed, and was three times denied (2 Cor. 12:8-9).

But then there is this . . .

“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14). “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

Now what many Reformed (non-charismatic) believers do is this. They treat this as though one passage can cancel the other one out, and they retreat to the (very emotionally safe) position of “not my will, but thine” be done. And thus they settle into a life of never asking God for anything specific. And when forced into asking for something specific, as when a loved one gets really sick, they spend all their time internally braced for the inevitable nothat they know must be coming.

These passages are addressing two different kinds of situation. The former is when God wants us to be content, and to be resigned to His will. The latter is when He wants us to engage in prayers that are risky.

But how are we to tell the difference? We are to recognize the differing situations by faith, and we are to resign ourselves by faith, and we are to risk by faith. But—we want to know—how can we learn to risk things in prayer? Well, by taking risks there. No, no, we reply. We want to learn how to take risks without actually taking any. It would be lovely to know how to ride a bicycle, and it would be even more lovely to never have a skinned knee.

In the Presence of All the People

God loves it when we give glory to Him. He is not this way because of some kind of megalomania, but rather because He loves what it does in His people when they see, know, and taste His goodness.

One of the things we need to get better at is the practice of boasting in the Lord, bragging on Him when He answered your prayers.

Out to the Limit

Realize that this psalm expresses two things. The first is the extent of his troubles. He was in deep trouble, and in such deep trouble that he spoke hastily about how awful men were. All men are liars. But then God sent our salvation, the man Christ Jesus. God sent a man who was the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

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Efficacious Love

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Introduction

This message is directed at men, and husbands and fathers in particular, but there will be plenty of applications to go around for everyone in the room since the basic message can be summarized as “if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 Jn. 4:11). We begin with God’s efficacious love, and then we press that into the corners, beginning with the men and then to all.

A Summary of the Text

This final book in our Old Testament begins with a “burden” or a judgment from God against His people, sometime in the late 5th century B.C., most likely during the days of Nehemiah (Mal. 1:1). This burden comes as a stinging rebuke to those who had returned from exile and rebuilt the temple and were seeking to reestablish Israel as a nation. The difficulties of rebuilding have piled up and discouraged the people to the point of significant moral compromise, such that when Malachi opens with the announcement of God’s love, the point was clearly to address the fact that they have come to the point of questioning it (Mal. 1:2). Malachi’s answer is God’s election of Jacob over Esau, and traces that out in history, pointing out that Esau’s rebuilding projects have not succeeded since God’s wrath abides on Esau/Edom forever (Mal. 1:2-4). Malachi concludes this opening salvo with the promise that the eyes of Israel will be opened to see the Lord’s efficacious love and then they will proclaim the glory of the Lord (Mal. 1:5).

All the Excuses

These people were the dedicated ones. They had sacrificed much. They had moved back to Jerusalem, endured hardships, and were painstakingly seeking to rebuild Jerusalem. But the work of Reformation is never easy and is often long and slow. The rest of Malachi addresses three areas of significant problems which all flow out of the initial question posed in Mal. 1:2. Forgetting God’s sovereign love has led to polluted worship, unfaithful marriages, and robbing God of tithes. All of these areas demonstrated a significant breakdown in the Israelite families. The men put up with weak and lying priests because that gave them an easy pass with their own wives and children. And when men fail to love and lead their families faithfully, they frequently try to buy them off, which often results in robbing God of tithes. But the root cause of it all is pride. “How has God loved us?” is perhaps one of the most insolent questions a creature can ask, even if true hardships preceded that appalling point. At its heart, it’s the resentful sentiment of the older brother in the parable: “Lo, these many years I have been serving you… and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends” (Lk. 15:29).

Jacob I Have Loved

God’s answer is intended to humble Israel: “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau” (Mal. 1:2-3). The answer is one of startling, sovereign freedom. Not only were Jacob and Esau twin brothers, but God chose Jacob in the womb before they were even born (Gen. 25:23). And Paul underlines the point: “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that called – it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom. 9:11-13). The answer to Israel’s discouragement and frustration and pride was a straight shot reminder of God’s free and sovereign love. God might have chosen Esau. There was nothing intrinsically better about Jacob. The reason for God’s choice to love Jacob was not in anything in Jacob or Esau or anything good or evil they might do. It was merely “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that called.”

What follows is the evidence that God had stood by His choice: despite all the difficulties, Jacob (Israel) had rebuilt Jerusalem, but all of Esau/Edom’s building projects were doomed (Mal. 1:3-4). The book of Malachi ends with a promise that God will save His people and destroy the wicked. He had already done this, but He will continue. He will remember His people like jewels and spare them like a son (Mal. 3:17). He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Mal. 4:6). This is the sovereign, efficacious love of God, finally accomplished in Jesus.

Husbands Love Like That

The startling thing is that this standard of love is held up for husbands to imitate toward their wives, and by implication, their children. “Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27). Malachi had condemned Israel for forgetting God’s love and putting up with polluted worshiped, being unfaithful to their wives, and financial folly, and here Paul calls men of the new Israel to remember God’s love in Christ and so be faithful and diligent in their love of their wives, which is connected to the church honoring Christ (worship) and building households of wisdom (finances).

The center of the faithfulness required is love that imitates Christ, and that love is efficacious. It is efficacious because it takes responsibility and sacrifices for the assigned outcome. Responsibility means you fully embrace her challenges as your challenges, just as Christ took our sins upon Himself. Sacrifice means laying your life down to sanctify and cleanse your bride from every spot or wrinkle. Perhaps most importantly, it means laying down your pride and dwelling with your wife in an understanding way (1 Pet. 3:7). Efficacious love sees the goal of glory and beauty and holiness, and it drives eagerly toward the goal, doing whatever it takes to get there. This kind of love is to be as efficacious as a man’s love for his own body (Eph. 5:28). This is a persistent, uncomplaining, humble, joyful leadership in every area of life. And wives your love for your husband is to be primarily communicated through submission and respect, as the church is to Christ (Eph. 5:22-24).

Conclusion: Love One Another

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 Jn. 4:10-11). Why did Christ die? To turn away God’s just wrath (propitiation for our sins). “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly… But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us… when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:6, 8, 10). For whom did Christ die? For the ungodly, for sinners, for His enemies.

“He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of his grace” (Eph. 1:4-6). For whom did Christ die? For those He chose before the foundation of the world. The cross was not an attempt to save everyone but successful with only some. Everyone God has chosen, He loves, and Christ died for them and will not lose one. They will be made holy by His efficacious love. Why? So we would praise His grace and proclaim the glory of the Lord (Mal. 1:5).

How are we to love one another? Like that. Plotting blessing. Giving freely. Without growing weary. Not expecting anything in return. Keeping vows. Out of sheer joy in Christ for His efficacious love.

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Speaking to God

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Introduction

One of the key doctrines recovered in the Reformation was that of the priesthood of all believers. What that resulted in was an increased fervor for piety. Calvin’s original (very catchy) title of the 1536 edition of The Institutes was: The Institutes of Christian Religion, Containing almost the Whole Sum of Piety and Whatever It is Necessary to Know in the Doctrine of Salvation. A Work Very Well Worth Reading by All Persons Zealous for Piety, and Lately Published. The Reformation restored a biblical understanding of fellowship with God to the individual believer, and thus recovered true fellowship between believers as well. God wants to speak to us, in His Word by His Son (Heb. 1:1-3), and God wants us to speak to Him. In other words, God wants to be with us.

The Text

And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Luke 18:1-8

Summary of the Text

Zoom out of this passage, and I want to highlight something about Luke’s narrative. One of his focal points is the activity of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of Jesus (Lk. 1:35, 41; 2:25-26; 3:16; 4:1, 18; 11:9-13; 12:8-12; 24:49). Think of Luke as volume one, and Acts as volume two of the same work. Along with this comes a frequent emphasis on prayer, which we know from elsewhere in Scripture is closely linked with the ministry of the Spirit. So Luke shows how Christ’s ministry, teaching, and example was marked by prayer (Cf. Lk 22:44).
Unlike most parables, this one comes with an answer key, this parable is an exhortation to prayer, the sort of prayer that isn’t feeble or fainthearted (v1). The sort of persistence we are to have in prayer is exemplified by the picture of the relationship between a hard-hearted judge (v2), and a widow (v3). Her request is to be avenged, but the judge refuses to take her cause (v4a); but because of her persistence he agrees to take up the cause of avenging her lest he wear out (v5).
Jesus tells us the takeaway from this story of the unjust judge (v6).  That is, even the most corrupt judge will finally give way due to persistent petition. This is a how much more argument (similar to Lk 11:13). If the unjust judge will finally hear the persistent petitions of the needy widow, how much more will God avenge His chosen people (v7)? His tarrying is not evidence of His not hearing their prayers, it is a means whereby their faith is tested and proved (v8). God has promised His people that He will avenge them. So, they must not relinquish faith that He will perform His promise.

The Importunate Church

Why does God wait to answer our prayers? The Evangelical church has been praying for close to fifty years that the abomination of Roe v. Wade would be overturned. The Chinese church has been praying for deliverance from communist persecution for close to a hundred years. The Reformers were persecuted for well over two hundred years before they enjoyed the peace of deliverance.
It might be easy to think that God’s delay is because He must be like the unjust judge. He must have a lot on His plate; or He wants to “teach us a lesson”; or He only begrudgingly answers our prayers. But this runs antithetical not only to this text, but to the whole of Scriptural revelation as to God’s character. He is a Father. He delights to answer our requests. And this text highlights the speed with which He will avenge His beloved.
One reason is His tarrying demands that our prayers continue in faith, which implies that we are all too likely to treat Him like Santa Claus. This makes man out to be the cause of the effect of answered prayer, rather than the believer being part of God’s means whereby He effects His answers to prayer. Another reason is that waiting for His answer to come results in us coming to see that the Giver is better than the gift, the Answerer is superior to the answer. Finally, we must not overlook the fact that He is not “time-bound.” He answers in accordance with His sovereign will. All our prayers, even if the answer comes long after we are dead and gone, result in great glory for God and the building up of the faith of the Church. The church has been asking “Thy Kingdom come” for millennia, and God assures us that it will come, and when it does the whole church will say, “Amen.”

Pray Like a Psalmist

Pray big prayers. Pray specific prayers. Pray tireless prayers. Pray that Your enemies might be undone (either in conversion or in judgement). Pray that God might be glorified. Pray in faith. Pray, pray, pray.
And just as importantly, expect God to answer your prayers. Jesus commands us to ask the Father for whatsoever, and accompanies that command with a promise that the Father will answer: “And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full (Jhn. 16:23-24).” In other words, pray like God told you to pray. Pray like a psalmist.

Where Faith Shall Be Sight

Our Lord taught us to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it was it heaven. We pray by faith, awaiting the unseen answer. But God does answer our prayers. Faith asks, faith waits, and faith keeps its eyes open for the answer.
Prayer need not be eloquent. In fact, grunts and groans are acceptable forms of prayer (Rom. 8:26). Lengthy times in the prayer closet don’t expedite the answer. But God invites you to ask. He wants to hear you. He wants to answer your prayers. He wants to answer them with nothing other than Himself.
We pray together throughout our service each Lord’s Day. But this should not replace frequent converse with the Lord both as families, individuals, and friends. Paul commands us to do everything by prayer (Phi. 4:6); Tozer pointed out that the church’s temptation is to do everything by committee, rather than by prayer and supplication.
So, pray without ceasing. After all, you are in Christ, Christ brings you to the Father, and the Spirit grants you power to ask with boldness what God delights to answer: that in all things He might receive all glory, honor, and praise. This is true piety. The sort of piety that isn’t lost in the la-la-land of introspection. This is the sort of piety that reads the Bible to hear from God and obey what He says, and then talk continually to God as His own child requesting what He’s promised to give. This is the fellowship with the Father which Christ purchased for you, which the Spirit seals to you.

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