What is behind door number 2? An invitation to a whole new world.

Are you looking for a new door to be opened for you? We use the ideas of doors to help us think about possibilities. Maybe you trying to encourage a friend to take a chance on a new job so you say, “You never know what will be behind that door!” There can be an excitement of what is next as we go through the “door” for the next season of our life.

The Bible puts together two pictures of doors that have even greater potential. To set this up, think about one of the modern expressions of the digital doorway: the phone number. Although my daughter doesn’t have her own phone yet we keep our home phone for now so that she has a phone to use. In the last few weeks there has been a lot of talk among her friends about phone numbers. She even had a short conversation on the phone with one of them.

Even as an adult when we meet new people we make choices about allowing them into our world. Is the door open or closed for further relationship? I was at a conference in Florida and at the end there are conversations about connecting whether on social media or elsewhere.

The book of Revelation has two doors that together provide amazing connection. Although I have taught on both of these doors separately it wasn’t till this morning that I saw the connection between them.

The first is in Jesus’ letter to the church in Laodicea where he says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (3:20) This is often used about people who are not Christians, but the actual context is a letter to the church. Jesus would like us to invite Him into our world so that we can build the relationship.

The other picture of a door comes in chapter 4. It is one of my favorite passages to speak on because it gives us a glimpse into heaven right now. We get this amazing visual of the center of the universe. But what I missed was the connection between the two.

Jesus talking about our door is in the last few verses of chapter 3. Chapter 4 starts out this way, “After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven!” (4:1) It is mind-blowing to think that Jesus would like to spend time in our world and gives us His contact information as well.

But as we are reminded by the church in Laodicea we get a choice of how we will respond to this invitation. It is one thing for my daughter to have her friend’s phone number, but it is another thing for her to use it. Jesus would like to have friendship with us, but will we open the door to that experience? This is not to give you guilt but to encourage you with this amazing opportunity.

The apostle Paul’s ultimate guide to overcoming anxiety. 5 steps to move toward peace.

We live in a world that breeds anxiety. Stress, worry and anxiety our words that are as common as the common cold. I am not going to look at the reasons these things are so common but a couple thousand years ago a guy who was a prisoner of the Roman Empire penned some words that gives us a pathway forward.

First a disclaimer. I am not a phycologist nor do I play one on the internet. I am also not taking away from the role and benefit of a competent Christian counselor. There can be great value there. But the apostle Paul gives us a powerful roadmap to peace that overcomes anxiety. These steps can be life changing.

The place that Paul lays out this teaching is among two of the most famous passages in the Bible (Philippians 4:4-9). Until recently I did not notice the promise that connects the two paragraphs and builds us a pathway to walk forward. The promises are amazing: A peace that doesn’t make sense and that is would become like a fortress around your heart and mind. And the steps are so straightforward that anyone can do them.

Bring your concern to God in prayer.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition …present your requests to God.” (v6)

Our beginning step is to pray about everything we are worried or anxious. Rick Warren has said, “If it is big enough to worry about it is big enough to pray about.” Or as Martin Luther said, “Pray and let God worry.” Depending on your level of anxiety you may need to bring it to God in prayer multiple times in the same hour. Mark Batterson puts it this way: “Think of worry as a prayer alarm. Every time it goes off you put it to prayer.” Your prayer life becomes your first step on a pathway to peace.

“If it is big enough to worry about it is big enough to pray about.”-Rick Warren

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2. Cultivate habits of thanksgiving

If you are familiar with the scripture that we are looking at you may have noticed that I skipped over two words in the last step: With thanksgiving. We live in a world that it is easy to lose perspective. Thanksgiving is a powerful way to gain that perspective back again.

In my book Enjoying Prayer I share a simple habit that I use that makes thanksgiving a part of my everyday life. Whether you use that method or some other habit something daily that causes you to think of what you are thankful for can put things you are anxious about back in their right size. Thankfulness reminds us of the activity of God in our lives.

For me the habit of thankfulness helps anchor me to my current day and not borrow worry from tomorrow. As Dale Carnegie challenges in his excellent book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living it is important to live in “day tight compartments.” Or as Jesus challenges us, “Do not worry about tomorrow for today has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)

3. Change the content of your thought life.

Finally, brother and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. (v. 8)

Paul moves on to show that if you are going to experience peace your thought life must follow certain patterns. He is saying that the content of our thought life effects the peace that you experience. The therapy world, when it comes to your thoughts, to Catch your thoughts, then Check your thoughts, and if need be Change/Replace your thoughts. Paul is giving us a filter to sort through our thought life. Two important strategies that are connected with this verse:

Cut certain inputs our of your life or at least decrease them

If what we feed our mind impacts us there may be certain things that Paul would encourage you to cut back on or even eliminate from your life. One example would be your news intake. We need to be aware that part of the goal of the news industry is to get you anxious enough in the news to stay engaged so they can sell more advertising. That is just one example that you need to think through from Paul’s perspective.

Add certain things to your thought life

Paul gives us a buffet of positive areas to focus our minds. What do you need to add into your life to get thinking the type of thoughts that Paul describes. One obvious but under used source is our Bible. I was interested to see how many of the words Paul encourages people to think about was also used to describe scripture in Psalm 19.

4. Find encouragement from friends.

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. (v. 9)

This verse could take a lifetime to unpack but it is talking it is about modeling actions. I imagine that when it was first read in the church at Philippi some people turned and looked at the jailor that had experienced Paul’s miraculous release from prison.

The first practice we see from Paul there is that he didn’t let himself get isolated. One preacher said that the jailor’s big mistake was that he put Paul and Silas too close together. Taking a moment to evaluate your relationships could give you wisdom on steps forward to freedom in your anxiety. Who do you need to add to your life?

5. Change the soundtrack of your life.

Something happened in the jail cell when Paul and Silas began to sing. We see from the playing of David for Saul (1 Samuel 16) and the request of Elisha for music (2 Kings 3) that music can have great power to change our mood and the atmosphere. The helping profession would agree with that teaching. A powerful help to your anxiety levels made be to create a new playlist of worship music.

Which one of these 5 habits could you begin to work on to help you experience a new level of peace that to the world won’t make any sense?

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Praying about the oppression around you from the “powers” of the world.

Sometimes the world can seem so out of control. We look at injustice or oppression and it feels not right. We see systems and “kingdoms” doing bad and we can feel powerless and overwhelmed. Why does it seem in certain situations that evil seems to be winning? Maybe there is hope and a strategy for us in God’s word.

The other day my wife and I were talking about the books of the Bible and we observed that the book of Nahum doesn’t get a lot of press time. When was the last time that you heard a message on this prophet with a small book near the end of the Old Testament? Challenged by this conversation I set out to revisit to see what we could learn about God.

At first glance this book may seem like a terrible book to take someone to who is feeling overwhelmed by the “power” of the world. You might even expect to be more depressed than when you started. Although only three chapters you will be struck by the judgement feel that is poured out throughout.

But then you stop and remember the country or empire that would be experiencing this judgement. It was the evil power of the day. Nineveh would have been the Nazi Germany of the world that heard Nahum’s message. I was listening to a podcast and and the pastor pointed out that they would have been the bully’s of our day.

When we think of injustice or corrupt systems a bully is a good mental picture of what we are experiencing. The bully on the playground gets away with things because no one seems to stand in their way. I think of our brothers and sisters in Christ in areas where Christians are persecuted and the feeling of powerlessness against the “bully” would seem intense.

But Nahum reminds us of a couple things. First Nahum reminds us that the bully is no match for our God. At some point God’s justice will prevail. Nahum teaches us that the systems of this world don’t stand a chance.

Connected with this is the character of our God. As the podcast I was listening to on Nahum pointed out it is a lot like the children’s prayer, “God is great. God is good.” No matter what we see around us we can know that ultimately the good God will be great. Whether in this life or the next wrongs will be made right.

Which leads to one other thing. When we are frustrated with the way the world is working we can bring it to God. That is actually the best place to start. Sometimes we read the Psalms and it is almost uncomfortable to read as they express their frustration and anger with the world around them. But these types of passages are reminders that we are best to bring these things to God and then from that place we can receive instruction from Him on the specific part we are to play in the world around us.