|
Sermon
by Dr. Jeffrey Jeremiah "God’s
Answer to Anxiety”
“Do not be anxious about anything.” Easier said than done! Is that the first thought that comes to your mind when a police car is right behind you as you’re driving down the road? “Do not be anxious about anything”? It’s not mine! Only after the police car passes does my blood pressure return to normal, or maybe “high normal” is more correct, medically speaking. What’s got you anxious, worried today? Could it be your finances, your health, your career or retirement? Is it your relationship with your spouse, your parents, your kids? Students, are you anxious about school next week, your summer or college plans? What about our children? Researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported that 30 years ago the greatest fears of grade school children were 1) animals, 2) being alone in a dark room, 3) high places, 4) strangers, and 5) loud noises. Today, kids are worried about 1) divorce, 2) nuclear war, 3) cancer, 4) pollution, and 5) getting mugged. Did you know the number one cause of emotional fatigue is stress and worry? It can contribute to high blood pressure, ulcers, some strokes, migraines, and a depressed immune system. Anxiety can even be a factor in the onset of cancer. I think you’ll agree that an anxious, worried person is not a very pleasant person. And so worry and anxiety can have a destructive impact on our relationships, especially those who are closest to us. Here’s the question that’s repeatedly asked in our culture: Is anxiety a fact, a given of modern life, something you just have to accept and learn to live with? Inspired by the bulletin blooper, “Don’t let worry kill you, let the church help,” I want to address this problem today in what I trust will be a positive way. I can tell you that God’s Word says you don’t have to settle with “living with it.” He declares you can overcome the draining, destructive power of worry, anxiety, and stress. The power that overcomes is personal peace, God’s peace. Our first point is that we need to acknowledge that more than one type of peace is offered to us. Jesus said in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” Then this comment, “I do not give to you as the world gives.” Jesus recognizes that there is a personal peace the world gives. That peace can be very attractive, at least at the outset. Peace as the world gives it is a time and place for yourself, you’re free from the tensions, pressures, stresses of life, and people and distractions. The peace the world gives is the opportunity to retreat, to “recharge your batteries,” to gather new strength to continue your normal life. Let me note here that its assumed that it’s not possible to experience peace in here when you’re living your “normal” life. “Normal life” is a drain on your time, your vitality, on life itself. Most of us think of the weekend or vacations as the time when we can enjoy some peace. Yet how many of us have endured weekends or vacations where you couldn’t wait to get back to your regular routine so you could rest? I have! The problem with the peace the world offers is that it’s determined by your circumstances. If you could perfectly control your circumstances you could have peace, but you’re wise enough to know you can’t do that. You can’t control what happens to you in life. There's a value to the peace the world offers, but its impact is pretty minimal. Jesus offers a different peace, His peace. It’s a peace that focuses not on our circumstances, but on God. It comes in two parts. First, Jesus offers peace with God, the end of hostility and conflict with Him. The Bible clearly tells us that in sin, we’re at war with God. He’s our enemy, we hate Him. Why? Because in sin, we want to be God. What’s truly amazing is that God, Who is the offended person in this situation, has provided the way to end the war. Peace comes through God’s Son, through His suffering and death on the cross. As Romans 5:1 declares, “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God.” How? “Through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The end of the war has produced the possibility of a new relationship with God. In the place of hatred and hostility there are now acceptance, affirmation, and love. That's peace with God. Let me note that more than one Bible scholar has said that the anxious, worried believer in Jesus Christ is suffering from a broken relationship with God, a relationship with God that needs to be repaired. The second peace Jesus offers your life is the peace of God, which is what Paul is talking about in this passage. To best understand this peace and what it means, it’s helpful to go back to the Old Testament. The Hebrew word for peace is “shalom,” which means good health and wholeness, of well-being in the widest sense of the word. We get a better understanding of the value and impact of this peace when we compare it to the word “anxious” in verse six: “Do not be anxious about anything.” The Greek word translated “anxious” means “to be pulled in different directions, pulled apart.” Isn’t that what happens when you’re anxious and worried? You feel as if you’re being internally pulled apart. The peace of God is just the opposite. It’s a sense of being together, whole, complete, and at rest. There are three important characteristics of this peace. First, it’s based on knowledge of God, knowledge that comes from a personal relationship with Him in Jesus Christ. Knowledge that is yours because you’re at peace with Him. It’s knowing that He is the sovereign Lord, He’s in control of everything, He’s in control of your life. Second, it’s a peace that works entirely independently of your circumstances. The peace of God is not something you find in a time or place. It’s a reality you can experience that is not determined by where you are or what time it is. Realize that Paul enjoyed this personal peace, and he wrote these words of peace from a jail cell. If you were in jail in the Roman Empire, your life could be ended in an instant. The peace that Jesus gives is not the absence of trouble, it’s the certainty and confidence that He is present with you always. As the choir sang, “His eye is on you.” Thirdly, verse seven tells us this peace is active, effective, even powerful. It guards, that is, it protects your heart, your mind from those attacks that come each day that can unsettle, disrupt, and produce anxiety in our lives. This is personal peace you can take into any day, every day. It can make the difference as to how you live your life, no matter what happens to you. The peace Jesus offers you is peace with God and the peace of God. Are there activities you can pursue to ensure you experience and enjoy this gift of personal peace Jesus gives you? The answer is yes; our passage lists two. First, prayer is absolutely important. Why? First, when you pray, you come into God’s presence and you acknowledge Who He is. At that point, your focus is not on the circumstances or people that can produce worry and stress. Your focus is not on yourself and whether you’re in the grip of anxiety or feeling it’s reaching out to grab you. Your focus is on the great and mighty and awesome God. Pray to God, pray knowing that God loves you, He cares for you, He’s interested in everything in your life. The Phillips translation of this verse says, “When you pray, tell God every detail of your needs.” If it’s big enough to cause anxiety in your life, it’s big enough to lift to God in prayer. First Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxieties on Him (God), because He cares for you.” And pray with gratitude, even as you lift your needs and concerns to Him. Thanking God in advance is praying with faith, knowing that He will protect and provide and bring you His peace. To ensure you experience and enjoy the personal peace that is yours in Jesus Christ, pray. Focus on God, give Him your burdens and cares, and pray with grateful faith. If the first activity you can pursue is to pray, the second is to think; think about the right things. One of the benefits of salvation is that your mind is liberated from depraved, destructive, and evil patterns of thought, patterns that produce anxiety, worry, and fear. In verse eight we have an “eight-point” guardian of your mind. If a thought doesn’t pass this eight-point test, reject it, it’s not beneficial to you. “Whatever is 1) true, 2) noble, 3) right, 4) pure, 5) lovely, 6) admirable, 7) excellent, 8) praiseworthy – think about such things.” Let me test this eight-point guardian with a very prominent idea: By worrying about someone, I can control them. Is that true? No. Is it noble? I don’t think so. Is it right? I think you get the idea of the value of this verse. One other point about the way we think. Many people assume anxiety is the result of too much thinking. Actually, it’s just the opposite. Anxiety is the result of too little thinking in the right direction, too little thinking about Who is the source of personal peace in every situation! If you focus your thoughts on Who God is, on His sovereign purpose, promises, and protection, you have no reason to be anxious. This is why David Martyn Lloyd-Jones could write the words I’ve included on your outline: “The essence of worry is the absence of thought, the failure to think.” When you rightly use your saved, renewed mind, when you truly think, you will preserve and experience and enjoy God’s peace in your life.
Anxiety is not natural, not the normal state of affairs for the believer in Jesus Christ. If you’re not a believer in Jesus Christ, you’ve got good reason to be worried, because you don’t have peace with God, and you don’t have God’s answer to anxiety, God’s peace in your life. If you’d like to stop living a life of worry, anxiety, and fear, realize that among the many benefits of life in Jesus Christ is His gift of peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding, greater than all circumstances, all situations you’ll face in this life. For the believer in Jesus Christ, God’s promise is that anxiety doesn’t have to tear you apart on the inside; it doesn’t have to master you the way it is mastering so many in our world today. By faith, with God’s help, you can overcome anxiety and know the joy and peace that God has richly provided you and passionately desires for you in Jesus Christ! |