Be Anxious for Nothing

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Lord God, this day we start this series, but we wanted to start with you. We want your word to be over us, your truth to be in us, your peace to be upon us. And we pray, Lord God, that you would work through these messages to give us the courage to trust you always, to live according to your promises, to walk out into this world and be up to the calling you've given us. And we just pray, Lord God, that those things that would intimidate us, the fears that surround us, the insecurities within us would fade away and our awe and love of you just take over. Bless, Lord, all the churches in our area, all those who are in mission today. We are thankful that there is one Christian church on earth that we're just a part of. We thank you, Lord, for their partnership in the gospel throughout this whole area. And we pray, Lord, that this fall would be a time of great renewal and gospel growth for your kingdom in southwest Florida. All this we lift up to you in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're starting a new sermon series today, and we're going to be in the fourth chapter of Philippians throughout these three weeks to look at how to be brave, what it means to be brave, what it doesn't as well. And as we do, we're also going to be, I think, going to be sharing a story, a Bible story, each week that kind of goes along with that. Today, at least, we're doing that. And so you're going to have kind of two passages together, okay? So let's read from Philippians chapter 4, verses 4 through 7 to start. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious 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 surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So today, this three-part series starts, and we're going to look at how to be brave. What does that mean? You know, basic thought is this. It's just not good to live your life intimidated by every situation that comes up. It's just not good that every bad report causes you to shrink back and go, hmm. It's not great to allow people to bully or push you around and define who you are, what you can do, what you can't do, and tell you what to do. That's not what God has in store for you. We all have situations in life where there's basic choices of do we step out, take a risk, or do we shrink back? And today, we're going to be looking at that and how we can be fully following the calling that God has for us and be brave. Now, Paul said much the same to one of his favorite people, I think. Well, he treated him like a son. He never had children of his own, but he treated Timothy like a son. He was a mentee. Paul was his mentor, and he had him grow. They lived together. They worked together. They served together. They were on mission together. And even through all of that, Paul had to remind him of this. He said in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7, For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and of love and self-control. So that's kind of the theme. That's what God has for you, a spirit of power and love and self-control. You can be brave. Have you ever heard the definition of fear being false, evidence, appearing real? Sometimes that's just what it is. It's like, ooh, this situation. And I look at it, and I see, quote, evidence, and it gets bigger than it is. I can recall as a child when I got my own bedroom. I know my kids don't understand this. We lived in a three-bedroom house, one bathroom, a thousand square feet, right? So when I got my own bedroom, I had this innate fear, because my sister finally went to college, that underneath my bed there was somebody that was going to, if I got out of bed to go to the bathroom, in the middle of the night, grab my leg, pull me under, and I don't know what. But it was an irrational fear. So I can recall numerous times having to look under the bed and check it out. Now, it wasn't more like this, yes, much more like this, not the Monsters, Inc. version, right? Not that. It was more like this. That's what I was afraid of. And it took me, I knew it was irrational. It didn't matter. I don't know if you've had those types of fears, right? Now, what's funny is, in some other situations, I wasn't that afraid. But my friend was afraid. Tom Kunzelman lived two houses from me, so we had the Bickles in between on Jefferson Street. And he was a year younger than me, and when we'd go to school, we'd have to get on the bus across the street, take off in the morning, and then we'd be dropped off in the afternoon, and then we'd have to walk home. And the Bickles in between had a dog named Trixie. And Trixie was aggressive and territorial and just mean. We never wanted to, you didn't pet Trixie. And so Tom wa...