Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Anxious for Nothing, Part 3: The Perspective of Praise

Episode Date: August 18, 2019

You weren’t created to exist in a constant state of anxiety. It drains your joy and leaves you stressed, burned out, and exhausted. Your purpose isn’t living in fear. Step boldly into the peace you’ll find when you’re Anxious for Nothing. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, thanks for joining us here at Life Church. For more videos, messages, and content, be sure to subscribe to our channels or a great way to stay connected throughout the weekend. Everywhere you go is the Life Church app. It's free and available wherever you download your apps from. Right now, let's go to our senior pastor Craig Rochelle for this week's message. Hey, I wonder who's ready today to hear from God's word in all of our locations. So glad that have you with us. If you're new with us, we're in a message series. on anxiety. The title of this message series is anxious for nothing. And I wanted to take a moment just to express my gratitude to you all as a church. You've given me the incredible gift of allowing

me to be really transparent about what I've been going through and talk about what has been a very unusual season of personal anxiety for me. And I say thank you because I don't think all of my peers have that luxury to always be really transparent. There's a lot of pressure on pastors to be perfect or at least almost perfect, and I don't feel that, and so I just wanted to tell you thank you. I also want to say in this message series that we're speaking about anxiety from a spiritual perspective. I'm telling you that because I'm also acknowledging that anxiety is a very complicated subject, and so as we deal with it, we're going to approach it holistically, recognizing that it can be physiological. It can be psychological, emotional, it can be situational. I personally believe it's always

spiritual. Since I don't have the authority or the expertise to speak from all perspectives, I am speaking from a spiritual perspective, but I just wanted to be very clear that we're also going to look at this holistically. Is that okay? Now, what we're doing in this message series is we're letting one portion of scripture drive us for four weeks. This is the third week, and we're looking in Philippians chapter four. Now, if you don't know the context, the context really makes this powerful text even more powerful. Philippians, the book of Philippians, is written by the Apostle Paul. Now, Paul was very strategic, and one of his top goals in life was to go to Rome to preach the gospel.

Because Paul knew if he could reach the leaders in Rome, there was so much commerce, so much influence coming out of Rome, that he believed he could influence a big portion of the world if he could just reach Rome. So his big dream was go to Rome to preach the gospel. The problem is he did get to Rome, but not as a preacher. Instead, he was there as a prisoner. In fact, as he's writing the letter of Philippians, he's writing it under 24-hour-a-day house arrest. He's locked up non-stop to a Roman guard, awaiting trial,

month after month after month goes by. He has no idea what's going to happen to him. He could be executed. This could be the end of his life. if there's anyone ripe for anxiety, it's the Apostle Paul awaiting judgment upon him as he's wrongfully accused sitting in a Rome in prison. He could have been incredibly anxious. And out of that context, he writes this in Philippians 4, verse 6.

Paul says, rejoice in the Lord always. Then he sounds like your mama because he repeats it. If you weren't listening, then I'll say it again. rejoice out of a place where he could have been overwhelmed and overcome with anxiety, angst, tension, weight, breathlessness. He says, rejoice in the Lord, always I'll say it again, rejoice. That is an amazing verse for a coffee mug. That is amazing verse for a refrigerator magnet. It's a powerful verse for a greeting card. That is an unbelievably spiritual verse to quote to your friend.

I hate, though, when people quote that to me when I'm in the middle of a difficult situation. You get a flat tire on the side of the road. It's 102 degrees out. And someone says, rejoice in the Lord, always. I'll make you rejoice if you say that to me again. You know, like really, really, Paul, I mean, like, you know, seriously? Rejoice always? Under all circumstances, like really, Paul?

Like rejoice when you find out your spouse has been lying to you, then rejoice? Rejoice when you lose your job and you don't know how you're going to make rent, rejoice. Rejoice when your best friend betrays you or your boyfriend cheats on you, rejoice. Rejoice when you find out that your child's been making horrible decisions. Rejoice when you can't sleep at night. and the anxiety is so real, so deep that you don't even want to leave your house. Rejoice then? Out of that context, awaiting his judgment.

Paul says, rejoice in the Lord always, I'll say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all because the Lord is near. He talks about anxiety. He says, don't be anxious about anything. but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God, and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. How could Paul rejoice when he's locked up? How could he praise God when he wanted to preach, but he goes to bed as a prisoner?

The answer is, it's all about perspective. It's all about perspective. The title for today's message is this, the perspective of praise. The perspective of praise. What does perspective mean? Perspective very simply means how you see something. In other words, two different people can look at the same.

thing and they can see it from two different. I got to work with you guys. I mean, seriously, I've been doing this all weekend long. If I'm doing this by myself, I'm just going to go home, okay? It's all about perspective. In fact, the word perceive in the Latin, it actually means to look through. It means to look through. For example, for years, I thought that every single person on planet Earth was lying about magic eyes. Who knows what a magic is? Who knows what a magic eye is. Raise your hand, all of our churches. If you know a magic eye, you may know what it is, but you don't know the name magic eye. Magic eye is a picture that's got colors on it that are just kind of everywhere and it looks like nothing but colors. And then some of you have claimed that if you

like look at the magic eye and just the right way that 3D images will jump off it and there might be circuses and there might be, you know, stadiums and villages and stuff that you can see. and this old colorblind preacher has just been convinced that you're all lying until one day on family vacation we went to a wax museum of which I'm not proud to tell you once you go

once you never go back but we went to a wax museum and my family was looking at wax but they had a magic eye and I decided I wasn't leaving until I saw something 3D so I got a mentor one of the guys at work there

who kind of coached me through it. And he said, what you have to do is you have to, like, you have to kind of, like, squat down, like you're going to get a ground ball. And so, like, I'm in the ready position, I'm squatting down. And he said, you have to look through it. Like, look through it.

Like, look through it. Like, you look through it. You look through it. You look through it. You look through it. I'm looking through it for so long. I think I finally got drunk. Like, like, like, drunk.

And in a moment, God is my witness. 3D dolphins jumped off the page. I was so excited. I threw my hands up in victory. The moment I moved, I lost it. I never saw it again. But I'm here to tell you that for a moment I saw the 3D dolphins.

How do you see them? Listen to me. You have to look through it. It's all about perspective. I want to talk to you today about a perspective of praise. The Apostle Paul could have looked at his situation at face value, and you know what he would have said? This is really bad. This is not good.

This is right for anxiety. How can I function? My ministry is over. My dreams are crushed. This could have been really bad. In fact, what I want to do is I want to show you a scripture that's very close to what he actually said, but it's from a different version of the Bible. It's from the BPV. BPV. If you've never heard of the BPV version, like the NIV, the NLT, there's the BPV.

The reason you haven't heard of it is because I made it up. BPV stands for the bad perspective version, and quite often this is the very way you look at your situation and the very way I look at my situation. It's all about perspective. Had the Apostle Paul had a bad perspective, what he could have said was this. Now, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what's happened to me really sucks. My God, let me down. I'm overwhelmed with anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and because of the hell I've been through,

I'm quitting life group, and I'm never going back to church. Can anybody relate to the bad perspective version? We look at our situation. This is bad. I've got anxiety. It's getting worse. I can't function. I don't know what to do.

It's bad perspective. But instead, what the Apostle Paul did is he did look at a very bad situation. We're not minimizing the situation, but he looked at it through a perspective of praise. we're going to rejoice in the Lord always and through a perspective of praise this is exactly what the apostle Paul said he said i want you to know brothers and sisters watch this that what has happened to me all this thing that it looks bad what's happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel as a result is become clear throughout the whole powerless guard and to everyone else

that I am in chains for Christ. In other words, through a perspective of praise, you might look at this and I didn't feel like it was good. I thought it was really bad. But then I realized, my God will never leave me. He will never forsake me. No weapon formed against me will prosper. No, no, no.

My God is working for good in all things. Therefore, I've got a perspective of praise. I see that what really happened actually served, to advance the gospel. In fact, for a long time, they thought I was their prisoner. They had no idea that they were locking up some of the most influential Roman leaders to me for eight hours at a time for me to preach the gospel.

Who is the real prisoner now? Somebody say it's all about perspective. You can look at the very same situation and say, this is bad, this is horrible, I can't stand it. Or you can have a perspective of praise, a perspective of praise. God, now that I look at it this way, I actually see that you are in this,

you're working for good, what's happened to me, actually served to advance the gospel. What's so powerful is that this isn't the first time that the Apostle Paul was actually in prison. In fact, you can read another time in Acts chapter 16, and who knows how many other times

may not even be recorded in Scripture. There are multiple ones that we know about, but in Acts 16, Paul and Silas, they were going to their life group, essentially. They were going to a place of prayer. Did I tell you that life groups are starting next month? That life is better together. They were kind of going to their life group, and there was this woman possessed with an evil spirit, and when they cast the evil spirit out of this woman, a gang fight broke out, a big riot,

and they ended up being arrested, beaten by the crowd, and then ordered to be beaten by the religious leaders. or the magistrates, in fact, this is what scripture says in verse 22, that the crowds joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. I'm hoping that none of you will be stripped of your clothes this week and beaten with rods, but there are some of you who might be strict of your confidence. You're stripped of your faith right now. You're trying to have faith, but you just can't find it. You're beating. You're down with anxiety. You're beaten down with your doubts. You're doing everything you can to hold

on to your faith, but the anxiety feels so real that you just can't press through it. The Apostle Paul and Silas were doing everything right. They were beaten and thrown into prison. I want you just for a moment to try to visualize this. They're in prison, maybe broken nose perhaps, maybe a couple of broken ribs, wiping dried blood off. I mean, we're talking like really severely beaten on a cold, hard prison floor. And they're in this situation, so you know what they decided to do? Well, things are really bad.

This isn't fair. We might as well have a worship night. That's what they did. It'd be kind of the equivalent of you finding out that someone you love has cancer. So you say, hey, let's just get together and worship God. Or, hey, I just discovered my kids on drugs. Let's get together and worship God.

God, that's kind of what it's like. How did they do that? It's a matter of perspective. Here's what happened to me working with my counselor. When I say I had unusual anxiety, it's because it's unusual, meaning I haven't had anxiety like this before, and it was so real, it's like can't catch your breath, can't function type of anxiety. That's how severe it was, and that's why I asked for help.

And so I'm working with my counselor and basically said, how bad is it? I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. So we went through a long series of questions, and when we got to the end of it, he said, well, I've got really good news for you. You're not in that much trouble. He said, no, you don't understand. I'm in trouble.

He said, no, you don't understand. You're not in that much trouble. I know trouble. You're not in that much trouble. He said, you have an issue that's very real, but when you look at everything else, you've got a lot of good in your life. And I'm looking at it through my anxiety, and he's looking at it through a different perspective. He said, physically, you're a lot of good in your life. He said, physically, you're in really great shape.

Your diet is almost flawless. You're not abusing any kind of substances. You're ridiculously loved with your wife, and everybody knows it. And yes, I'm flirting with you, and yes, I love you. And yes, you're my bride. And yes. Just yes. Just yes.

Whatever you want, yes. And you have great relationship with your kids, and you're not missing family events because you're not able to function, and you've got incredible relationships. around you, people that really care about you. He said, there's so many things that are right. The reason that you're panicking is because you're just looking what's wrong, but don't forget to look what also is what's right.

I don't know who this is for right now. But there's someone here, you do have an issue, and it's big, and I'm not minimizing it in the least. Maybe two issues, maybe complicated, and three issues. Those are real. but don't forget to look at the whole picture. Do you have friends? Perhaps you do. Do you have your health? Perhaps you do. Do you still have a glimmer of faith, just a mustard seed of faith? Because you can move mountains if that's the kind of faith that you have. Do you have a church of people that care for you? Don't just look at what's wrong. Also look at what's right.

How could they, when they've been beaten, falsely charged, worship God. Maybe Paul. all leaned over to Silas said, well, there's a lot of bad, but we're not dead. If we're not dead, we're not done. If you've got a lot of bad in your life, at least you can say that. I'm not dead. If I'm not dead, I'm not done. You can look at it from a different perspective. And what they did is that let's just go ahead and worship God.

Here's what they did, verse 25. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying. and singing hymns to God, and all the other prisoners were listening to them. Now, I want you to notice this. They were praying and they were singing hymns when they were bound up in prison. In other words, God had not delivered them from prison. There was no miraculous provision. There was no miracle.

They weren't praising God at this moment for the what. They were just praising him for the who. That's way better than your responses, I promise you right now. Somebody in Wellington, maybe you can help me out, and this crowd's going to wake up here in a little while. This wasn't praised for the what. This was praised before the provision. This was praised for the character and the nature and the goodness of God. It wasn't praised for what they had seen.

It was just praised for who God is. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. If you don't know what happens, I'm going to tell you the end of the story. We're going to come back and look at it in a minute, but I want you to, I want you to, understand the context. In a little bit, in the middle of their praise, God is going to show up. In the middle of their praise, he's going to shake the cell with an earthquake. The doors are going to swing open and their chains are going to fall off. Why do I tell you that now? Because knowing what

God has done, but what God did not do when Paul was in prison in Rome brings way more power to the truth when he says, rejoice in the Lord always. because Paul knew from Rome the power of God to deliver him from the exact same problem. God knew God could deliver him from prison, but God did not, and Paul still offered him praise. That brings color to the idea of rejoice in the Lord always. Rejoice when he delivers you, and rejoice when he doesn't. Because this is not praise for the what, you see. This is praise for the who.

This is a deeper type of praise. This is when it hit me. And I'm going to tell you a little bit more about my own anxiety. And I promise you, once we're through with this series, I'm not going to bleed all over you all the time. And I want to tell you, thank you for listening. And I also wanted to say that I know that my situation is not any worse than anybody else is, and I'm not looking for sympathy.

Everybody's got their stuff. This is just my version of my stuff. So this week I had a little less than two study days, and I had four full messages to write and preach. That's too much. I had the weekend message, which is very, very important. I had the all-staff message, which is very important because all 700 of us get together four times a year.

This drives the culture and the spiritual passion of the church. I had a message very dear to me to speak to Hope is Alive, a great group of helping people overcome addictions, I had a leadership podcast, which honestly goes to more than all the rest of those things, combined pressure, less than two days. So I'm sitting at my desk, and this message on praise in perspective is not coming together for me. And I'm feeling anxiety, and suddenly I get a shortness of breath, and I'm panicking.

I can't get this one done. I've got three more to do. I got less than a day and a half. This isn't going to work. Panic. Then I think to myself, okay, what am I telling the church to do? do. Okay. I'm telling them to praise. Maybe I should praise. I don't feel like praising out of now. If they can do it, I'll tell them, I'm the pastor, then they do what I say. I don't want

to praise. So I did a little version of praise. It wasn't like deep, real faith praise. It was kind of like half-hearted like, all right, God, I'm pretty convinced you're still there and thinking you're going to do something. You know, it's kind of what? started, and over time, it turned into real praise. God, you're good. God, I trust you. God, you've always come through for me. God, you're the God who provides. And then it hit me. And I just tried to cry. It's right there. And I put the message aside because it was done in that moment. Done. It hit me. Here's what hit me. I told you that this is

unusual anxiety for me. In other words, in the past, I would have had compassion for you, but not deep empathy because I hadn't felt it. And this is a little, this is just behind the scenes of my world. I can preach an entire message, go home, go to work on Monday, and I can hear nothing about it, no feedback. No one says anything like that. I just don't hear much. The bigger the church gets, the less you hear,

it's just a part of the nature. Because honestly, we don't see each other in the restaurant because I'm doing takeout and going home and you don't have myself and I don't have yours. So how would I hear? It's just not going to hear anything. This message hears I'm hearing a lot, which feeds my soul. In other words, it is speaking to a certain group of people

in a very, very deep way. And that's when it dawned on me, and that's when my message was finished in the moment and I couldn't hold back the tears. Because through a bad perspective, I can't handle this. But through a perspective of praise, I want you to know, brothers,

sisters, that what's happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel, you see. That what I'm going through now is actually helping somebody else. And I don't know who this is for and certainly not for everybody because I'm not going to tell you if you just praise, the anxiety goes away. It might, it might not. But I will tell you, praise will change your perspective. It will change your perspective. And in that moment, my perspective changed.

And I realized, hey, if that's what it takes for me, when my life calling is to offer life, hope, and faith to people who are hurting to point them to Jesus, if it takes some real anxiety to get me to the place of effectiveness, then bring it on Jesus. Because what has happened to me has actually served the death. The gospel. Suddenly, there was purpose connected to my pain. There was purpose, and you may not see it now, but what you're going through now might actually be a ministry to somebody else later, because you're experiencing the grace of God to help you get through it. It's all a matter of perspective. Now, I want you to imagine, if you can, this context. Paul and Silas were beaten, bloody, they're in prison, and they decide to worship. In fact, if I could have at all of our campuses, our worship leaders just come forward. and the bands position themselves. I'm going to read to you from the text,

and then I'm going to try to help you see it. It's midnight, about midnight. Paul and Silas were praying. They're singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. Suddenly, boom! God shows up. When does God show up?

He doesn't show up before, but he shows up during their praise, during their praise, during their praise, during their praise. Suddenly, there was such a violent earthquake that the foundation to the prisons were shaken, all at once. All the prison doors flew open and everyone's chains came loose.

All at once. Visualize it, visualize it. See if you can see it. It's midnight. There's no visible reason to praise God. They're in jail. They've got a broken rib maybe, broken nose perhaps.

And Paul leans over to Silas, who might be a... sleep on the floor and says, hey, sigh. This is a nickname. If your buddy ain't got a nickname, he ain't a buddy. Everybody's got a nickname. Cy! Say! Hey, sigh, you awake?

Cy! Say! You awake? Hey, hey, hey! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Si! I was just thinking. What, Paul? I was just thinking, man,

we're still alive. Yeah. We still got breath. our God is still on the throne. Hey, Jesus is risen. He's at the right hand of the Father. He's praying for us. Why don't we just give him a little bit of praise?

Why don't we just worship him? And in a lot of reasons we could be anxious right now. Syracies, that's a great idea, Paul. What song do you want to sing? Paul goes, oh, man, let's sing that one. You know my favorite one. You know that one. you know that one Life Church wrote?

Let's do that one. Pastor Chris Cootie, I'm going to need your help on this. Let's just pretend like your sign. Hey, Paul. That's a nice jacket, Sigh. Thanks. So why don't we sing that one? You know the one, like, we're waiting here,

believing God's going to do something, but God hadn't done anything yet? You know the one where we say, I will lift my hands while I'm waiting? Let's do that one. And I will lift my hands while I'm waiting. Louder than my fears I will see. And may my heart remind you good.

Every church location, why don't you just stand your feet, if you will. Every church stand your feet. You can lift your hands while I'm waiting. Tell them he's good. my fears I will see. And may my heart ever be reminded. You are good, you are good, you are good. Visualize it if you can.

Paul and Silas, they're praying, they're singing hymns, they're worshiping God for who he is, not just for what he might do. And in the middle of their praise, the ground shakes. the doors fly open, their chains come loose. In the middle of their praise, in the middle of the praise, in the middle of the praise, sometimes you might find out that the key that unlocks your miracle is the sound of your praise. We praise you, God, for who you are. We praise you, God.

I have a feeling today, I don't know who it is, but somebody somewhere is going to want to give our good God some praise. You're going to want to praise him, even in the middle of the pain. You're going to want to praise him when he breaks you out. and you'll praise them when he doesn't. You're going to rejoice. And the Lord always, you've got a perspective of praise. It's all about perspective.

It's all about perspective. It's all about perspective. Jesus, we will praise you when we feel you and we'll praise you when we don't. We will praise you in the prosperity and we will praise you in the pain. We know God that what is happening to us eventually by faith

will actually serve to advance the gospel. We're not praising you. for the what. This is for the who. Somebody lift up your hands and give them praise while you're waiting. Jesus. We praise you that you are here. We praise you that you are faithful, that you'll never leave us, you'll never forsake us. We ask God for your presence to do. What only you can do, God, send your spirit to give us a peace that goes beyond our human ability to understand. God, we cast our cares upon you. At all of our churches, with nobody looking around,

those who have something to surrender to God, a weight, a burden. You're looking at it maybe from the wrong perspective. You want a perspective of praise. You want to thank him in the middle of it. You want to trust them, even when you don't see how the provision, the answer, the solution might come if that's you.

Just lift up a hand toward heaven today. All of our different churches, lift up our hands. God, we ask for the power of your Holy Spirit to minister to us today. God, give us the faith to praise you when we don't feel it, when we don't see it, when we can barely catch our breath. We thank you that you are our breath, that you are present, that you never leave us, God. We cast our cares by faith upon you because you do care for us, God. Because you care about everything.

We will not worry about anything. We will seek you. We'll choose to trust you. Spirit bring comfort today. God, I pray for miraculous prevention. God, we know sometimes that the sound of our praise touches your heart and you sin miracles. God, we pray for healing. We pray for financial provision.

We pray for relational healing, God. We pray for emotional healing. We pray for a calming of anxious hearts. And God, when you move, we'll praise you. And God, when we don't see what we hope to see, we will still praise you. God's simply because of who you As you keep praying at every location Nobody looking around there are those of you

You may be a bit confused Why do these people sing like that Why do they worship like that I don't seem to have that What was it that that Change Paul's perspective from prison He said I all this has happened to me to advance the gospel What is the gospel?

The gospel is just kind of a big word That means the good news what is the good news? Well, the bad news is this, that without Jesus, on our own, we've all messed up, we've all sinned. If you're really, really honest,

you do some things you're ashamed of, and you might wonder, where do I stand with God because of this? That's the bad news. The good news is, I think God loved you, he loved me so much that he actually became one of us

in the person of his son, Jesus. It's a mystery, it's a miracle. God in the flesh, Jesus, the son of God. Jesus was all God and all man all at the same time. And he came for people like us, people who messed up, people who were hurting, broken, desperate, lost, lonely, and afraid. And Jesus didn't leave us there. But he became sin for us on the cross, died in our place for the forgiveness of sins.

The good news is, on the third day, three days after he gave his life, our good God raised Jesus from the dead. The tomb was empty. He is not there. Why? So that anyone, and this includes you, doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter what you've done, doesn't matter how dark your life is,

doesn't matter how deep your sin resides. Anyone who calls on the name of Jesus, your sins would be forgiven. You would be brand new. There are those people in all of our churches. You realize I am here for this moment. I'm listening to a podcast for this moment. I'm watching on YouTube for this moment.

I'm here because I need him. His grace. I need his forgiveness. What do you do? Just turn from your sins, turn toward him. Call on the name that is above every name. When you call on the name of Jesus, he hears your prayers, he forgives your sins. He makes you brand new.

All of our churches, those who say, yes, I need him. This is my moment. I turn to him. I give him my whole life. Jesus, I need you. I give my life to you. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high now.

All over the place. Lift them up. Right back here and right back here and here as well. God bless you guys. Others of you right back here say yes Jesus. I lift underhand high so I can see you right back over here. Others today say yes, Jesus. I trust you.

I surrender right back over here. Thank God for you right over here as well. Church online you click right below me. Oh, my goodness, I don't want to go too fast. Right back here. Somebody ought to give God some praise right now. Somebody ought to give God some praise right now. Can I have everybody?

Can I have everybody join your hearts and your voices? prayer with those around you pray heavenly father forgive all of my sense make me brand new fill me with your spirit so I can serve Jesus and show his love in all that I do my life is not my own I give it all to you thank you for new life and now you have mine in Jesus name I pray oh come on some everybody on and give you guys some praise. Thanks again for joining us here at Life Church. You know, it's our heart's mission to help you grow and take your next steps and your relationship with Christ.

And we've a great way to help you do that. Just go to life.church slash next. And there you can find all kinds of resources to help you as you take your next steps and your faith journey. Again, thanks again for joining us this week. We'll see you next time.