Navigating The Coronavirus With Christ

The Shepherd's Church

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Hello everyone, and I want to say thank you first and foremost for tuning in to this special edition of the

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Shepherd's Church podcast While we're currently unable to meet together in person I am thankful for this medium and this platform where we can meet together digitally

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Now I know that these are trying times and that we're living through trying days whether we believe that the sky is falling and that we're all gonna die or Whether we believe that this is just an overhyped media driven fiasco

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Or if we're somewhere in the middle this situation most assuredly has elicited some sort of emotions and response within us all

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Perhaps this has caused you to feel frustrated or fearful Maybe things like this incite

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Anxiety or dread within you or maybe annoyance that everything is shutting down and that there's no more toilet paper or hand sanitizer to be found on planet

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Earth No matter what I am assuming that COVID -19 pandemic has brought some kind of emotion to the surface in you

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And it's my goal today that we would have a biblical framework as the

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Shepherd's Church for how to deal with these kinds of situations More specifically I'm going to argue from Philippians 4 verses 4 through 7 that rejoicing

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Prayer and resting are the greatest weapons that we have when fighting chaotic circumstances like these

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So if you will join me as we look at Philippians 4 together Paul says in the text

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Rejoice in the Lord always again. I will say rejoice Let your gentle spirit be known to all men the

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Lord is near Be anxious for nothing, 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

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Comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus Now I Can think of no better passage to frame our time together than this one

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Because Paul is writing to a Philippian church that is embroiled in conflict chaos has set into the church men and women are choosing sides and Strong emotions are causing agitation isolation loneliness and division within this church

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It's a lot like what's going on today and And like a good doctor

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Paul not only identifies the disease he also prescribes the cure and This is especially relevant to all of us who are going through this pandemic

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Together because I believe that if Paul were writing to each and every single one of us he would share this exact same truth and the truth that he would give us to navigate this moment in our time would be three things and I believe

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Paul would say them to us just like this number one. We can rejoice through the corona virus number two, we must pray through the corona virus and number three,

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I Believe we can rest through the corona virus So let's look at the first prescription that Paul gives to rejoice he begins the passage this way rejoice and Again, I would say rejoice

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Paul is saying that it may not look like you have anything at all to rejoice about it may be

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Entirely natural right now for you to be upset or for you to be scared or for you to be losing hope But do not do that Instead rejoice and Just in case you're tempted to gloss over that command

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Paul repeats it a second time and he says rejoice again I'm gonna say rejoice

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And he doesn't repeat that in order to be redundant or ironic He does that because rejoicing is the cure to hopelessness

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Rejoicing is the cure to the onslaught of negativity that this world is throwing at us Rejoicing is the cure for anxiety and anger in the midst of a global pandemic.

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Look at what Paul is saying After he gives this twofold command for us to rejoice he says let your gentle spirit be known to all men

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And you might be thinking Paul, how are you gonna say that you're gonna command me to rejoice and then you're gonna come you're gonna tell me to be gentle and peace and Patient and kind and loving and all of these things.

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How can you possibly tell me to do that? How can you tell me that not to freak out or for my nerves not to be on edge?

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And it's because that Paul knows that if you and I will heed this command

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If we will rejoice in the midst of our negative emotions If we will praise

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God in the midst of awful circumstances if we will rejoice our way through this coronavirus

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Then that rejoicing will produce in us a gentle spirit We will be able then to navigate the season with grace with patience and love

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All because we have decided to rejoice And I'm sure you're wondering why should we rejoice

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Like I understand that we could probably fake it until we make it. But what do we have to rejoice in right now?

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I Mean me personally. I'm looking around and there's no March Madness, which is crazy

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Maybe you're looking and you're seeing the NBA is canceled or Tom Brady might end up in Tennessee or this

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COVID -19 pandemic is causing everything around me myself included to go a little crazy

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How can I rejoice in a time like this and It's here that Paul actually gives us the answer

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We don't rejoice in our circumstances We do not

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Fake it until we make it we rejoice and we can have a gentle spirit because of that because of one reason and one reason alone and that is because the

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Lord is near Look at what Paul says he says rejoice in the

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Lord always again I will say rejoice let your gentle spirit be known to all men.

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The Lord is near What Paul is saying here is that you can rejoice not in your circumstances, but because the

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Lord is near You can have a gentle quiet humble spirit because the

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Lord is present You can throw off anxiety worry dread and agitation over Everything over everything that's going on in this particular circumstance because God is near You don't have to sit in toxic emotions or settle for negativity

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You don't have to let the mainstream media poison your thoughts in this situation you can rejoice

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Because God is close to you. He is near to you and he is present for you

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He is near relationally to those who are broken and he is close by to the wounded into the hurting and Every single day that we live he is nearer and nearer to coming and returning for his church

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You see when Paul says that the Lord is near he's actually describing two things first He's saying that the

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Lord by his Holy Spirit is near to every single Christian There is never a moment in your life.

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No matter what is going on around you that the Lord is distant from you You may feel like there's distance because you've let all of these toxic emotions or sins cripple you but he is not far away

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He is near He is there for you and he is with you and you must rejoice in him and turn to him so that you can speak experience him

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He's near The second thing though that Paul is mentioning here is that the

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Lord is also near to his return You see every day that we live we get closer and closer to the second coming of the

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Lord Jesus Christ When we when we look out at the world and we see things like wars and famines and earthquakes moral confusion and yes even kovat 19 we look out at temporary and Momentary pop shots that will soon be put down by the

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Lord Jesus Christ He is gonna return and he is gonna make all things new and there's not gonna be a single tear or pain or suffering or death

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He is going to put it all down because he is near and we can rejoice in the fact that he is

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Coming and every single day it gets closer and closer to that event Paul is teaching us that we can rejoice

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Through this coronavirus and we may do so by knowing that the Lord is near Relationally, and he is near to coming back

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That's the first prescription that Paul would give his church The second is

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That Paul would tell us that we must pray through the corona virus It's not enough for us to simply rejoice through the corona virus.

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We must also pray through the corona virus He says it like this, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving.

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Let your requests be made known to God Paul is telling us that we must not only rejoice

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After we've come to grip with our emotions and after we've repented for all of our hopelessness our guilt and our dread and our annoyances

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And all of our strong opinions and emotions Once we put all of those down and once we've responded to him in rejoicing

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It's not yet time for us to rest. It is not yet time for us to to give up It's time for us then to pray

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You see like a soldier trains for battle we rejoice and we prepare

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So that we can pray We put down all of our negative toxic emotions and opinions and feelings so that we can pick up the weapon of prayer

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You see Paul is telling us something that we must prepare to enter into prayer we must pray but we must not pray unprepared and And just like this

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Philippian church that had devolved into chaos So our culture is losing it right now.

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People are panicking people have lost hope and people are responding to this particular

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Circumstance in the most unhelpful ways You've got partisan politics aligning both parties on both sides and no one is really speaking helpfully and Instead of joining them and all of their confusion and all of their chaos.

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We must rejoice in God and We must get ourselves ready to pray.

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We would all agree that this nation needs us to pray It needs the

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Christians in this country to get serious about prayer and to go to the Lord on behalf of our nation and pray

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And we're not going to be able to do that unless we prepare to pray through rejoicing We pray because we serve a

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God who delights to answer our prayers We pray because we serve a powerful

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God that can heal and that can bring comfort and a God that is sovereign over COVID -19 We pray because we realize our response to the situation is not helping

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Unless we first go to God Rejoicing and prepare ourselves to pray because only

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God can bring the aid We pray because we are weak not because we are strong. He is strong and What I love about this verse is

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That Paul gives us this threefold strategy rejoice to get your heart right before the Lord Get your emotions right before the

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Lord get yourself in a place of joy and then go pray But he doesn't just tell us to pray he actually does show us how to pray in this verse as well unlike many of My former prayers.

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I didn't know what I was doing. Paul actually teaches us what to do here and Unlike a lot of my prayers even still today that begin with my petitions and my problems and my needs

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Paul actually begins a different way See when Paul teaches us how to pray he doesn't begin with our problems.

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He begins with the solution which is God he begins with adoration He commands us when he's teaching us how to pray to rejoice and to celebrate who

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God is To begin with him because he is near and to adore him for all that he has done

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Now when we're thinking about a Christian's response to the coronavirus We're thinking about rejoicing and who

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God is and then going to God in prayer adoring him for who he is You See our prayer as Christians during a crisis like this does not begin with all of the myriad needs that we have

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It doesn't begin with all of the problems that we see going on around us. It begins with praise

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Paul is telling us that the most important thing that we can do in prayer is not to begin with our problems

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But to begin with our praises for who he is and you may be wondering how can that possibly be?

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Like how can I ignore all of the things that are going on around me? How can

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I stop? Long enough to just praise

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When I see so many problems so much hurting so much pain so much suffering And I would say

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I would say it this way Either you were going to come to God first setting aside your needs or you were going to come to God first And you were going to come to him and set aside him

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Because your needs have grown bigger than him You see God already knows our needs.

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He's not waiting on us to tell him what we need He's not waiting on us to enlighten him so that he can respond he is waiting on us to finally get our hearts, right

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And to begin our prayers with him To begin our prayers with him to remember our needs and to remember who he is and to remember that he is in control

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To understand all of the scripture When it says that he's good and that he's holy and that he's loving and sovereign and majestic and that he cares for us

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And that he's working all of these things out for our good no matter what that may mean And then he's doing all of these things for his glory

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He's inviting us to not only know that but to remember that and to let that fuel our praise because here's the thing, either our circumstances are gonna become bigger than God or we're gonna see just who

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God is and when we do that He will become bigger than our circumstances and when that happens we can praise

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Him. No matter what is happening, no matter what is going on in the country, we must see

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God as bigger than our circumstances. We must see God as better and more able than the coronavirus or any other thing that comes into our life.

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We must rejoice before Him because we're starting to know who

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He is and He is bigger, He is greater, He is better than all of those things and He's worthy of our praise.

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If He really is who He said He is, He's worthy of our faithful, committed praise.

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So I would say I'd say like this, faithful praying during a global pandemic like the coronavirus begins with ardent praise and adoration for who

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God is. The second thing that we learn about prayer is that we can make our requests known to God but we must do it with supplication and thanksgiving.

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Paul says it like this, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God.

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So we have an avenue because of what Christ has done on the cross, we have an avenue to share our requests with God but they must be through the lens of supplication and thanksgiving.

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When we talk about supplication what we're saying is humbly and earnestly coming to God begging for God to move.

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That's what supplication is and this is important because after we have rejoiced and came to God adoring

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Him for who He is, then we are allowed to beg God to move, not before.

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And that order is so important and I praise God that Paul put this in the text because you and I do not come to God begging

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God as orphans. We beg like sons and daughters.

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We rejoice first, we praise first, we adore first, we celebrate the relationship that we have in Christ first because God does not want us coming to Him begging

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Him without praise. He does not want us begging without hope. He does not want us begging separated in our minds from a relationship with Him because if you and I did not take time to rejoice, if we did not take time to celebrate and to praise

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Him, and if we didn't take time to remember that He is our Father and that we are His child, then we might be tempted to actually come to Him as a beggar and not as a begging child and there's a huge difference between the two.

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You see a beggar begs with almost no hope of getting what they're asking for.

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A beggar begs out of desperation and hopelessness. A beggar is isolated, lonely, and stands on the street corner humiliated and dejected, but not so for a child.

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You see children beg with hope that their father is going to provide because they know that their father does provide.

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Children beg for their faithful parent to move because they know that their parent is faithful and then they know that their parent loves them and then they know that their parent cares for them.

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You see the begging of a child is far different than the begging of a beggar. We present our request to God as someone who knows who

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He is. Our hearts yearn for healing to come during this coronavirus, but we don't do it with desperation.

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We don't do it hopelessness. We do it as a child begging our father to move after we have rejoiced, after we have praised

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Him, and after we have acknowledged who He is. He gives us that right and that freedom to share our heart with Him, but we also do that with thanksgiving.

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We know like a dearly loved child that God can provide. We've seen it time and time again.

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We know that God will move because He has moved. We know that in the scripture, because it's true, it tells us of all the times that God has provided and that God has moved on behalf of His people.

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So whatever happens in this situation, God loves us and cares for us and is working out the good for all who are called according to His purpose.

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So what we have in this verse so far is that when our heart gets soured by coronavirus or when our heart gets soured by our stock market account that has totally plummeted or when our heart is captivated by the things of the world and broken and hurt and confused and all of those things, we turn to God and we rejoice because rejoicing is the antidote to that pain.

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And then once we've prepared ourself through rejoicing, we go to God in prayer and we praise

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God for who He is and for all that He's done. And then as a dearly loved child, we share our request with God and then we thank

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God because we know that He is good. That's the first two things that Paul teaches us is that we can rejoice during the coronavirus and then we can pray as dearly loved children through the coronavirus.

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The last thing I would say is that Paul tells us that we must rest through the coronavirus.

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Look at what he says. After all of our rejoicing and after all of our praying, look at the consequence of that.

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After we've done those things, look at what Paul says is going to happen in your life. He says, and the peace of God, God's personal peace, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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Paul tells us that if we rejoice during this coronavirus and if we pray through this coronavirus, then

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God is going to give us the kind of peace that defies our comprehension and expectation.

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He's going to give us the kind of peace that calms our heart, that stills our emotion, that cures our anxieties, that gives us patience with other people when they're afraid.

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You see, when we do these three things, when we rejoice in God, when we pray to God, and when we rest in God, we get the peace of God.

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And that is what I want for each and every single one of us. For everyone who's at the

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Shepherd's Church, and that's the church that you call home, or for everyone else who's listening to this podcast, I want us to have the peace of God in the midst of corona or in the midst of whatever.

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And the way that you're going to have the peace of God is through rejoicing in God, praying to God, and resting in God.

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That's the formula. Now with that, I want to end like this.

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I'm calling for our entire church and for the church universal to spend today,

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Friday, March the 14th,

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I want you to spend today rejoicing in God. I want you to grab some time with you and your family, your friends, loved ones, or anyone else, and just simply rejoice in Christ together.

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Maybe turn on a faithful hymn like Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus and just sing with all your heart to the Lord. Open up a passage of scripture and praise

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God for who he is. But what I want you to do is I want you to intentionally prepare your heart to praise

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God this day. Because tomorrow, I'm calling all of the

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Shepherd's Church to join me to pray. President Trump, in a tweet yesterday or the day before, he announced that March the 15th, 2020, is going to be a national day of prayer.

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And he's calling on every single Christian, man, woman, and child, boy and girl, every single church to unite together in prayer.

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And I don't want to take that lightly. You know, whether we're Republican or Democrat, whether we are conservative or liberal, whether we are whatever on the political spectrum you could possibly be, when a president can humble himself and ask the nation to pray,

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I think we ought to take notice of that. I think we ought to honor that.

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When our government is asking us, when they're turning to us for solutions to a national crisis, when

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Trump, one of the most prideful men that I think I've ever seen on the national stage, and he's done a lot of things good and he's done a lot of things bad, and I'm not going to debate that.

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But when a man like Trump and all of his pride can say, I need the Church of Jesus Christ to pray,

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I think we ought to take notice of that and I think we ought to pray. Not that we ever needed Trump to tell us that.

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But in light of everything that's happening on March 15th, I'm asking the entire Shepherds Church to pray.

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And one of the things that I've done is I've put two things together to help us do that.

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Because again, I want us to experience the peace of God, and that comes through rejoicing, praying, and resting.

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So the first thing I've done is I've put together a coronavirus prayer guide for the

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National Day of Prayer. This is based off of scripture and it's based off the Acts model of praying, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.

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And I'm going to be sending out that guide to everyone in the church and everyone who asks for it so that we can dedicate ourselves to the

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Lord in prayer. That prayer guide will be based on this sermon and it was going to lead us through those four categories of prayer.

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Adoring God for who he is, confessing our shortcomings, thanking God for what he's going to do in this situation, and then presenting our supplications and our requests to God.

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And the guide is going to help you with that. The second thing that I've done is I've set up, along with Judy, our dear sister in the

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Lord who has helped me set this up, we've set up a digital prayer service tomorrow morning at 9 o 'clock a .m.

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There's going to be room for 100 people to join. So I'm asking each and every single person at the church and every single person maybe that you're connected with that you want to share this with, feel free to share this with as many people as you want.

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There's space for 100 people. And what we're going to do is we're going to gather tomorrow morning at 9 o 'clock a .m.

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I'm going to send you an invite later this evening and you're going to receive that invite so that you can log into this digital prayer meeting.

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What you're going to do is you're going to log in on your computer or your phone and you can either share audio or you can share video and audio together.

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And what will happen is that if you do it on your computer it's better because you have a better screen to be able to see things.

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You're going to have the prayer guide up in front of you and we are going together walk through each and every one of these categories on the prayer guide together as a church.

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And I will be able to hear you praying and you'll be able to hear me praying and we're going to all join together for however long it takes and we're going to pray that the

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Lord would move in this situation. That the Lord would move in the midst of coronavirus and pandemics and stock market crashes and everything else that's going on in this nation.

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And we're going to pray. So today I want you to follow

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Paul's prescription and I want you to start by rejoicing and preparing yourself for tomorrow when we pray.

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Tomorrow I want you to gather with us at nine o 'clock a .m. for prayer and then third

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I want you to anticipate that God is going to give your heart rest.

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If you rejoice in God and if you pray like Paul tells us to pray then

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I believe the scripture is true and that you're going to receive the peace of God over your life and over your heart that surpasses understanding.

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So take this day to rejoice. Join us tomorrow to pray and anticipate that God is going to move and he's going to provide you peace.

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I love every single one of you dearly and may God bless you until I see you tomorrow online.