WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.599 Hey everyone, we are diving back into the problem of anxiety week number two and this 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:14.300 is our second attempt at getting a good recording of this. 00:00:14.300 --> 00:00:17.120 Hopefully this time it will all go through. 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:22.100 We're going to read Matthew 6 to start Matthew 6 is the famous place where Jesus tells us 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:23.100 do not be anxious. 00:00:23.100 --> 00:00:27.879 So we'll read that first and then we'll dig in to the material for this week. 00:00:27.879 --> 00:00:29.980 So this is God's word. 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:33.920 Jesus says, therefore I tell you do not worry about your life, what you eat or drink or 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:39.399 about your body, what you will wear is not life more than food and the body more than 00:00:39.399 --> 00:00:40.560 clothes. 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:41.799 Look at the birds of the air. 00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:48.079 They do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. 00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:50.920 Are you not of much more value than they? 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:55.880 Can any of you by worrying at a single hour to your life, why do you worry about clothes? 00:00:55.880 --> 00:00:57.519 See how the flowers of the field grow. 00:00:57.520 --> 00:00:59.880 They do not labor or spin yet. 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:04.840 I tell you that not even Solomon and all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 00:01:04.840 --> 00:01:08.760 If that is how God closed the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:12.400 thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you? 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:14.000 You have little faith. 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:17.960 So do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear 00:01:17.960 --> 00:01:22.719 where for the pagans run after these things and your heavenly father knows that you need 00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:29.039 them, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you 00:01:29.039 --> 00:01:30.039 as well. 00:01:30.039 --> 00:01:34.319 Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. 00:01:34.319 --> 00:01:37.959 Each day has enough trouble of its own. 00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:40.960 This is God's word. 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:45.239 Last time in the first week on this series, we defined anxiety. 00:01:45.239 --> 00:01:49.439 That was the big task and we said that it's so important actually just to get a definition 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:55.480 out there because sometimes the first step in healing is to really know what you are 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:59.039 struggling with to know what it is well. 00:01:59.039 --> 00:02:06.439 And so we talked about the definition of anxiety and we said that anxiety is a type of fear 00:02:06.439 --> 00:02:13.120 that the Bible associates anxiety with fearfulness and modern psychology does the same thing. 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:15.719 There are good fears and there are bad fears. 00:02:15.719 --> 00:02:21.560 Really fears are the fear of the Lord or what we call immediate fear or sorry immediate 00:02:21.560 --> 00:02:23.479 fear from immediate threat. 00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:30.800 And that is when you are in a situation of context, a circumstance where there's an actual 00:02:30.800 --> 00:02:37.560 threat in the moment against you, your fight or flight mechanism triggers and you flee 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:42.439 or you fight and you try to escape the danger through fear. 00:02:42.439 --> 00:02:44.199 Fear motivates you to act. 00:02:44.199 --> 00:02:47.359 It's instinctive and that's good fear. 00:02:47.359 --> 00:02:49.079 Fear is a common grace gift of God. 00:02:49.079 --> 00:02:50.879 It keeps you alive. 00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:53.000 It's healthy fear. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.399 There's also bad fear, bad types of fear. 00:02:55.399 --> 00:02:59.719 And one of the bad types of fear is the negative emotion of anxiety. 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:06.639 It's a emotion of fearfulness and the difference in good fear and bad fear is that anxiety doesn't 00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:09.919 have an immediate threat in view. 00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:17.719 Instead, anxiety arises whenever you imagine hypothetical circumstances in the future, circumstances 00:03:17.719 --> 00:03:24.599 of potential loss of the things you love most in life, whatever it might be, or not just 00:03:24.599 --> 00:03:32.359 loss but not getting that which you really desire, not succeeding in a particular way, 00:03:32.359 --> 00:03:38.039 losing or not getting whatever it may be, whatever that object might be that makes you 00:03:38.039 --> 00:03:45.599 anxious and you imagine failure, circumstances of loss and that creates fearfulness in the 00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:49.919 heart, in the soul and it snowballs over time. 00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:59.560 It becomes daily perhaps and you create a culture in your soul if you will, a real angst. 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:01.879 And that is a definition of anxiety. 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:04.319 It's distinct from immediate fear. 00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:06.519 It's even distinct from stress. 00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:11.600 Stress is a situation where you have concern about something coming up in your life. 00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:17.840 Maybe you've got something big at work in five, six, seven days, two weeks from now 00:04:17.840 --> 00:04:19.600 and you're stressed about it. 00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:24.079 You know that you really have got to put in the work to be able to succeed at the something 00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:30.319 or you're stressed about seeing your teenager drive off in a car for the first time. 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:38.680 Less anxiety and more stress, worry, concern and stress, worry and concern can turn into 00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:44.120 anxiety the way we're defining it but there are more appropriate levels of fear and concern 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:48.399 because they have something relatively immediate in view. 00:04:48.399 --> 00:04:51.319 Anxiety rather is entirely hypothetical. 00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:53.159 It doesn't have something immediate in view. 00:04:53.160 --> 00:05:03.280 It is imagining situations of loss like your own death perhaps, anxiety over health for 00:05:03.280 --> 00:05:09.879 example you feel a pain that you've not felt before and you immediately start to spin off 00:05:09.879 --> 00:05:13.840 into all sorts of situations where you could possibly die. 00:05:13.840 --> 00:05:15.440 You have some type of disease. 00:05:15.440 --> 00:05:18.040 You imagine worst case scenarios. 00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:24.920 That is the beginnings of anxious restlessness and fearfulness, everything that don't actually 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:28.439 exist. 00:05:28.439 --> 00:05:35.640 We quoted from Tim Keller last time and said where he says fear, good fear is like a thunderstorm 00:05:35.640 --> 00:05:41.600 that comes in and it booms and the lightning comes down and then it goes away quickly. 00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:44.200 But anxiety is more like Scottish weather. 00:05:44.200 --> 00:05:46.600 It's like a steady daily drizzle. 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:52.680 It rains a little bit at a time, a consistent drizzle every single day. 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:58.800 So it creates a culture in your heart of fearfulness and restlessness and angst and can really 00:05:58.800 --> 00:05:59.800 eat you up. 00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:02.600 Eat up your soul and eat up your body as well. 00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:06.400 It has both spiritual and physical manifestations to it. 00:06:06.400 --> 00:06:12.200 Now today I want to dig into the term a little bit more according to the way Jesus talks 00:06:12.200 --> 00:06:16.240 about it in Matthew 6, the passage we just read. 00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:23.079 Let me just point out before we do that that Jesus here brings up issues, objects of anxiety 00:06:23.079 --> 00:06:27.000 that would have been relatively common in the first century especially and common for 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.879 anybody in the situation of poverty. 00:06:29.879 --> 00:06:35.000 He's saying don't worry, don't be anxious I should say about your clothing. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:36.720 How are you going to get clothes in the future? 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:37.960 How are you going to eat? 00:06:37.960 --> 00:06:40.400 Where's your shelter going to be? 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:47.159 These I would say are common order anxiety, objects of anxiety. 00:06:47.159 --> 00:06:53.439 And there's a difference between what I'm calling common order anxiety, anxieties that 00:06:53.439 --> 00:07:00.159 many, many people face all the time, struggle with all the time, versus anxiety disorders 00:07:00.159 --> 00:07:02.719 that are diagnosed in clinic. 00:07:02.719 --> 00:07:09.239 They all exist on a spectrum, but Jesus here is dealing with what we might consider common 00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:10.600 anxieties. 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:16.360 And so that's largely what we're going to think about today when we try to define anxiety 00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:18.840 with a little bit more nuance. 00:07:18.840 --> 00:07:27.000 Anxiety disorders or clinical manifestations of anxiety can sometimes be much more complicated 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:30.639 than the way we're going to define it according to Jesus today. 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:36.439 So we want to make sure that that distinction is in place before we dive in back into Matthew 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:37.439 6. 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:43.279 So Tim Lane, who is a biblical counselor, he talks about how the word anxiety in the 00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:51.920 Bible can be very literally taken to mean distracted or double minded, to be split or 00:07:51.920 --> 00:08:01.560 cut through, to be split between different masters, to put it in context of Matthew chapter 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:03.000 6. 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:05.639 One example of this is in Luke chapter 10. 00:08:05.639 --> 00:08:11.639 There's a parallel term to anxiety, to the Greek word for anxiety, in Luke chapter 10. 00:08:11.639 --> 00:08:13.959 And it's the story of Mary and Martha. 00:08:13.959 --> 00:08:19.479 When Jesus visits Mary and Martha, there's a bit of a pun that gets used where Martha 00:08:19.479 --> 00:08:25.639 is frantically trying to host everyone while Jesus is teaching. 00:08:25.639 --> 00:08:31.240 And the text says that she was distracted with much serving. 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:34.679 And this is a kind of a synonym of the word anxiety in the New Testament. 00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:40.559 She's split over two masters, the master himself, Jesus Christ, who's sitting there 00:08:40.559 --> 00:08:48.519 teaching and the need to be constantly serving people through hosting, which is a good thing. 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:54.159 But in that particular context, the text is showing us she needed to stop and sit at the 00:08:54.159 --> 00:08:55.639 master's feet. 00:08:55.639 --> 00:08:57.759 She was serving two masters, not one. 00:08:57.759 --> 00:09:03.639 She was distracted or divided, split between too many masters in the moment. 00:09:03.639 --> 00:09:07.840 Okay, you see the same thing happening in Matthew chapter 6. 00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:14.919 The word anxious, miram na'o, anxiety has a similar meaning to that, to be double-minded, 00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:16.840 to be distracted, to be split. 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:21.480 And actually the meaning of that is built right into the structure of Matthew 6. 00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:23.279 Let me show that to you. 00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:29.840 There are five sets in Matthew 6 of one negative command and one positive command, where Jesus 00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:31.879 says, don't do this, do that. 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:33.279 So you're dos and you're don'ts. 00:09:33.279 --> 00:09:35.399 Jesus gives them to us in Matthew 6. 00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:38.679 And you'll remember them if you've read through the text before. 00:09:38.679 --> 00:09:43.039 For instance, verse 5, when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:44.039 There's your do not. 00:09:44.039 --> 00:09:46.039 Do not be like the hypocrites. 00:09:46.039 --> 00:09:47.039 Why? 00:09:47.039 --> 00:09:48.039 Because they're double-minded. 00:09:48.039 --> 00:09:52.120 They're distracted in prayer, meaning they're split over too many masters. 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:56.079 On the one hand, they're trying to serve God and be religious, be in relationship with 00:09:56.079 --> 00:09:57.079 God. 00:09:57.079 --> 00:10:02.039 And on the other hand, they're serving themselves by publicly praying in a way that would up 00:10:02.039 --> 00:10:03.919 their reputation. 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:09.159 And so it says, don't be like the hypocrites who are distracted and double-minded in prayer. 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:11.000 Rather, go pray privately. 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:12.959 Go pray in your closet. 00:10:12.959 --> 00:10:16.039 If you're seeking public reputation, don't do it. 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:17.159 Serve the Lord only. 00:10:17.159 --> 00:10:20.599 So only have one master when you pray. 00:10:20.599 --> 00:10:22.199 Here's another example. 00:10:22.199 --> 00:10:25.439 Verse 16, when you fast, do not look gloomy. 00:10:25.439 --> 00:10:26.799 Don't look gloomy. 00:10:26.799 --> 00:10:28.879 Instead, take care of yourself. 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:30.719 Don't let other people know that you're fasting. 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:35.840 It's the same situation because you can be divided over too many masters in that moment, 00:10:35.840 --> 00:10:41.960 the master of raising your public religious profile in the first century and the master 00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:44.560 that you're actually trying to serve the Lord. 00:10:44.560 --> 00:10:50.560 Now the immediate context before we get to the command regarding anxiety is in verse 19. 00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:54.080 And it's when it comes to money, verse 19 through 24 there. 00:10:54.080 --> 00:11:00.680 And it says, do not store up treasures on earth where moths and rust can destroy the 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:02.479 people and eat them up. 00:11:02.479 --> 00:11:06.039 Don't just possess stuff for the sake of stuff. 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:10.039 Instead, it says that you can't serve two masters. 00:11:10.039 --> 00:11:13.519 You've got to lay up your treasures in the heavenly realm. 00:11:13.519 --> 00:11:17.879 You've got to seek the things of the Lord instead where there's eternal weight to what 00:11:17.879 --> 00:11:18.879 you're doing. 00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:20.799 So there's your don't and your do. 00:11:20.799 --> 00:11:22.159 And then it summarizes it. 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:25.120 And really this is a summary for all of the commands. 00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:29.079 It says you cannot serve two masters. 00:11:29.079 --> 00:11:30.079 You can't serve two. 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:31.080 You can't serve three. 00:11:31.080 --> 00:11:32.080 You can't serve four. 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:38.200 It cannot be, you cannot have yourself as your ultimate master, ultimate end and purpose 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:41.759 and God as your ultimate end and purpose at the same time. 00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:47.320 Meaning you can't serve money, stuff and security on earth more than God. 00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:51.560 And you can't serve your children more than God. 00:11:51.560 --> 00:11:56.360 They can't be your master more than the Lord and your spouse and power and reputation and 00:11:56.360 --> 00:12:03.440 beauty, whatever it might be in the 21st century, like in the first century, you cannot ultimately 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:04.440 serve two masters. 00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:10.639 And then immediately Jesus turns in the next verse to say, do not be anxious. 00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:11.639 Therefore don't be anxious. 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:19.639 And you see the, in the context, the command do not be anxious is about being distracted 00:12:19.639 --> 00:12:24.680 or double minded in relation to the same commands, the five commands that have come before do 00:12:24.679 --> 00:12:30.479 not, the same do nots instead do at the very end of the passage we read seek first the 00:12:30.479 --> 00:12:31.479 kingdom. 00:12:31.479 --> 00:12:37.479 So you have that final don't and do, don't be anxious because anxiety actually manifests 00:12:37.479 --> 00:12:42.000 in the same way that the issues we've already seen in the other commands manifest being 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:46.559 distracted or double minded and serving too many masters instead. 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:51.959 Instead what you need to do is seek the kingdom of God as your true purpose and your true 00:12:51.960 --> 00:12:55.879 end and put everything else in its place subordinate to that. 00:12:55.879 --> 00:13:00.639 So every single one of these commands is making the same point that you, you cannot live a 00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:04.680 life that's double minded between a false master and a true master and try to put them 00:13:04.680 --> 00:13:10.639 side by side or even take the false master and raise it up above the true master. 00:13:10.639 --> 00:13:17.280 Those false masters are often public reputation like we see in Matthew six or self righteousness 00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:25.000 or security or simply the master of mastering your own life being in total control wanting 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:30.399 to dictate your life and control your life in a way where you don't actually recognize 00:13:30.399 --> 00:13:34.439 your dependence absolute dependence on the living God. 00:13:34.439 --> 00:13:41.039 And so what Jesus is saying here is that common anxieties things that we often face that 00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:50.959 many people will face in their life are a result of a master or a God if you will perhaps 00:13:50.959 --> 00:13:56.799 of control of over controlling your life of not living a life of dependence absolute dependence 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:03.799 on God of making some object into a little God some object of desire some precious thing 00:14:03.799 --> 00:14:10.679 in your life and serving and loving that thing as much or more than God to the point where 00:14:10.679 --> 00:14:18.039 when you imagine losing that or never getting it it creates real fearfulness and restlessness 00:14:18.039 --> 00:14:20.079 in your life and in your heart. 00:14:20.079 --> 00:14:24.799 Jesus says who can add an hour to their span of life that's his rhetorical question and 00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:29.039 of course he's saying nobody in other words you've got to read we've got to recognize 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:35.240 first that we're absolutely dependent we're not in control I can't add an hour to my life 00:14:35.240 --> 00:14:39.000 whenever God's appointed for me to die I'm going to die. 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:44.879 So he's saying there don't fret you've got to fight to not be fearful and struggle with 00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:50.320 a hypothetical imaginations about your health about the ways you might die when there's 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:58.120 no obvious immediate context of threat to your body in view right and so Friedrich Nietzsche 00:14:58.120 --> 00:15:04.440 one of the great atheist philosophers of the 19th century he talks a lot about the human 00:15:04.440 --> 00:15:12.120 desire of the will the desire to power and Nietzsche puts that forward as a positive but 00:15:12.120 --> 00:15:16.840 I think Jesus is actually attacking that right here in this passage he's saying actually 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:24.040 what our problem is is we all struggle with the will to power the desire to control to 00:15:24.040 --> 00:15:31.320 dictate the orientation and path of our life to the point where when it goes wrong we begin 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:37.160 to imagine worst-case scenarios and we let those become fearfulness and restlessness in 00:15:37.160 --> 00:15:42.440 our heart to the point of anxiety and that anxiety can snowball and snowball and snowball 00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:48.720 to where we have long-term chronic anxiety and that really wreaks havoc on not only 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:55.760 our soul but also on our body again to quote Tim Keller on this he says that sometimes when 00:15:55.759 --> 00:16:02.720 anxiety rises up we have to follow the smoke to find the altar that's burning underneath 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:07.600 in other words when we start to see the symptoms of anxiety the fearfulness the restlessness 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:12.399 of the sweaty palms the stomach aches all the physical symptoms that manifest we've 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:18.240 got to follow the smoke of that anxiousness to find an altar burning in our heart to some 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:24.519 unknown or little God that maybe we're not even fully aware of that we're setting as 00:16:24.519 --> 00:16:30.559 precious to us as the eternal God himself as the hope of eternal life itself so Tim 00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:36.319 Lane puts it like this he says anxiety is not concern in general not it's not appropriate 00:16:36.319 --> 00:16:42.000 concern we have appropriate concerns all the time in our life it's not really worried 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:47.399 properly speaking you know worrying that you need to work hard every day to pass an exam 00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:50.519 at the end of the month or something like that we're talking about something different 00:16:50.519 --> 00:16:57.120 than that anxiety is rather over concern a restlessness when a person is trying to love 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:02.840 equally both the creator and something precious in creation or when they are failing to love 00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:10.599 the creator at all and replacing the ultimate with something lesser in creation I once heard 00:17:10.599 --> 00:17:16.639 the story of Martin Luther the German reformer during the Reformation he had an assistant 00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:22.320 of a man who worked alongside of him a great theologian in his own right Philip Malenka 00:17:22.320 --> 00:17:28.560 on and Malenka on isn't was known as a warrior somebody who was not only a warrior but actually 00:17:28.560 --> 00:17:33.960 anxious really struggled anxiety and there's a story where Luther turned to Philip in a 00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:41.720 moment where Philip was very anxious and said let Philip cease to rule the world and Luther 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:47.799 understood Philip you have a God and a little God in your life in your heart and alter where 00:17:47.799 --> 00:17:53.640 you just want to control you want to dictate the circumstances of your life to the point 00:17:53.640 --> 00:17:58.160 where you're trying to bring the eternal life into the now and you can't do it you've got 00:17:58.160 --> 00:18:03.960 to be absolutely dependent on God you've got to trust you've got to let go and you've 00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:08.240 got to know that whatever God is appointed for you is going to take place and rest and 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:15.120 abide in that now let's turn secondly and finally to what Jesus says here he gives us a command 00:18:15.120 --> 00:18:20.759 one of the first ways to fight I like to call these the theological habits of a peaceful 00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:26.279 heart and we'll cover one now and a couple more in the next two weeks Jesus turns and 00:18:26.279 --> 00:18:31.400 he says look at the birds look at the birds of the air let me just read it to you he 00:18:31.400 --> 00:18:37.680 says look at the birds of the air they do not so or reap or store away and Barnes and 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:43.200 yet your heavenly father feeds them and you're much more valuable than they are he says can 00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:48.440 can any of you add a single hour to your life by worrying by being anxious about this and 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:52.240 he goes on why do you worry about clothes see how the flowers of the field grow they 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:57.920 don't labor or spin right so he's telling us here to both look at the birds and look 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:04.080 at the flowers his explicit command is look at the birds and see how the heavenly father 00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:11.199 takes care of them and how humans are of so much more value than even they now if we were 00:19:11.199 --> 00:19:16.199 to pull this out of the immediate context where Jesus is talking to disciples he's 00:19:16.199 --> 00:19:22.199 commissioning them to go forth they're they're going to be poor in large measure and so rightly 00:19:22.199 --> 00:19:27.039 he knows they're concerned about clothing and all sorts of things and we're to kind 00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:33.319 of get at what is what is the principle of what Jesus is saying here one pastor puts 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:37.639 it like this he says really the principle here is he saying whenever you start to get 00:19:37.639 --> 00:19:44.559 anxious and whenever that fearfulness starts to rise up you've got to commit to talking 00:19:44.559 --> 00:19:50.559 to your heart about God you've got and this is a habit we're talking about habits here 00:19:50.559 --> 00:19:57.000 there's no magic pill there's no way out of anxiety quickly instead you've got to habituate 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:02.879 your your heart over time to fighting the fearfulness and one of the first steps and 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:09.960 there's more but the first step is to talk to the heart yourself about the living God 00:20:09.960 --> 00:20:16.000 as soon as you feel the first moments of anxiety creeping in and that's what Jesus is saying 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:20.640 when he says look at the birds because what he's saying in other words is look at the 00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:27.360 absolute majesty and power of God to take care of the things outside of you look at 00:20:27.360 --> 00:20:32.200 the birds look at the flowers of the field look at the rhythm and patterns of life look 00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:40.160 at creation and see how powerful and in control God is to continue to not only create these 00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:46.080 things but to take care of them day in and day out to have a plan even and even you human 00:20:46.080 --> 00:20:50.200 being are much more valuable than they are don't you know that God is in control of you 00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:55.840 that God has a has a plan and orientation that he's determined your steps from beginning 00:20:55.839 --> 00:21:02.199 to end and you've got to tell your heart that every single time every single time fear comes 00:21:02.199 --> 00:21:10.199 up one way to think about this is to turn to what we call the attributes of God in other 00:21:10.199 --> 00:21:15.959 words Jesus is saying think about the attributes of God and preach the attributes of God to 00:21:15.959 --> 00:21:21.000 your heart the attributes are often divided up between in communicable and communicable 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:27.400 attributes in communicable attributes are attributes that are thought to be not possible 00:21:27.400 --> 00:21:35.000 for the human being to take hold of to contain to have to possess so we we say that for instance 00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:43.759 God God unlike us is not composed of parts God is so one so so much a unity and a unity 00:21:43.759 --> 00:21:49.480 beyond our imagination beyond our language and ability to speak about it even God doesn't 00:21:49.480 --> 00:21:55.759 have fingers and toes and heart and soul and imagination and intellect and all of it different 00:21:55.759 --> 00:22:03.360 parts put together smashed together like some type of machine or even like me like a human 00:22:03.360 --> 00:22:11.039 know he's what we say simple he is not composed of separate parts he is one and we really 00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:15.480 don't even know what that means to say we just know that he's not like us we say he's 00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:22.640 all powerful he's all knowing he's completely independent whereas we're dependent we're 00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:27.200 dependent on oxygen we're dependent on somebody else to bring this into the world we're dependent 00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:33.079 on so much we don't even have a definition of who we are I don't even know who I am 00:22:33.079 --> 00:22:37.880 apart from the existence of other things I have to define myself in relationship to 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:43.599 others I didn't even name myself we don't even name ourselves are so dependent God is 00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:50.000 completely independent and then we say things like God is love that these are attributes 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:56.719 of God that we can to a degree share in God is love God is joy God is peace God is good 00:22:56.719 --> 00:23:01.679 and we can we can grow into those attributes but here's Jesus is saying when you look at 00:23:01.679 --> 00:23:07.839 the birds when you're anxious and you're searching for a way to fight your fearfulness look at 00:23:07.839 --> 00:23:15.839 the birds and say God is independent God is simple God is not like me God is all powerful 00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:21.879 he's all knowing he's omniscient and omnipotent and omnipresent all the omnis all the he is 00:23:21.879 --> 00:23:28.240 the greatest and even that is a failure of language to actually speak about how different 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:34.519 and powerful he really is from creation it's saying you had to you've got to actually wrestle 00:23:34.519 --> 00:23:38.639 with that in your heart in other words you've got to do theology theology is speech about 00:23:38.639 --> 00:23:45.639 God reflection on God based on God's revelation of himself and scripture and in history and 00:23:45.639 --> 00:23:52.639 what it's saying is when you feel anxious go big into theology get talk to your heart 00:23:52.639 --> 00:24:00.599 about the God who made you and the God who is so powerful and in control and of course 00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:06.119 not only do you need to talk to your heart yourself about this God but you need to talk 00:24:06.119 --> 00:24:11.199 to this God about your heart we're going to turn to that actually next week about how 00:24:11.199 --> 00:24:19.000 prayer helps fight anxiety in other words we've got to take to wrap things up here we've 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:26.419 got to take our will to power our desire to be in control to stop death even from coming 00:24:26.420 --> 00:24:32.360 to our lives to stop the things that we expect to lose that we think we might lose and we 00:24:32.360 --> 00:24:38.960 probably will there will be losses losses are coming and we've got to give over these 00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:44.840 fears to the living God he says in Philippians 4 cast your anxieties upon him because he 00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:51.720 cares for you and so the promise there is not that there won't be losses he says in 00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:57.480 Philippians 4 there there is a peace that surpasses understanding possible meaning the 00:24:57.480 --> 00:25:03.799 circumstances of loss are coming but through the theological habits of the heart residing 00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:09.600 in commuting with the living God through those fears it is possible to find yourself in a 00:25:09.600 --> 00:25:14.720 place in time where you have a piece that doesn't make sense even when the circumstances are 00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:21.160 really circumstances of loss that are very difficult so the secret the first the first 00:25:21.160 --> 00:25:26.160 habit the first the secret if you will is is actually when it's actually quite simple 00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:32.840 when you're when you're struggling with anxiety look at creation think about the majesty and 00:25:32.840 --> 00:25:38.320 power of the absolute God and talk to your heart about the God that you serve as soon 00:25:38.320 --> 00:25:46.279 as it's an anxiety creeps up you know if there's this object God if this God is real and he 00:25:46.279 --> 00:25:53.440 is and and you can get into a place into a habit of turning to him immediately when these 00:25:53.440 --> 00:26:01.599 fears come up and if you can rest your heart in his power and absoluteness if you can rest 00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:08.680 your heart in the fact that Jesus Christ has possessed and obtained for you eternal life 00:26:08.680 --> 00:26:14.119 in his cross and resurrection then you know that there is something that you hope and 00:26:14.119 --> 00:26:19.679 that cannot die because Jesus already did die but he came back to life again and if 00:26:19.679 --> 00:26:25.719 that's something is Jesus Christ if you cannot lose him and that's the promise of scripture 00:26:25.719 --> 00:26:31.039 that you cannot lose him that you take hold of him by faith and he grabs you and you're 00:26:31.039 --> 00:26:35.679 in him and he is in you then ultimately no matter what happens in your life you can be 00:26:35.679 --> 00:26:43.319 okay because you have an object of hope that can really push away your fear fearfulness 00:26:43.319 --> 00:26:49.559 because you have something that cannot be lost and that is eternal life with Jesus Christ 00:26:49.559 --> 00:26:58.439 so we've got to say heart the absolute God is absolutely independent and you've got to 00:26:58.439 --> 00:27:08.679 be heart absolutely dependent upon him make that a habit of your heart anytime you struggle 00:27:08.680 --> 00:27:15.480 with anxiety let's pray father we ask now that you would give us all the strength and 00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:26.600 the the presence of mind to turn and preach to our hearts about your absoluteness whenever 00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:40.839 we struggle with anxiety we ask for this in Christ's name Amen.