"Don't Worry; be Joyful!"
Sermon by the Rev. Matt Kennedy
Advent 3year b
The Church of the Good Shepherd
1st Thessalonians 5:16-18

How many people here are worried about something? I'm an obsessive worrier. I tend to worry when I stop worrying. Have you ever been so worried about something bad happening that just when you think you've come to the point where you begin to rest and find peace, you begin to worry about the fact that you're not worrying? As if turning a fear or a worry over and over in your head magically keeps it from coming to pass. I did that in seminary. I'd work hard on a paper, turn it in, and then I'd be a wreck until the grade came back. Ask Anne. We were married while I was in the process of researching and writing my honor's thesis. By the time I finally finished it was 90 pages long. I'd spent a year researching, two months writing, and my whole seminary career coming up with the theory itself. I turned it in a month before the last day of classes. That was a horrible month. I spent days guessing what my professors were thinking. I read my paper over and over again agonizing over the mistakes. Incessantly, sometimes twice in the same half-hour, I'd drive or walk across campus to check my school mail-box. I drove Anne absolutely insane. We'd be talking and all of a sudden I'd stare off into space and that was it. I was gone.

I hope the worries in your life are not that intense, but in some ways I'm glad I went through that time because it gave me some insight into why the scriptures so consistently admonish believers not to worry and it gave me some insight into why following that admonition is so hard.

I loved the process of researching and writing papers. My worry came when I handed the paper in. Can anyone guess why? When my paper left my hands, it was out of my control. No matter what kind of effort I'd put into it, after I turned it in, the final outcome depended on my professor. I couldn't do anything about it. That's what drove me insane.

Worry in general is a response to a feeling or perception, real or imagined, of being out of control. That's why most of our worries are located in the future or in the past. Both are somewhat beyond our control. You can sort of prepare for your future, but you don't know really what's going to happen; you can't control it. And the past is already done; you can't go back and change it. If you've done something in the past that might impact your future, like turning in a thesis, and then, after the fact, realize that you've made a mistake, there's nothing you can do. So, if you worry a lot, like I do, chances are you're spending a lot of your time living in your past or in your imagined future.

I say imagined on purpose. Try this experiment when you get home. Write out a list of the things you're most worried about happening in the next month. Put the list away. Pull it out after New Year‘s Day. I'll bet 99.99% of the stuff you feared and worried would happen, didn't actually happen. I've wasted a lot of time in my life fretting about things that never happen. I wasted a month of my first year of marriage obsessing over a thesis I made an A on. Talk about feeling foolish!

So, worry is a useless and exhaustive exercise that gets us nowhere and accomplishes nothing because it mostly concerns circumstances beyond our control. Nevertheless, I know that I'll walk out of here and most likely worry about whether you liked this sermon and you'll walk out of here and start to worry about Christmas preparations or the fact that your in-laws are coming in town or final exams or your health or whatever else there is out there that you're worried about.

What we need is help. Real help. Practical help. This is one of the reasons I love the bible. It's not a cloudy, ethereal book of “deep thoughts” about the sound of one hand clapping and other nonsense. It's an earthy book written by men and women who knew real life, real work, real tragedy, real worry and it was inspired by the Eternal God who knew that today you and I would open it and want help for our lives. God finds a way to give us just the right word at the right time. Right in the middle of one of the most worrisome times of the year, God gives us 1 st Thessalonians 5:12-28

Let's open our bibles there and concentrate specifically on verses 16-18. There you find God's recipe for dealing with anxiety. “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Notice the three elements; joy, prayer, thanksgiving. God gave the very same recipe in Philippians in Chapter 4. “Rejoice in the Lord always…Don't be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition and with thanksgiving present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:4-7)

Joy, prayer, thanksgiving; these are the God given ingredients for dealing with worry. In Philippians 4, God gives a promise associated with this recipe. If you apply these ingredients, “the peace of God…will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) God wants you to have peace and he's given you, given us, a recipe for it.

Well, how do we follow the recipe?

Let's take the three ingredients one by one.

First, Paul says, be joyful always. Joy is not the same thing as happiness. Happiness is tied to things that pass away. Joy is tied to things that that remain. A new car might make you happy; your children bring you joy. Your wedding might make you happy; your marriage should bring you joy. Your brand new bible might make you happy; but God and his Word bring you joy. It is God's will for you always to have joy. Look at verse 18. “For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” Following the recipe is God's will for you. It is not God's wish. It‘s his will. Be joyful always. It is a command, not a suggestion.

So, I'm supposed to gin up this feeling of joy to counteract the feeling of worry? No, not at all; joy is primarily a product not a feeling.

Joy is the pervading sense of satisfaction and contentment that comes when you're living as God designed you to live. You were designed first to be in relationship with God; second to live in a family; and third to accomplish a mission--in that order. To the extent that you live every day in accordance with these priorities, not getting them out of order or confusing one for the other, you'll find joy. You're living in accordance with God's blueprint.

To the extent that your priorities are out of order; perhaps putting your job (mission) above your family or your buddies above your wife or your Christmas preparations above your relationship with God, to that extent, you'll find yourself living in anxiety and worry and stress. Your life is out of order. The first ingredient to finding freedom from worry is to get your priorities in order.

Put God first. As we've said over and over, spend time with him daily in bible study and in prayer and come to church every Sunday. Put your family next by spending time with them every day, not TV time, but real time. How many here share a meal together each day? You were placed in a family on purpose. Devote yourself to loving them in the way you spend your time. If you no longer have or have never really had a natural family, you always have a spiritual family, the church. Give that time that you would give to your natural family to the body of Christ. Put your job or your mission after these. Your relationships with God, your spouse, your kids, and your parents are far more important than your job or your relationships with friends. How often we get this confused! When that sort of confusion happens, you're not living as you were designed to live and your life begins to break down. Put you priorities in order and joy will result.

Let's look at the second ingredient: Prayer.

Paul says “pray continually. “The word translated here as “continually” might also be translated as “regularly“. “Pray regularly,“ by which Paul, a good Jew, likely means “daily“. How do you pray?

As we've said many times and as you've no doubt heard, there are at least 4 parts of prayer: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

Here I think Paul is specifically identifying the fourth part of prayer; supplication. Supplication involves: 1.sharing your heart with God; 2 asking him to act on your behalf and; 3 asking him to act on behalf of others.

If you spend your supplication time on number 3 alone (and I know that some of you do), praying for other people but never opening your heart and pouring out your worries and anxieties and never praying for God to act in your heart and life, you've closed the door to God‘s power. Prayer is the gift that God has given you to enable you to give him all your burdens. It's not at all selfish to spend the bulk of your prayer time praying for your own needs and worries. God wants you to give him your heart everyday; to open it up and let all of the worries and fears you‘ve stuffed in there to fall out into his hands. He can handle them. What does Jesus say? “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest,” Well, how do you do this?

I‘m a tactile person. I write down my worries on paper. The first day of every month I write down a list of worries and fears and one by one I give them to God and every time one of those worries comes back I discipline myself to give it up again. The next day I pull out the list and either subtract an item that God has taken care of or add something new. Without fail, by the end of the month, my original list of worries is gone; the prayers have been answered. Though new worries and fears take their place, I have this visual reminder every day of what God has done and is doing in my life, it becomes easier and easier, to give them over, to let them go so they don‘t burden me during the day. I'm not worry free, but I would hate to see myself if I didn't pray. Making a list may not work for you, but find some way of emptying your heart of its burdens and asking for God's help in addressing them and do it daily; regularly.

So prayer is the second ingredient.

The third is thanksgiving. Are you wondering whythanksgiving is on this list? I mean, it's great and good to give thanks, but how could this possibly help with deal with worry?

Well, let's think about it. What do you do when you give thanks? You acknowledge that someone has acted in your life. When you ask for and recieve a salt shaker from someone seated accross the dinner table, you say thank you. Why? Well, you didn't get the salt shaker by yourself. It was across the table. You couldn't reach it. Someone else passed it to you. Saying "thank you" acknowledges that someone else has acted to give you what you could not get by yourself.

In the same way, giving thanks to God brings to the forefront of your mind all the ways that God is acting in your life.   Doing so daily trains you to see that God daily acts on your behalf.

When you get a raise, or have a problem in your life resolved, what's your first instinct? Mine is to think, "well what a coincidence. Isn't it nice how fortune turns?" Bu the bible teaches that God is sovereign over all the affairs of men; that nothing happens apart from his will or permission. So fortune has not turned. Rather, God has worked in your life, giving you the skills, training, and diligence necessary to acheive and he has worked in the heart of your boss to let him recognize your work and give you a raise. Problems do not simply "work themselves out." God works in the people and circumstances around you to resolve what seems irresolvable. Thank him. Don't just feel relief. Express relief and thanksgiving to God.

Giving thanks is a trust-building exercise. You begin to see all that God has done in your life and as you do you have that much more reason to believe and to trust that when you give him your burdens and cares you're giving them to someone who has the power to help and a record of loving intervention on your behalf.

When I give thanks I pull out some of those old worry lists and just thank and praise God for the miraculous ways I've seen him move to take care of me. And that in itself does wonders to alleviate the worry I have in the present. Did you know that if you're a believer, God has already moved miraculously in your life? But if you don't give enough thanks, you're eyes aren't tuned to see his hand in your circumstances. You attribute the good in your life to yourself or to coincidence. But all things come from God and the more you recognize this truth and give him thanks, the more peace you will have as you give him you burdens.

So, to sum up: if you are stressed and worried and afraid this Christmas season begin to work on the recipe. Have joy. Get your priorities in order. Pray, give your burdens to God daily, and give thanks, remember the mighty works of God in your life. If you do these things you are following God's will for you and he promises to give you peace.

Amen

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