Peace for the Anxious

I'm reading from Luke's Gospel chapter 12 verses 22 to 23 and that as you see is on

page 871 of the church Bibles and it's on the screen.

And he said to his disciples, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life,

what you will eat, not about your body, what you will put on.

For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.

Consider the ravens, they neither sown nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn

and yet God feeds them.

Of how much more value are you than the birds?

And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?

If then you're not able to do a smaller thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?

Consider the lilies, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon

in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown

into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith?

And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried.

For all the nations of the world seek after these things and your Father knows that you

need them.

Instead seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you.

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Sell your possessions and give to the needy.

Start yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that

does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there will be your heart be also.

May the Lord bless his reading of his word.

Amen.

All right.

Well, today is the beginning of the Christmas season, the first day of Advent, which means

the coming of Jesus Christ into the world.

Jesus came in Advent in the first century, not only to forgive us of our sins, absolutely

that, but also to bring hope and peace to our inner lives as well.

So every single one of us has a psyche, a soul.

That's who we are as people.

And Advent Christmas says that Jesus came not only to bring you the hope of forgiveness,

but also the hope of peace, peace in your inner life, peace all the way to the bottom

of your soul.

And so we talk at Christmas time about the incarnation.

Incarnation means incarnate, in flesh, the infleshment of the Son of God, that the Son

of God at Christmas took on a human body.

He took on a human nature.

He was in fleshed.

And that that has been prophesied, that was prophesied all throughout the Old Testament,

up until the coming of Christ in the first century, in the moments that we read about

in the Gospels.

And in one of the passages I mentioned at the beginning of the service, Isaiah 9, it says

that Israel at that time were a people walking in great darkness.

They were facing exile.

They were facing anguish and grief.

And it says in that prophecy, the people who walked in darkness saw a great light.

And it was in the past tense.

So it was a prophecy, but all the language was past tense.

They walking in darkness saw the great light.

And it was in past tense because they knew it to be so certain you could speak about

it almost as if it had already happened, that there would be a Messiah that was to come,

the light of the world.

Matthew chapter 4 says that Isaiah chapter 9 was all about Jesus ultimately, that in

Matthew 4 · chapter mention Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

the incarnation, Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 9.

And just after that, it gives the four great names from the Old Testament to Jesus the

Messiah.

It says that he is wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.

And the people in Isaiah's day, they needed someone who could be mighty God for them.

Somebody who could get them out of their bondage, a mighty warrior Messiah.

But they also needed wonderful counselor, someone who could actually talk and speak

to their inner lives and give them the peace that they needed and their souls in the midst

of such a time of grief and sadness and loss that they had experienced so many people around

them gone.

And today, Christmas says, Jesus Christ, the mighty God and the wonderful counselor has

come.

And what I want to do over the next four weeks, the four weeks of Advent, is focus on just

that one title, wonderful counselor.

That Jesus Christ is the wonderful counselor.

He has come to bring counseling to you, to give peace to your inner life, to come down

and meet you and exactly the problems you face in the depths of your soul and bring

you peace.

And Colossians 2.3, Paul says in the New Testament that in Jesus Christ are hidden all the treasures

of wisdom.

And a counselor, a counselor is somebody who comes alongside you and brings wisdom to your

life when you need it, who brings wisdom when you are way off the path, when your practice

is your habits, your behaviors, your inner life is completely broken.

You need a counselor and he is the wonderful counselor.

Now before we get into it today, looking at Luke 12, this word, this word wonderful, Isaiah

9.6, wonderful counselor.

People there does not mean the term in the way we often use it.

This is a time of year where we sing the lyric from Andy Williams.

It's the most wonderful, yeah, no, I'm not going to do it.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

And we love Christmas.

You probably like Christmas.

Some of, it's a wonderful time.

What we mean by that is we really like it.

It's nice.

It makes me feel good.

I like the market.

I like the Christmas market.

I like buying an 18 pound brought at the Christmas market, you know?

The word wonderful, wonderful counselor does not mean it's nice.

It's a word that actually means unexpected and overwhelming joy.

It's a word that means when you're at the very worst, you know, if you've watched some

great films in your life.

If you read a great book, oftentimes there will be a moment where things are at their

absolute worst, the darkness.

And then what Tolkien called a eukatastrophe, an unexpected turn for the good comes about.

That's what it means to say he is wonderful, unexpected wonder.

When you're walking in darkness, the counselor can give you something you don't expect,

peace.

And so let's take four weeks and look at the wonderful counselor, different episodes in

the life of Jesus and how he speaks to our souls.

And I want to look at each week, week one anxiety today, boredom, loneliness and sadness

throughout these four weeks.

So today let's think about anxiety.

We read Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Sheena read for us.

This is a scene where Jesus, the counselor, comes to speak to us about our anxieties and

Jesus Christ, like a great counselor does, treats the mind, the heart and the will, all

three parts of what a person is, their soul, mind, heart and will.

So let's look at that together.

The first Jesus counsels the anxious mind, our anxious minds.

So if you look down, you'll see at the very beginning of this passage, he gives you a

command, do not be anxious.

Now in seminary, they tell you in preaching class, in order to get to people's hearts,

you got to go through their mind.

You got to go through the intellect to get to the heart.

Jesus, the great counselor, the master teacher, he first wants to talk to your mind for a

little bit.

And the first thing he says is, here's a command.

Hear the command, do not be anxious.

And he says, I want you to think about that.

And so he uses three times, twice translated, consider this verb, consider, consider the

birds, consider the ravens, consider the lilies.

And this is a verb for reasoning, for thinking, for careful examination.

And what he's saying is, one of the first things you need to do if you're an anxious

person, if you struggle in your life with anxiety, is you need to stop whenever you struggle

and you need to think.

You need to use some arguments.

You need to talk to yourself.

You need to say, self, remember the arguments.

What are they?

The first thing is, he says, you need to think about what's happening to you in that moment.

You're anxious.

What is that?

Just a little bit later in verse 32, he says, fear not, little flock.

This is a parallel way of saying, don't be anxious.

And so Jesus immediately registers that fear and anxiety are synonyms.

Anxiety is a type of fear.

And so anxiety we see here is a state of fearfulness.

He uses the word worry.

And it's a word for him that means something like apprehensiveness because you're sort

of floating, not sure what's going to happen.

And so if you put all that together, you realize that anxiety is a bad type of fearfulness,

a state of fearfulness, where you are concerned, you're worried about the future and what might

happen to you in some type of state of loss, losing the good things that you love or never

getting the good things that you've always wanted to get.

And so it's bearing down on your heart and you're fearful.

You're in a state of constant fearfulness.

And so he says, what do you do with that?

The next thing he does, he says, now you've got to think about what you're anxious about.

And so he says, don't be anxious about your life, what you eat, about your body, what

you put on, about clothing, he goes on to say.

So immediately he then turns and says, okay, think for a second and ask yourself, what

is it that you're afraid of losing?

What is it that you're afraid of never getting?

What are you anxious about?

In this context, clearly he's concerned with material possessions and wealth, not being

able to have housing and shelter and food and drink and clothing and all that sort of

stuff.

He's talking to disciples, his disciples who he's sending out, they're poor, so they're

probably going to be prone to worry about their food and their clothing in ways that

for us is not as relevant right now in the 21st century.

In the passage just before this, he had talked to a bunch of rich people and he had given

the parable of the rich young ruler because they were so anxious about money out of greed,

out of hoarding.

One of the first things that you see, whether it's about money or something else is you

can, well when it comes to money, you can be rich and very anxious about money.

You can be poor and very anxious about money.

The same object, no matter what circumstance you're in, can capture you into a state of

fearfulness.

And so he says, are you worried about life in general?

Whatever it is, it might be money, it might be something else.

All of us have that something, that object that we're extremely fearful of.

So he says, are you worried about life?

Some of you can name the very specific object of fearfulness that gets you, that you struggle

with.

Some of you maybe often feel anxious every morning when you wake up and you're not quite

sure where to place that anxiety.

You're in a state of anxiousness, a fearfulness where you're just anxious about life and

fearfulness all the time.

And so he says, you've got to think about that and you've got to consider what is it

that I'm struggling with exactly.

But let me say, we'll see this in just a moment, that there are only actually four things you

can really be anxious about.

Just four.

And if you look at the very specific object of your anxiety in life right now, underneath

it, there's just four things to worry about, four deep things.

And they are always something like this.

Losing comfort, where you have a longing for pleasure in this life, but you might lose

it.

Losing power, where you have a longing for influence and respect.

And to be recognized as a person that matters.

Losing control, a longing that everything goes exactly the way you've mapped out in your

life plan.

Or losing approval, and this is the most important one, where you're afraid of losing a relationship

of love and value, where somebody looks at you and says, I know you and I love you.

These are really the only the four things that you can worry about.

In every object, individual object, we worry about falls into one of these four spaces,

approval, comfort, control, and power.

And so look at Jesus' argument.

This is what he says about it.

He says, now listen, when you're struggling, first you got to talk to yourself.

The great counselor Jesus says, think for a minute, consider.

What does he say?

He says, think about, consider the birds and the lilies.

So he gives a specific example of ravens and lilies, and he's arguing here from the lesser

thing to the greater thing.

And he says, if you're worried, look out at the ravens.

Could be translated crows, we don't know.

Crows, ravens, something, some kind of bird.

Not that valuable of a bird.

Nobody cares that much, right, about crows and ravens.

He could have said eagle.

No, he said, look at the crows and the ravens.

They're not the best birds even.

Look at the lilies of the field, and God adorns them with beauty.

And he says, are you not of much more value than they?

You see what he's saying?

Consider, think from the lesser to the greater.

If you look out and see the ravens and the birds and the lilies, don't you know that

God puts more value on you than them?

You see what Jesus is saying?

You've got to think and realize that if you are concerned about approval, idols of approval

in your life, you're fearful that somebody, something will not value you.

He says, think, tell yourself, you've forgotten about the Father in heaven who values you,

who approves of you, who says to you, I love you.

And then he goes on from there and he says, verse 25, his second argument, can you add

an hour to your lifespan by being anxious about it?

Okay, this is the kind of thing our parents say to us when we're teenagers.

Why are you worried about it?

Can you add a single hour to your life by being worried?

But Jesus, the master counselor here comes and says, no, of course, right, it's a rhetorical

question.

What are we doing when we're worried?

And Jesus says, think for a second, can you add time to your life if you're so afraid,

if you're so worried about your physical body, your health perhaps?

And he says, no, you're not in control.

See on the one hand, if you consider the ravens, you realize you don't need to be concerned

about approval because you've already got it.

If you look out and think about this question Jesus asked, can you add an hour to your life?

You say, I want to be in control.

I want to have my life plan go the way my life plan was meant to go.

And he says, you're not in control.

Can you add an hour to your life?

No, you've got to be free.

You've got to be free.

You've got to let God be in control.

You got to think.

You got to say to yourself, you're not in control.

You've already got the approval you need.

And then the third and final one, he says in verse 23, don't you know that life is more

than food and clothing, material wealth, circumstances?

He then appeals and says, think about the meaning of life.

Life is more than asking the question, will my life matter if I don't accomplish X, Y,

or Z?

You see what he's appealing to?

He's saying, are you afraid of losing power?

Do you think that if you don't accomplish this, if you lose this, if your career flops, that

you won't have mattered, that you won't be a person that has ever mattered?

And he says, is not life more than that?

Turn to the meaning of life itself.

He's saying, in other words, let me put it this way.

He's saying, you've got to do theology on yourself.

You've got to remember what the Father says about you.

Who the Father says you are.

How much the Father has loved you.

He's got to say, you know, he says, don't you know in verse 32 that I long to give you

the kingdom?

What do you think your life's not going to matter?

About the meaning of life much more than your career?

Secondly, Jesus, the wonderful counselor here, not only talks to the mind, but then he goes

through the mind to be a great surgeon and get down to our hearts.

And like a great surgeon, a great surgeon will cut you open.

And that is a hard thing.

But they do it in order to heal you.

And so here he goes through your mind and he's asking you to look down deep into your

heart and be exposed for a minute so that he can heal you.

And this is how he puts it down in verse 32.

Remember that he had said, do not be anxious.

It's a command.

But then the parallel verse is fear not little flock.

And when he says fear not, he's giving us the synonym for anxiety, but he's giving you

the posture that he's taken up when he's commanding you not to be anxious.

It's not do not be anxious like the Ten Commandments.

This is him saying, fear not, don't be anxious, my little one.

Jesus has gotten down on his knee here and he's got his hand on your shoulder.

And he's saying, I want you to know what peace is like in this life.

And then right after that, he turns it then it says, okay, but and I'm about to cut you

open.

And I want you to know that fear not little flock, but I'm going to do some surgery on

your heart.

And so he turns in verse 32 and 33 and he says, this is about what you treasure the most in

your life.

And so will you take a minute with me, just a couple of minutes to examine your heart

and ask the question, what is it that I love the most in this life?

What are the treasures that I long for above everything else?

That's the question Jesus brings you to, to open your heart up today.

And this is what he's saying.

He's saying, when you examine your heart, if you struggle with anxiety, anxiety is like

smoke rising up from the forest.

And you've got to trace that smoke down to where the fire really is.

Anxiety is a symptom.

Anxiety is a sign.

It is smoke coming up from the wilderness.

And you've got to go to the bottom and find the fire.

And at the bottom, you will find in the depths of your heart, whatever little thing, little

object, little love that you are sacrificing to, that you're worshiping down at the bottom

of the smoke of anxiety.

And he's asking us to ask ourselves, what is it that we treasure the most in this life?

What is it that we love the most in this life?

And so he turns to this issue of verse 33, this illustration with money bags.

And he's talking here about idolatry.

Idolatry, idolatry is treasuring something in this world more than treasuring God.

And John Calvin put it so well in the time of the Reformation.

He writes in his famous book, The Institutes.

The human heart is an idol-making factory, perpetually just churning idols out, 24-7.

Jesus says in verse 33, he says, if I can find it, here it is, sell your possessions

and give to the needy, provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old.

What is he saying here?

He's saying that a money bag is the thing in your life that you love the most.

And whatever it is, if it's your career and finding meaning and approval through the obtaining

of power and wealth, if it's a person's approval, if it's that relationship that you seek, that

you long for the most, whatever it is, whatever is most important to you, eventually there's

going to be a little tear in the bottom of the money bag.

Money bags in the first century are just purses and everybody would carry one around and you

would put your treasures into your money bag, just like we might do today prior to the digital

age.

And he's saying that these money bags were made out of leather and things like that,

and eventually it's going to get a tear in the bottom of it.

And so the more you put into this thing that you love, eventually a hole is going to get

ripped in it and everything is going to fall out.

You're going to put your time, you're going to put your talent, you're going to put your

treasure into this thing that you've made the great object of your desire, but all the

money is just falling out on the road, all the inputs, all the value you've given it.

If you put your greatest loves in anything in this life, any creaturely object, a person,

a career, then you're going to be just dumping your money out on the ground.

It's never going to satisfy you.

It's never going to fulfill you.

You're never going to store up for yourself great treasure in your soul that will never

go away.

That's what he's saying here.

In 2018, I read recently this interview from Jim Carrey.

There's an interview series called The Talks.

I think it's actually a German company that does these interviews with different important

people.

And in 2019, they interviewed Jim Carrey, the great comedian, the actor, and they asked

him at the beginning of this interview, are you spiritual?

And for the rest of the interview, he kind of worked through that question.

And this is what he ended up saying.

He said, it's a shock when you have accomplished everything you ever dreamt of and even more.

And then you realize that you're unhappy.

You realize, my gosh, it is not about this.

And he said, I wish for everyone to be able to accomplish all their dreams.

He says, I really wish that every single person would accomplish all those things they think

they want most.

I think everyone should get rich or whatever else that they desire just so that they can

finally see that that will not be the answer for them.

Another person said it like this, if you find that there are desires in your life that have

no object, that there is no object in this world that can satisfy them, then that has

to mean that you were made for a bigger and better world.

Now, do this exercise with me and we'll move to the final point.

Examine your heart for a moment and ask this.

Let me ask you this.

What do you love more than God that makes you afraid in this life, afraid of losing?

What is it that if you lost it, if you never got it, you would feel like your life was

valueless, meaningless?

All of us have an idol.

What is it?

Let me ask you this.

Let me just say this way.

You have little faith.

What little faith are you putting in a little object in this life?

Here's a test.

Life is meaningful.

Life is worth it.

If I have power and influence over others, life is meaningful.

Life is worth it.

If I'm respected, life is meaningful.

If I'm loved by the person that I think is most lovely, life is meaning if I have pleasure

experiences in my life more often than pain experiences.

Life is meaningful if I'm able to control my wealth.

Life is meaningful if there is someone there to protect me and be my number one person.

Life will only be meaningful if I'm free from obligations and responsibilities.

If I'm highly productive.

If I'm known by other people as a good person who adheres to my principles.

Life will only be meaningful if I am a free thinker, totally independent of traditional

religion.

Life will only be meaningful if I'm known as the smartest person in every room I walk

in.

If people say to me, you do a good job.

If my children are happy and doing really well.

If other people know my children are happy and are doing well.

Life is meaningful only if Mr. and Mrs. Wright is in love with me.

If I'm known as a person who, life is meaningful if I'm known as the person who is always suffering,

always the victim.

Life is only meaningful if my political or social cause is making progress.

If my body looks a particular way.

If I'm called beautiful.

And if I don't get these things, I fear loss.

I fear never gaining.

I fear humiliation.

I fear rejection.

I fear irrelevance.

Let me give you an insight to ministry anxiety that I think every minister struggles with.

I think to some degree every pastor in the world who's ever been a minister has yet to

beat anxiety fully.

And they've yet to beat it because they think every single week at the bottom of their soul,

even if it doesn't come up into their mind, am I going to show up to church this week

and nobody be there?

Now I once heard our previous minister say that from the pulpit.

He said, I wonder every week am I going to show up and nobody be here?

I planned to say that, but I didn't know that that minister was going to be here today.

So it's a little awkward, but no.

But it's exactly the right, the ministry secret, the not so secret ministry secret is that

every pastor struggles to some degree with thinking, am I doing this so that I can be

told good job at the end of every Sunday?

Am I doing this so I can see more people here than a year ago?

And when a person in ministry gets to that place in their soul, they have made their

money bag into being a person that's respected, into being a person that's successful, right?

And they're dropping change down weekend and week out and it's just falling empty on the

ground.

Never fulfilled.

Why?

Because we're going to preach bad sermons.

That's why.

You know it'll never fulfill you because you're going to get up here one day and you're going

to preach a terrible sermon.

Of course.

Always good music, sometimes okay preaching, right?

And if you live in whatever it is that you keep dropping your treasures into as your

ultimate source of satisfaction, it will leave you empty.

You are empty.

You're feeling it.

Chasing and chasing and chasing.

So finally, what do we do?

How do we change?

Jesus not only talks to your mind and says you got to think.

He not only gets down to the bottom of your heart and ask you, have you really looked

at yourself?

Because if you're not pulling the weeds of idolatry, they are always growing.

And then finally he says, now let me talk to your will.

So what does he say?

He says in verse 30, he says just after that, seek first the kingdom of God.

So that's seek.

That's a verb pointed at the will.

You got to do something.

Seek.

Pursue the kingdom of God first.

Above these little objects of devotion and worship.

And let me just close by giving you four quick things you can do to do this.

First.

First is if you're going to seek the kingdom of God and fight the anxious thoughts in your

life, find peace.

First you got to see the truth about who you are.

You got to let yourself be exposed.

And in verse 30, he adds this little line, you know, don't you know friends that all

the nations pursue these things?

All the Gentiles pursue these things?

He's in other words, he's saying, look, don't you know that everybody is out there doing

the same thing?

Putting objects in this life they think will satisfy them?

That's what everybody does.

In other words, he's saying the pagans do it, meaning it's the default.

And you've got to know that is my default.

If you've not yet come to a place where you can register, it is my default to chase things

in this life and love them more than God.

He says you got to get there.

You've got to be willing to say that.

You got to be willing to say, I'm always sliding back to idolatry.

I'm pulling weeds or the weeds are coming back.

Always.

He says, seek first the kingdom.

The kingdom of God is his way of talking about God through Jesus gathering his people in

his ultimate place, the new heavens and the new earth under his ultimate power with peace.

And he says here in other words that the only way you're going to fight, beat anxiety and

bring peace into your life is if you seek to train your affections right now, it's been

said many times, the only way to beat anxiety is by replacing whatever it is you love most

with a greater thing to love, a bigger affection.

Our dear friend, our forerunner in the free church, Thomas Chalmers in the 19th century

wrote one little famous sermon that is the most famous thing that probably that's ever

come out of our tradition.

He called it the the explosive power of a new affection.

And he says the only way that you're going to expel a power that does not fix you and

satisfy you is to bring in a better affection, a new affection to replace your distorted

objects of love with a greater object of love.

And Jesus is saying that object of love has got to be the kingdom.

God, his power, his reign, his people, the land that he is bringing, the peace that he

offers.

Thirdly, Christmas, that means can be a time where you really feel the reality of those

misplaced desires.

You really feel pain and loss in the season quite often.

Anxieties come up more than ever, maybe during Christmas time.

And today to seek first the kingdom, and this is the most important thing, lift up your

head, lift up the head that's down in the bottom of your soul and look and look at Jesus

and know that he really is the mighty God and wonderful counselor.

Meaning, look, you need a counselor today.

You need somebody to come alongside and walk with you through your fears.

But you also need that very same person to be mighty God.

You can have a good counselor in this life.

We need that.

We all need that.

We're recognizing more in our 21st century how much we need counseling.

But all of our earthly counselors cannot be mighty God.

And that's why Jesus is the wonderful counselor, not just another counselor.

And you've got to lift up the eyes of your heart and see this, that is mighty God and

wonderful counselor.

Look at the cross.

Are you struggling with approval?

Thinking if I lose this, I don't know if anybody's going to know me and love me.

But lift up your eyes and look at the cross and realize that Jesus Christ, the Son of

God came into this world to say, I know you, I see you, and I love you right through your

son.

You have approval.

And look at the cross and realize, you know, do you think, I just want to be comfortable

in this life.

I just want pleasures all the time.

He says to you, look, you've got to understand.

The reality of sin and disease and death and know that at my right hand, there are pleasures

forevermore.

Put that away in this life.

That's coming only in him.

You want power.

You want to mean something.

You want to be a person that matters.

You want to accomplish something in this life.

He says to you, son and daughter, prince and princess, you will inherit the nations.

You will rule the land when he comes.

If you want control, there is nothing more freeing to lift up your eyes at the cross

and see at the moment that Jesus died, it was not an accident.

God was in utter control.

There's nothing more freeing than to let go of control in this life and to say, I'm just

not in charge.

This is God's world.

I'm not in charge.

Look at the cross and realize God's immeasurable affection for you today and know that despite

your idolatries, despite you running from him, despite the fact that you're anxious about

everything, God does not come and point his finger at you today.

He comes with open arms.

He comes with his hands out and says, fear not, little flock.

Jesus Christ has died for you.

The incarnation has happened.

The light of the world has come.

Peace is available to you.

And then lastly, I think one way to conclude this is to say he's inviting us here to see

that the meaning of life is much more than often what we make it in our day to day.

And this Christmas, let me just invite you to re-initiate, to initiate for the first

time maybe and ask yourself the question, what is the point of this life?

Is not life more than chasing the stuff we chase after?

And here's, if I could put this whole sermon, this whole, I think, passage into one sentence,

this is it, and we'll close.

The degree to which your ultimate love is pointed at something you can lose is the degree

to which you will always be fearful.

The degree to which your loves in this life are pointed at things you can lose is in proportion

to how much fearfulness you will walk in.

But if you make your ultimate love something that cannot be lost, you don't have to be

afraid.

Isaiah 55, why spend money on what is not bread?

Here's God's invitation to you.

Why spend your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest affair

forever.

Let us pray.

Father, we ask that you would give us peace.

We just pray, Father, I pray for the anxious today and ask Lord Jesus, wonderful counselor,

that you would bring peace in the lives of many this morning.

We know that it's not a button that we press, that it's a long battle, and so we recognize

that this morning.

We ask that you would give us the tools to fight until Jesus comes again through the

life of the mind and the heart and the will, Lord, point us ultimately to seeing the cross

and all that it means for the hope of peace.

And so I pray over folks today who are very anxious and ask Lord Jesus, by the spirit

that you would bless them with great peace.

And we pray that in Jesus' name.

Amen.