Urgent but Not Anxious

It's wonderful, and we really mean that when we sing it, how great thou art. Then when the first problem comes along, we kind of forget. And I'd like to have us think about that today, and begin by reading from Philippians chapter 4, verse 4, very familiar passage, we most of us know it by heart.

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance.

The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Have no anxiety about anything. Have no anxiety about anything. While it is true that vast multitudes in the professing Christian church today are utterly useless to themselves and to the purposes of the kingdom of God because they are slumbering, in stagnation.

They're just stuck. They're complacent. It's also true that many of us who feel that we've been awakened out of our complacency have now fallen into the opposite danger of chronic anxiety.

We're awake, but we're as jumpy as frightened rabbits. If Satan can't keep us drugged with complacency, he'll do the next best thing. He'll begin to get behind us and push us into all kinds of ridiculous extremes.

He'll begin to put into our minds all the terrible things that might happen until we're nervous wrecks if we let it. And so many of us in our daily life are driven, not by the urgency of the kingdom of God, but by endless worry. We have no peace.

As soon as one of our friends, or two or three of our friends, turn away, as soon as somebody rejects us, we sink into depression. We're all bummed out. As soon as somebody threatens to make us pay for following Jesus or speaking his gospel, we fall apart with fear.

We're scared to death to take the slightest risk because we're not sure we can handle the stress. We have so much stress already. All this anxiety heaping down upon us all the time.

Look at Jesus. When we look at Jesus, we're looking, remember, at a man, God the Son, who has divested himself of his divine prerogatives, but truly a man. And we're looking at a man who is consistently urgent, he's obsessed with his Father's kingdom, but he's never, never anxious.

When his disciples start turning away and leaving him, he doesn't take six months off to be depressed. When somebody threatens to kill him, he doesn't melt like butter. He keeps right on going.

And so we read in Luke chapter 13, verse 31. At that very hour, some Pharisees came and said to him, Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you. And he said to them, Go tell that fox, Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.

Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow, and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. He's urgent. He's going to get there.

He's going to finish his course. But he's never anxious. He's held inwardly by the grip of holy peace.

He can't be pushed away the slightest degree from the course he knows the Father has put him on. Herod can't scare him the slightest bit because he has this inner peace. No anxiety.

You say, well, that's Jesus. I ain't Jesus. But Jesus died on that cross, rose from the dead, poured out the Holy Spirit, and pours out afresh the Holy Spirit on us this morning so that we can live just like he did, and so that he can live his life in us, so that when Herod threatens us, we don't fall apart.

Herod's going to kill you. Herod's going to cut off your finances. Herod's going to take away all your friends.

Herod's going to make a fool of you. Go tell that fox, I'm going to perform cures and cast out demons today and tomorrow, and the day following, I'm going to finish my course. I'm going to do what I have to do, what I've been sent to do.

He's not going to stop me. I'm invulnerable until my work is finished. It's absolutely possible for us to rise above our anxieties, to conquer our fears, to be so ruled by the peace of God that we are driven in that peace to a holy urgency in the kingdom, but never, never, never anxious.

Reading from John chapter 6, verse 56, Jesus is speaking. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.

This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as the Fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.

This he said in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum. Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? See, and it's a hard saying, not because it's some kind of cannibalism we're talking about here.

These men understand what Jesus is driving at. He's saying, if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, then you are joined to my death. Then you become with me broken bread and poured out wine for the world.

You also give up your life on a cross. And that's a hard saying. But he doesn't water it down.

He doesn't say, well, put a little sugar on it, a little cinnamon, and, you know, ease it up a little bit so these guys don't leave. He says it exactly the way it has to be said. If it's offensive, if it drives them away, then it drives them away.

Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life. The flesh is of no avail.

The words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you that do not believe. For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe and who it was that should betray him.

And he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father. And so anxiety would tempt him to water down this message a little bit, to hold on to these guys so they don't leave. But the urgency of the kingdom holds him to say it exactly as it has to be said.

And if they go, they go. He's utterly carefree of the consequences. And of course, many of them go.

They leave. We read on in the next verse. After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.

Jesus said to the twelve, will you also go away? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them, did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.

And so it happened that they began to drift away now. They began to leave him. They walked off.

They leave him behind. But Jesus doesn't panic. He doesn't get discouraged.

He doesn't become depressed. He doesn't get anxious. He keeps right on going.

Jesus lives his life with urgency. Exercises his ministry with urgency. Never anxious.

Held by this inner peace because he is clear about three things. Jesus knows who he belongs to. Jesus knows what he's here to do.

And Jesus knows where he's headed. First of all, he knows who he belongs to. He knows that he belongs to the Father.

He's rooted and grounded in the Father's love. He's absolutely certain of the Father's control, somehow in the midst of this, over this absurd world. And he trusts.

He's confident. And he keeps right on going. The Father becomes his anchor.

And so, when these men begin to leave, he says, Didn't I tell you that no one can come to me unless it's granted by my Father? When Herod threatens to kill him, he says, Don't even pay attention. Tell that fox I'm going to keep on doing what I'm doing until I get my work done. He can't even touch me until the Father lets him.

I'm invulnerable until my work is finished. And he draws his sense of worth from the Father. His sense of worth does not come from the admiration of the multitudes.

Nor does his sense of worth come from how much he has managed to acquire. Look at all I have here. All he's got is a pair of sandals and a robe.

His sense of worth comes from his intense love for and his absolute trust in his Father. The Father who dwells in me, he does the work. The Father tells me what to say.

The Father guides me. The Father keeps me. The Father is everything.

And so when the Father says, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. That's all he needs to hear. That's enough to keep him going for an eternity.

Now if we're going to live our lives and exercise our ministries with the urgency of the kingdom instead of the anxiety of our flesh, we have to remind ourselves a thousand times a day who we belong to. We belong to Jesus. Just as he belongs to the Father.

He, Jesus, is everything. We're rooted and grounded in his love. We're held in the grip of his power.

He's the one who controls this crazy world. He is Lord. He is our treasure, not our money.

He is our safety, not our deadbolts. He is our light, not our brains. If there's anything, the Spirit of the Lord is given to the body of Christ on earth now.

It's a fresh vision of the lordship of Jesus over his people that we belong to him. And in him, we belong to each other. So we're aliens and exiles in this world, but we are not aliens and exiles of the kingdom.

We know where we belong. We know who we belong to. We belong to him and we belong to each other.

And if we have Jesus, we have everything. Because if we have him, we really will have each other also. If we don't have him, we got nothing.

You know, we may try to form the New Testament church pattern and everything else. We'll still have nothing. Even if we own the whole world, we'll have nothing.

Secondly, Jesus knew what he was here to do. Reading again from that passage in Luke 13. And he said to them, Go tell that fox, Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.

I cast out demons and perform cures. If I were the finger of God, cast out demons, no doubt the kingdom of God has come into your midst. The casting out of demons was a manifestation of the kingdom of God, a proclamation of the kingdom, even to the world of the powers and principalities.

And so he's here to do two things, to proclaim the kingdom and heal the sick. Proclaim the kingdom, heal the sick. He consistently does this all the time, every day from the time his ministry begins, and those first 30 years of obscurity were preparation for these two things.

So John the Baptist is languishing in prison, in Herod's prison, the same Herod that's threatening now to kill Jesus. Before that, he was John the Baptist, and soon his head's going to be chopped off. And John is getting discouraged and frustrated and wondering, did I make a mistake in introducing this man? If he's the Messiah, when is he going to start doing something significant? He sends his disciples to Jesus with a question, are you the one who is to come, or do we look for another? When are you going to start doing something that's significant? And he answers, I'm doing exactly what I came to do.

I came to do two things. I came to preach the kingdom and to heal the sick. Go tell John again the things which you see and hear.

The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news of the kingdom preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended in me. With these two specific aims of every day of his life, he continues without fuss, without worry, without anxiety.

He just keeps right on going. Never in a hurry. He has time to sit down and listen to somebody.

He has time to go to a wedding feast. He has time to have dinner with a Pharisee or a tax collector. But nobody, not even Herod, can detract him from the two things he came to do.

To preach the kingdom, heal the sick. So what are we here to do? We are here to do the same two things. Every follower of Jesus is here in this world, alive on this earth, to preach the kingdom and heal the sick.

Reading from the passage that John read earlier from Matthew 10, 5. These twelve, Jesus sent out, charging them, go nowhere among the Gentiles, enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and preach as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You receive without paying, give without paying.

After the resurrection, after Pentecost, the limitation is no longer placed on just the confines of Israel. Now, it's not just to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but the house of the Samaritans and the house of the Gentiles, all of them, every tribe, but always beginning with the lost sheep. And what do we do? Preach the kingdom, heal the sick.

If we proclaim the kingdom of God, clearly. If we proclaim Jesus as Lord, clearly. We have to understand that behind this will come the power of God's Spirit, every time.

And touch people at the place where they're vulnerable, where they're weak, where they're sick, where they're hurting. And we'll confirm our word to them. In some way, if we're obedient, and if we're trusting, healing will flow from our mouths or our hands into their lives, where they need it.

Healing for the body, healing for the mind, healing for the relationship, healing for the marriage, healing for the neighborhood, healing for a city, healing for a nation, healing for the earth. Somebody says, well, where is it? Don't see much these days. And it may be so, that's true.

But if we will take seriously that that's what we're called to do, believe it, and set out to do it seriously, we will see fruit. We will. Every morning when we get up, what am I here for? Get that clear, you know.

Maybe you're gonna buy a pair of shoes or get another tire for the car, you know, or call a plumber or whatever we need to do, take care of business. But the ultimate purpose of our existence on this earth now as his children is to proclaim the kingdom and heal the sick in the places where we are. Somebody asks, what are you in this world for? I'm here to preach the kingdom, heal the sick.

Every one of us. Finally, Jesus knew where he was heading. Again from that passage, in Matthew 13.

I mean, sorry, Luke 13, 33. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. I'm on my way to Jerusalem.

I'm heading for a cross. He's not nervous. He's not worried.

He's not anxious. But he is urgent. I'm gonna get there.

I won't get there today. I won't get there tomorrow, but the day after, I'm gonna be there. In other words, it will be.

That was his goal. His goal is to offer up his body and his blood to become living bread and eternal wine for the earth. He has a date with death in the Father's name, and he's gonna keep that date, and nobody, not even Herod, will hold him back.

Now, you and I will live free from anxiety and with the urgency of the kingdom when we get clear in our minds that we also have a similar goal. The goal of our life in this world, as followers of Jesus, is a cross. Every believer, it's a cross.

Don't be talking about preaching the kingdom and healing the sick. Don't be talking about the gifts of the Spirit if you don't see yourself as heading for a cross. The two go together.

If anyone would come after me, let him, her, deny himself, take up his cross daily, follow me. To a cross. To Jerusalem.

To God. Isn't it strange? The natural man spends his life running away from death and ends up dying anyway. The child of God spends his or her life walking deliberately toward a cross and ends up going through the valley of the shadow of death without fear.

The goal of our life in this world is to die in the name of Jesus. And every day we live, we get practice at it. We learn how to die to ourselves, die to our egos.

Every night when we lie down to sleep, we're getting practice at learning how to die. And the goal of our life, instead of being the thing we're always afraid of and looking back and seeing how close it is, the goal of our life becomes our death in his name. If we have been awakened out of our complacency by the Spirit of God, praise God for that, that's wonderful, that's a beginning, that's our first step.

But many, many, many of us, if not all of us, while we have been awakened out of our complacency, are now nervous wrecks. We're jumping. We don't have the kind of peace we ought to have.

And so we need to learn the next lesson. And the next lesson is to live with urgency, but not anxiety. To throw our anxieties to the winds, or better still, to turn our anxieties into prayers.

Every time I'm anxious, to lift that up before the Father. With thanksgiving. Rejoicing the Lord always, and again I will say rejoice.

Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication.

With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. It's absolutely possible for us to live that way today, if we will remember who we belong to. We belong to Jesus, and in Him, to each other.

If we will remember what we're here to do, we're here to preach the kingdom, and heal the sick. And if we will remember where we're headed, every one of us who's following Jesus is headed toward a cross. We're on our way to lay down our lives in His name.