Anxiety

Thank you guys. It's been a minute since I was able to share with you guys on a Sunday. As Nicole said, my name is Ben Peterson. I'm our associate pastor.

And we are in a series called Family Meetings. This is where we get a chance to kind of dial down how we do it. It's that living room moment, how we do it. And I don't know about you guys, but there are times where with my family, we just start doing things.

And it starts to roll. Think of it like maybe the holidays is the best example where it's like, OK, it starts to ramp up. There's a lot of activity. And then we go to grandma's house.

And then we go home. And then we got to buy that thing. And then we got to go there. And then OK, you're dealing with school.

And then we got to do this. And it starts to ramp up. And by week three, everyone's been plowing. But there's a really healthy moment where Dad says, family meet.

Everyone sits down. And he goes, it's been kind of a lot. And everyone goes, yeah, totally. And everyone gets a chance to actually acknowledge it and talk about it.

And you've been good soldiers. You've been doing the work. And it's not even necessarily like it's avoidable. But sometimes the family meeting just says, can we talk about this?

Because we're all experiencing it. So can we just talk about it? So tonight, would it be OK if we talked about anxiety? It's like the air that we're breathing in 2020.

Right? We're all experiencing this to some level. Can we talk about it? I don't know if you guys were in speech class in high school.

This is like the cheesiest way to start a message. But I couldn't avoid it. Speech class in high school, every nervous kid gets up and goes. Web things of worry or nervousness, anybody?

I'm just like, you couldn't summarize the general state of the world right now better than the definition of anxiety. A general sense of worry, nervousness, or unease about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. That's where we're at. And so we're going to talk about it.

But before we dive in, there's a couple things that I want to qualify this message around. And that's it. First of all, talking about anxiety and all that. This is something that people get their entire careers to in the medical field.

This is something that could be a sermon series for a year. So this is not an exhaustive message on here's how we get over anxiety. Right? That's not possible.

So if you're driving home and you're like, wow, I didn't even mention this thing. I know. All right. We're just qualifying that.

So it's like, well, he didn't talk about this. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to. But tonight, we're going to stay focused. I want specific things.

I hope that's OK. The second thing that we need to qualify, right away, is we need to disassociate our anxiety from ourselves. And here's something that I've been seeing quite a bit, especially in the last couple of years, and especially especially in the last six to nine months. People joke about and identify with their anxiety.

It's just normal. Right? People are like, yeah, me and my anxiety showing up to the meeting. Ha ha, and they try to make light of it.

The reality is, it's not OK. It's not OK. So we need to disassociate ourselves from that by having the mindset that the new covenant in the Bible tells us to have, which is I actually have access to perfect peace. And so there's a part of me that's in Christ, and thus is a new creation.

There's something that's actually seated with him in heavenly places. There's something with him that has the audacity to say, I've been made perfect. There's a reality of our spirit. And that's how God calls us to identify.

And so we can be carrying anxiety in our soul, which is our mind, our emotions. Those things can have anxiety. We need to delineate between what's real and what's true. Anxiety is real.

But it's not the truth that we anchor ourselves in. So we can acknowledge it. We can say, this is real. This is happening.

To pretend like it's not happening with foolishness. But we're not saying, and this is what's true now. We need to have the spiritual maturity to distinguish between what's real and what's true. So we're going to talk about anxiety tonight without personalizing it and saying, this is just my portion.

All right? So let's just qualify as well. Let's talk about it. Anxiety is a very, very base level emotion that all living things have.

And I'm not even just saying people. I'm talking animals, too. Anxiety is the deer in the woods and the stick breaks. Animals can feel anxiety.

I read this thing, not kidding. I found out that they've identified anxiety in sea slugs. I didn't even know that brain. But poor little buddy is feeling anxious.

And it's like, oh, guys, it's like a base level thing that organisms, including us, feel when we're saying, I don't know what's out there. I'm kind of afraid of it. I don't know what's coming. I'm afraid of it.

And you're on high alert. And your brain starts to release these chemicals. We're going, we're in danger. We're in danger.

And what humans do, at least in my experience, humans say, OK, I need to figure it out then. Because I don't know what's coming. I need to figure it out. So we click on that rational reasoning part of our brain and attempts to figure out what's coming so that we don't feel anxious about.

Because we think that's going to help. And what it sounds like a lot of times is, OK, it's fine. I'm OK. It's not that bad.

It's not that bad. I'm OK. It's fine. It's fine.

It's fine. It's fine. It's coming soon. We're going to be OK.

It's fine. I'm fine. It's fine. It's fine.

The election's going to be over soon. Whatever happens to me, right? We'll be fine. It's OK.

It's OK. It's OK. And we try to find these rational reasoning things to fix our mind. But we're staying in our mind to try to fix our mind.

And so your brain is compromised if you're in an anxiety state. It's not working the way that it's supposed to. And you go, well, maybe I'll just try harder. It's like if you have a vacuum cleaner, and the vacuum's got a hole in the bag on the side, and you're like, oh, there's dust.

Oh, no. Oh, no. I got to clean that up. And you're using a broken vacuum to try and fix all the dust that's blowing over the place.

It's a vicious cycle. You can't get out of it. And if you're stuck trying to rationalize what's going on, you're not going to find much success. And maybe if it's something that legitimately is like, if you have anxiety because what if I don't get a parking spot close enough to the thing, it's like, you'll be OK.

Like, you'll get there. There's a time where it's like, OK, I'm not trying to minimize anyone's experience. But if you're in college and you're really anxious about that test, it's like, it's going to be OK. I promise.

And so there's time for that. But when we're dealing with things like we're dealing with this year, we can't just wait for an event and circumstances to change, and then suddenly we're going to be OK. We can't rationalize this. We're stuck coming up with conspiracy theories trying to explain what's going on, because we just don't know.

And that's causing us anxiety. And the reality is, yep, there's probably going to be a vaccine soon. The election's going to happen, and then something's going to happen after that. There'll be more things that are known at that point.

But if we're waiting for circumstances to get better, we are no different than the rest of humanity. And God has called us to be different and to stand out. And I can't imagine God had been going, yeah, just write it out, I guess. Best of luck.

I mean, that's not what we're settling for. So let's introduce Jesus and God the Father into this whole discussion around anxiety. This is our leader. It's very important that we understand right off the bat that God loves your soul, not just your spirit.

God loves your mind and your emotions. I found so much comfort in this section of Psalm 103 this past six months. And it's talking about God is wonderful. He's amazing.

We love God. And then it says, like a father pities his children with compassion. So God pities us. He remembers our frame and that we are but dust.

And it's not self-deprecating. It's the reality that my little frame, my body, my mind, God remembers making bodies out of literal dirt. Because this wasn't designed to carry the weight of the world. I understand.

So God the Father is not coming to our mind and to our emotions and saying, let's transcend beyond. Let's remove ourselves from this reality. That's Gnosticism. That's what the Apostle John and so many others in the New Testament are railing against.

This Gnostically, if it's that spirit, good, anything physical and tangible material, bad. And they disassociate the New Testament, rails against that saying, no, he loves all of you. We're not escaping from this. So God doesn't want you to empty your mind.

God doesn't want you to transcend your mind. God wants to renew and redeem your mind. God wants to give you strength in your mind. He's not avoiding it.

And so we need to understand right off of that. We're not escaping from anything when we come to God. He's in the process of renewal and redemption and alignment with truth. That's what he's about.

God wants to sanctify your mind, not like shush it and push it away and pretend like it's not actually happening. It's real. But it's not true. And so then God introduces this concept to us.

And spoiler alert, we're going to spend a lot of time tonight in Philippians 4. And there's this passage where it says, God gives a peace that transcends understanding. So we're stuck trying to fix all of our anxiety with our understanding, with our mind. And God says, I have a peace that transcends.

It's better than. It supersedes understanding. This is my way of doing things. Don't try and use your broken vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust.

There's a peace that transcends understanding. He loves our soul. But the goal is not that we have a really strong mind. The goal is that we are with him.

That first says, the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ. The goal is, let's bring your fractured soul, protect it in peace, and let it meet with God. That's what it's talking about. So we're not settling for self-help tricks.

We're not settling for let's how do I build a stronger mind to be resilient against all this stuff. The goal is a submitted mind with God. OK? OK.

Awesome. So then the question, then, we're going to spend the rest of the talking about it. So how do you do that? What does that look like?

What's God's part? What's our part? That sounds good, Ben. I want that.

But the reality of my anxiety is right here. And so I'll say this about the process. It's simple, but it's not easy. The difference, saying something can sound simple, but then you think about the reality of it goes, it's not easy.

But it really is simple. And so the analogy might be like a marathon. It's like, yeah, run a marathon. I can say that in one sentence.

But the reality is that if I try to run a marathon, I'd make it to the end of the parking lot. And that's a lot harder than it sounds. My little brother ran a marathon yesterday. And the dude is a tank, and is a physical specimen, and has been training for months and months for this marathon.

And even him with all of his training, all the work, by mile 23, he's got the dead leg thing. And it's like, oh, we're going to push to the end. But it's easy. But if you knew, OK, I get that this isn't the same.

But let's just go there. If God said, if you run a marathon, I promise you, you'll have perfect peace. Wouldn't you train? Wouldn't you put in the work?

And yeah, it's going to be hard. I have to change whether I eat and I have to change. When I'm waking up and I have to build this regiment in. But wouldn't you do it?

If there was a way that God said, this is how you can have perfect peace. And you go, oh, it's just that. And there's a lot of work. But I want to commit myself to that, because I believe that you have perfect peace for me.

And we have some people in the house right now that I know have ran marathons. And they can tell you that when you get to that point, where you can do it, it's not as hard as it used to be. You can do it a lot faster. It's not intimidating.

You can grow into this. And so that's where we're going. We're going to talk about the marathon that is peace. That's possible in God.

Like I said, Philippians 4 is going to be our home base. So if you want to turn there for me, Philippians has become my favorite book of the Bible. I don't say that lightly, because there's always that like, well, who's your favorite child? And it's like, no, Philippians is my favorite book right now.

So Philippians 4, and we are going to start at the last half of verse 5, because I believe that that's imperative. So in the context, we're verses 6 and 7. Paul didn't write this book with chapters and verses. A lot of us know he was writing.

And we just segregated to the, well, it says it stops here and starts here. Sometimes we miss it. So we're going to start at the end of verse 5, and go through verses 6 and 7. Philippians 4 and verse 5 says, the Lord is at hand.

Don't be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So if you're the note-taking type, and write some stuff down here, then we'll unpack it.

So in this passage, prayer is the directive. Prayer is the action. It's really, no, it's great. Supplication, or your version might say, petition, is the posture, and thanksgiving is the context.

Prayer is the action. Supplication is the posture. Thanksgiving is the context. And before we go any further, we need to acknowledge that there's a very key phrase at the beginning of this that says in everything.

And so we cannot treat this like the lockbox access code to peace. Well, if I just follow the steps, if I pray, supplication, thanksgiving, and I get the peace of God. Paul Smart, he knows our tendency to be like that. And he says in everything.

It's so he's qualifying and saying, this is a lifestyle. This is not something that I ignore for six months. I feel anxious and then I step in and expect it to work. God can absolutely do supernatural stuff.

I'm not saying that's not possible. But this chapter right here, these verses, is talking about a lifestyle. And so we're not going to circumnavigate that lifestyle and try and pretend like it's the excess lockbox code to peace. We're going to sign up for the marathon, right?

So let's start unpacking it. It's prayer. This is why I love having the end of verse five included when we talk about this. Prayer at its most basic is connection and communication with God.

But it qualifies this by saying the Lord is near. And that's something that we need to understand at our spirit level. Remember when I talk about spirits and soul and how we identify? Your mind isn't always going to feel like the Lord's near.

Your emotions certainly won't always feel like the Lord is near. And so right at the beginning, it's saying from your standpoint, you take control. Your spirit is in charge of your soul. It says, listen up, soul, the Lord is near.

You remind yourself of the reality of the proximity of God to you. You are not your own. You're not separate. You're not removed.

The Lord is near. Sometimes this is helpful for me. I picture my soul like a younger version of myself, like little Ben. And little Ben has a lot of opinions and a lot of emotions.

But he's not in charge. And it's my job to lead him. That's like your spirit needs to lead your soul and say, nope, we're coming over here now. We're doing this.

There's all these verses where David talks to his soul and he said, I've calmed and quied in my soul like a ween child. There they are. Right? He'll command his soul and say, wake up, praise.

He's in charge. This is the spirit is in charge, right? And so in this, that's the context. And for prayer in how we communicate and connect with God.

As a spirit that knows he's with me, I'm with him, I can connect with him. I'm talking straight to him. I'm removing myself from the swirl of the vacuum, the broken mind that's going, but what if we die? My spirit goes, he's near.

And I'm going to connect with him right now. And you lead Lil U into alignment with God. So that's our prayer. And remember, this is in everything.

So why it's a marathon? I want my life to be lived through the reality of the nearness of God and my ability to connect and communicate with him and to be able to have access to him. Supplication is the posture of that. So supplication is a fancy word.

It means like a humble petition. The best picture that I found in the Bible for this is Queen Esther. Queen Esther comes to the king. She says, favorite, she knows it, but she understands he's the king and she goes in and she goes low.

She says, my king, here's what's happening to the Jewish people. Would you save them? Would you stop what you're like? There's this petition.

And so we are directed to come to God with that kind of humility and like, you have the ability to do something that I don't. This is why pride and peace are oil and water in the kingdom. You cannot have pride and expect peace. Pride says, I can do it.

I got it. And then as your little frame that was made out of dust starts to quake under the weight of 2020, you realize very quickly that your pride is inhibiting you from peace. So we come with humility going, you've got what I need. It's so OK to say, I can't do this.

Of course you can't. Of course he can. So we come with supplication. We come with humble petitions, knowing we're his favorite, knowing that we're in alignment with him, knowing that our spirit saved the Lord is near, right?

But I go low. I don't walk in and place my demands at God. I don't come in arrogantly assume that I know more than he does. This is why this is so different than you sitting in your car and venting at God.

This is Paul's qualifying. This is going, when I said like pray with supplication, here's what that means. It's not just like, and there's her, and there's him, and there's the masks, and there's the yard signs, and what's going on? We're just focusing on our fears, and we're venting.

And we call it prayer sometimes. Let's go with humility. Let's go low and in humility. Talk to God.

And then there's this amazing qualifier with Thanksgiving. Remember what that Thanksgiving is, the context? Picture it like this. There's all the things we just talked about, prayer with supplication, and you're in the landscape of Thanksgiving.

What's all around you is Thanksgiving. What you're saying is Thanksgiving. And here's why this is so freaking amazing, because psychology and the Bible are not at odds. About how important Thanksgiving is in the training of our mind to be free of anxiety.

If you go to Mayo Clinic, I have friends that have gone to Mayo Clinic to be treated for severe anxiety, and part of the prescription that Mayo says will work, is practice gratitude. Because like physiologically, here's what's happening. When you're in anxiety mode, the chemicals are raging, and you're going, right here. I might die.

I might die. I don't know what that's broken stick in the woods was, but I might die, right? Thanksgiving makes you step back, and remove yourself from the immediacy of what's going on. And you say, I'm thankful for this that happened before, and now you're using past language.

And I'm thankful for what's coming next, and now you're using future language. And now you're moving through the emotion, as opposed to being captive to it. Thanksgiving, when we apply it in this verse, when it's about God himself, it's this spiritual violence that says, man, he's done it before, he's going to do it again. And I'm even thankful right now, God, for what I'm going through, because you promised that trials would actually develop perseverance and faith in me.

And gratitude starts to build. And you start to forcibly retrain your brain, to be in alignment with the truth, not just the reality of your circumstance. Powerful, powerful stuff. It's a faith move.

And it's effective. And it's the right thing to do. And it frames everything that we're doing when we say, I'm going to, my lane is going to be Thanksgiving. My context is going to be Thanksgiving.

And then it says we present our request to God. From that place, all of that gives context. And then at that point, we present our request to God. And unfortunately, the verse doesn't go.

And then God gives you what you asked for. It'd be nice. I'd like to let you even more if it's at that. Oh, what it says is, when you do that, the peace of God, that isn't subject to your mind, that transcends understanding, that's going to actually guard your heart, your emotions, and your mind in Christ.

And if we're real, that's what we want. That's what we've been asking for. So what we're going to do now, like I said, this is a marathon. This is something that we train for.

But I would love to lead us through a little exercise, a little visualization exercise that I learned in counseling. Because yours truly has been living this for the last about six months. I've had more anxiety in my life than I've ever thought possible. I'm like the confident guy and the funny guy and all of that.

And anxiety has been trying to eat my lunch. And I've been learning how to do this. And I want to invite us into that. Because like I said, this is not a quick fix.

And I'm not in any way saying this is a formula. It's not the access code that you just get in and you get peace. I get this as a journey. A huge fan of processing what's going on, taking the time and the investment to go to counseling for trained professionals who know how to help you.

Find a Christian counselor who has done this before. It can lead you to Jesus. Because sometimes we're just stuck in our mind and we don't know how. I'm so OK with that.

But what we're doing in this moment is we're saying, I'm just wanting to practice. I'm wanting to get a feel for what it feels like to not be overcome with the reality of the anxiety of what I face. So if you're willing, when you do this little exercise with me, we're just going to walk through what we just talked about. OK?

Stephen's going to play some lovely music to help us focus. Would you close your eyes with me? I've been talking a lot. Big deep breath.

You can picture what it looks like in your mind's eye for you to see you. And when I say you, I mean that spirit part of you that is with God right now. I mean that thing that is not troubled by anxiety. I mean that part of you that doesn't have any depression, that doesn't have any worries.

There's a part of you that's with Jesus. I want you to picture what that looks like for you. The real redeemed new creation you. I want you to see yourself.

And Jesus' spirit is holding your spirit. The Lord is near. So you're right by Jesus. And I want you to look maybe 10, 15 feet away.

I want you to see your soul. Again, this is just a visualization exercise. But for me, I just like seeing like little Ben. So like a little version of yourself.

10, 15 feet away. That little person does feel a lot of anxiety. That little person has a backpack on picture that. A smaller version of yourself with a backpack on it.

It's loaded. It's real. That soul is carrying. So that mind is racing.

And I want you to walk over. You as that redeemed new creation spirit, I want you to walk over. Take the hand of that little version of yourself. And I want you to imagine walking back towards Jesus.

And as you do, there's this force field of peace. Let's just picture like a blue force field. And you lead your soul through that force field. And as you do, all of these things are trying to get through.

And you turn around and you say they're not getting through. And you tell your soul, look at this. They're not getting through. And now you and your soul and Jesus are all underneath this force field of peace.

And kneel down and look at your soul. Look at that little version of yourself and say, soul, you are safe in the peace of God. No. Soul, you are safe in the peace of God.

No. And remember this whole time, Jesus is right there. So all of you get down on your knees, maybe you're sitting down. And you as a spirit help your soul open up that backpack.

And you start to hand Jesus the anxieties and the worries that your soul's been carrying. I want you to picture him being physical, tangible objects. You reach in and you pull it out and you go, oh, I know this. And it might look even, like tangibly, again, it's a visualization exercise.

We're using our imagination through the power of the Holy Spirit. He's working with us. And I want you to, like, it might even look like, OK, I'm giving you that bill that's been sitting on my mind that I've been trying to forget about. I've been giving you this mask that represents all my anxieties about COVID.

I have this picture in my mind of that social media post about politics that really, really scared me. And I'm going to take a print out of that. I'm going to give it to Jesus. So you give these things to Jesus that he's taking them.

One at a time. I want you to hear the words of scripture in 1 Peter 5, where it says, cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. So your soul is doing this transaction. Your soul feels better.

Your soul can go and sit down and be in the peace of God guarded by this force of God. And now you, as a spirit, you're talking to Jesus now. And you get to start humbly and thankfully asking him for things. What do you want?

Your soul's resting a little bit away. And your spirit might sound something like, God, I thank you that you care. God, would you be strong? God, would you give clarity?

My soul's confused. Would you give clarity? You start asking God for things with thanksgiving. God, I remember the last time where I was so nervous that I was hyperventilating.

And I didn't die because your grace was real for me. I thank you, God, that you're powerful and you're real. God, would you be realer than my circumstances? How does Jesus respond?

Process your soul might get up and start to be anxious. Remind of your emotions might start trying to take over and you can say, soul, you're safe in the peace of God. Open your eyes and look right at me. The Lord is near in everything's prayer and supplication with thanksgiving presents your requests to God.

And the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. We need to understand that this is real. It's an exercise. It's our finite minds trying to figure it out.

But what we just went through in a small, little five-inch segment, that's real. You aren't subject to the barrage of things coming at you. There's a place of peace that transcends understanding that you can be in with Jesus and he will guard your heart and he will guard your mind. And so we're signing up.

If you want to live like this and actually have to be a reality, just like we're talking with a marathon, it might be clunky. It might be hard the whole time. You might feel like your soul is just like screaming going, but what about this and what about that? It might take work, but I have to believe that it's worth it.

And so as you're about to step into that test, you walk into the bathroom, take a minute, and you go soul your safe in the presence of God. The peace of God is actually covering you. You command your soul to come inside that force for the peace. As you're driving by and you see that yard sign, it's always been so triggering because it just makes all this stuff happen.

Your mind and your emotions start running and you say soul, come here. You're safe in the peace of God. And then you, as a, you, as the one that's been held by God, it doesn't have to worry about it. You say, Jesus, this is what we're asking for.

We need peace. We need grace and you can do that. And it takes work, but it's worth it. Let's all stand together if you're willing.

I'm gonna pray for us to commission out, but let's just take one minute while we're standing here. You pray, prayer is that connection and communication with God inside of that little safety bubble of peace. What would you say to Jesus right now? Jesus, I thank you that you came to earth and you can actually empathize with me.

You know what it feels like to be in a human body and to have your mind and your emotions running. You're the perfect high priestly and empathizing and you're seated on my behalf before the Father. You're on my side and you care about me. God, I thank you for the reality of peace that supersedes the reality of what I'm going through.

You care for me and you're with me. You're near to me, God. I thank you that you're real. I thank you that you're involved in the process.

God, I thank you that you can pursue me, that even in my weakness you can pursue me and you want me to be close to you. God, I thank you that peace is my portion. I thank you that anxiety is not something I identify with. It's something that you want to have submitted under you and you want to exchange that for peace.

You want to get perspective that actually revolutionizes the way that I live in my life. God, I thank you that for every step of this marathon, you're with me for every failed attempt, for every time where I get to the end of the parking lot and I fall over, you're right there with me because you want me to have peace. You aren't dangling a carrot out in front of me saying, come get it, come get it. You want me to have peace.

You're on my side. It's about I thank you that when I wake up tomorrow morning, peace is my portion. I thank you for a peace that supersedes the reality of my life, that transcends understanding. Father God, I thank you that Holy Spirit is in me and is near to me and I'm like drive home and as I'm going to bed tonight when I wake up tomorrow morning, there's an invitation to come under a force field of peace that can guard my heart and my mind every second of every day.

God, we leave with faith and confidence that you are who you say you are, that you're the king, that you're a father, and we leave with confidence, believing what you say is possible for us. We pray all of this in the beautiful name of Jesus, amen. Thank you guys so much. I really hope that this is something that you can continue to practice.

But for right now, go in the peace of God. See you guys next week.