Anxiety // Your Brain In Your Bible

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Hey man, Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Movement Church. I'm

Richie Fike, and we are concluding our series called Your Brain and Your Bible.

This morning we are covering what's a subject that has given me? It

made me very anxious, and the subject is anxiety. So it's appropriate.

I've been thinking a lot about this and learning a lot about this, and

studying a lot about this, and today we're gon we're gonna cover three very

famous passages in your Bible about the subject of anxiety. I'm going to give

you just a little preview before we get deep into this and just let you

hear. We're going to hear from Peter, Paul, and Jesus today.

So here's what Peter has to say. Right off the bat about anxiety,

he says this, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so

that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all how many,

all of your anxieties on him because He cares for you. Paul says this,

do not be anxious. Just don't do it about anything, but in

everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made

known to God. And Jesus famously said in Matthew six. Therefore I tell

you do not be anxious about your life. That's a pretty big category about

your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, or about

your body, what you're going to put on, and which of you by

being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life. So

we're going to cover those three passages and look a little deeper into the context.

I have to admit to you that, you know, up until about

the seventh year of my marriage with Dana Pike, I kind of had a

little bit of maybe what you might perceive in some of these scriptures, a

little attitude about anxiety, which was, hey, just stop, like just

stop being anxious, Like just stop it. Why don't you just it's not

good for you. Stop it. That was my attitude. And then Dana

and I we went to some counseling together and found out that my wife was

basically she was told that she has clinical anxiety. And that's an important term

to think about today, clinical anxiety. We're going to talk about that a

little bit. Once I've found out about what clinical anxiety is, it totally

changed my tune. It totally changed my attitude, and it made me more

sensitive and more compassionate, more empathetic towards people that are walking through this problem.

There's a little thing in your brain. It's about the size of an

almond, and it's called the amygdala. If I know about the amygdala,

okay, good. So it's about the size of an almond, and it

can make you nutty. And so it's it's just one of those things.

Now. Now here's the deal. I kind of want to redeem the word

anxiety today just a little bit when in regards to our body and the way

the Lord made us, because the amygdala serves actually a really important function for

you and for me. The amygdala what it does for us is it tells

us danger trouble. You know, it's there's there's a problem on the scene.

High alert, read alert. It tells the body. It tells the

heart to start pumping so that we can get blood into our limbs, so

that we can either knuckle up or buckle up. We can either fight or

fight right one of the two. If you think about it, and this

is the way my friend Rebecca taught me. If you think about a zebra,

okay, out in the African safari, and a zebra senses the presence

of a lion, the amigdala says, we're not singing Hakuna matata today.

Okay, this is danger, this is a problem. And so the heart

starts pumping, blood goes through the limbs, and that little zebra cake just

just gets out of there. Man, that zebra is on the run,

and hopefully he's faster than the lion or further enough away. The same thing

is true for us. That's what the amigdala does. It tells us danger

trouble. Think about what your life would be like if you didn't have an

amigdala. It'd be short. It'd be very short, because you wouldn't recognize

trouble when it was upon you. You would just think everything's a friend.

Oh what's that big train coming? Oh? I think I'll say be friends

with it. No boom, right, the Mignola says, get out of

the way. So it's a very important part of our brain. But clinical

anxiety is when, for a person that's struggling with this, everything is a

lion. Clinical anxiety is when every little thing, every big thing, every

imaginary thing, every possible thing is weighing on you all the time and you

can't think straight. Can you imagine the kind of tension that your body would

be in all the time. It's not just a mental thing. It becomes

a physical thing. If danger is all around you all the time. Now,

here's what's important to know that when they're living like this, what ifs

become as real as what's happening. The imaginary threats are as dangerous to them

as the real ones. They can't tell the difference between a prairie dog and

a predator, a shadow and an actual lion. It does. It's all

the same to them. That's what clinical anxiety is. It's organ failure,

your brain not functioning the way it was meant to function. It's a problem

that's happening inside of your brain and it's serious. It's really really important now

I said in week one, and I'll continue to say this that I genuinely

believe. And by the way, we just sang it in the song Same

God. I still believe that God is a healer. And so if you're

here today or you're watching this online or hearing it on the podcast and you

say, man, fake, you just described my whole life. That's what

my whole life has been like. I never had words for what it was.

Okay, you need help. The end of the bumper is intense,

it's serious. I need help. And this is a moment for you to

lift your hand and say, look, I can't keep living like this,

and God doesn't want you to keep living like this. Okay. So if

you came to me and you said this is my reality, the first thing

I would say is let's stop and pray. Let's stop right now, pray

why Because I believe that God is still a healer. I believe that He

absolutely can heal you of this dysfunction one hundred percent. And if you believe

that, would you say, amen, fully believe this, and I fully

believe that you should go seek professional help, licensed professional And I would say,

Christian counseling. Find someone who can help you make sense of what's going

on with your thinking, with your mind, with your Amigdala and you know

what we've learned, Dana and I And we're going to talk about this a

lot today in Another Thing podcast. I hope you've been watching that connecting with

that. We've been hearing a lot of good feedback about that series. You

can find it on our YouTube page. But we're going to talk in depth

today about this issue about clinical anxiety and what it feels like and what it's

experienced like. But what Dana has learned and what I've learned with her,

is that there is certain medication that can sort of level her out and help

her to get to where she can make sense of what's a prairie dog,

what's a predator, what's a shadow, what's a lion? And it helps

her to make sense of that because without it, she's living on an unlevel

playing field. This right here is what Dana's life is like. It's an

unlevel playing field. She's kicking the ball uphill all day long. And so

the medication what it does for her is it levels her out and it allows

her to live like we live just kind of on a level playing field.

And I love the word level. I love to use a level in my

house. So everybody have a level in your house. The little bubble.

I love that bubble. It's my favorite little bubble. I love it because

I'm really bad at hanging up pictures, but that little bubble helps me.

It helps me to get a level playing field. And once we get to

that place, man, once we're all level, then we're all on the

same page. And that's as much as I'm going to say today about clinical

anxiety. Because you need help, we want to help you with it.

By the way, I said this all three weeks. If you are experiencing

this and you can't afford help, we want to help you pay for your

first five visits with a licensed professional Christian counselor. Now no one has taking

us up on that offer yet. I guess that means none of us are

having any mental problems, congratulations, or all of us can afford to handle

it ourselves. That's great too. But listen, if you just haven't lifted

your hand yet because you're nervous about it, you're embarrassed about it, please

let today be the day that you say, you know what, I do

need help, I am going to pursue help. Let today be the day

that you do that. Once we get to a level playing field, man,

we have a different conversation. It is a different conversation about anxiety.

This sermon, just so you know, I want to forewarn you, I'm

gonna go from preaching to meddling. Okay, I'm gonna be all up in

your business today. Okay, I need you to get ready for it,

because what we're going to talk about today is not clinical anxiety. We're going

to talk about what I'm calling over the counter anxiety, regular, normal,

everyday human anxiety. And I think that that kind of anxiety is the kind

of anxiety that both Peter, Paul and Jesus are talking about in those passages

we talked about. Over the counter anxiety is not so much a medical or

mental condition. It's more of a spiritual dysfunction. Over the counter anxiety is

evidence of the same thing that often keeps us from God, that hunger that

we have in our souls for control, that desire that all of us have,

that in the face of trouble, we want to take charge. We

either want to fight or we want to fight one of the two, but

we know that we're gonna take the wheel. Jesus, I got the wheel.

That's what this thing is. That's what anxiety is. See. Clinical

anxiety is about can't. Over the counter anxiety is about won't. I told

you I was going to be in your business right over the counter anxiety is

about won't. It's a hidden belief kind of in the back corner of our

lives that says, you know what, I think I know what's best.

Actually, I think I know the plans I have for me, says the

fight right like I think I know what's best for me. That's what happens.

It's one thing for us to pray about a problem, for us to

say the Lord, okay, Lord, I got this issue. My Migdala's

pinion a little bit telling me that there's a problem. I see the problem.

It is a lion. I'm going to tell you today what I'm gonna

do about this problem. Okay, Lord, here's what I'm gonna do.

Now, would you bless my efforts? We do that. That's how we

pray. We don't mean to, but these are kind of things and attitudes

that we have versus saying, Lord, I got this problem mymigdala's pinion.

I'm freaking out. That's a lion. I don't think I'm fast enough.

Will you help me? I need help? Right? That is the difference

between praying about a thing and surrendering and trusting a thing to God over the

counter. Anxiety is not sin, but it is evidence of distrust. It's

evidence that you think that your way is best. It's not evil. Anxiety

is not evil human, but it is evidence of a lack of confidence in

the Lord. And we got to look in the mirror of this thing.

We got to interrogate this thing today, because anything that we choose to be

anxious about is something we've chosen not to entrust to Him, to the sovereign

hand of a holy God. Am I in your chilli yet? Are you

okay? Everybody all right? The two hardest words that Jesus ever spoke,

he spoke them all the time, a lot of times totally out of context.

Just walked up to strangers and said two words that changed their lives.

He said these two words, follow me, follow me. Well, if

I'm going to follow you, then that means I don't get to decide where

we go. You do. If I'm going to follow you, it means

I don't get to make all the choices I'm asking you to say, to

tell me where to go, when to go, what pace to walk,

all of that. Jesus man, he knows our brains and he knows how

they function, and he knows our souls and he knows how they're supposed to

function. These two words follow me are the two most important words that Jesus

says to us, because if we can learn how to do this, and

we will live a victorious, overcoming life because he won't lead us into failure.

He'll lead us into victory. That's who he is. We were made

to function in proper relationship with God, and this is what proper is.

He leads the way and we follow. That's proper. He guides the path,

we take the steps, and you have to take that step. Every

time, I figured out that my least favorite verse in the whole Bible,

the verse that I can't stand the most I just can't stand it is the

one that says that your word, O Lord, is a light unto my

feet. Well, I'm a light unto my path. What I wish it

said, was your light? Your word, O, Lord, is a

light unto my field that I could see everything. But no, I only

get to see this next step, and I have to take it. I

have to take that next step. He can't take that step for me,

right, And so he says, here's the next step? Will you follow

me? Yes? Lord, that's what it feels like, that's what it

looks like. Over the counter soul level anxiety is evidence that we don't really

trust that His way is best, and so all of us need to interrogate

this condition and all of us need to heal. This has been our acronym

throughout the whole series. It's an acronym. Each letter means something, so

harm, evidence, antidote, and lifelines. So that's what we're going to

work through today, is we talk about over the counter anxiety because all of

us need to heal from this. Okay, so let's talk about harm.

How do we name what is out of place in us? We talk about

the harm of over the counter anxiety. Well, the spiritual harm of anxiety

is super clear. It creates a distance between us and God. You ever

heard the phrase if you feel distant from God who moved right? He doesn't

move. He doesn't change. We move, we separate ourselves from him.

So when I choose to worry about the troubles of my life, I'm choosing

not to release them into the hands of God. I'm choosing to do things

my way. And that's the harm. Because all of us that have become

a Christian, and if you're not here today, have encouraged you to consider

becoming a Christian. But if you're a Christian, you remember what life was

like before Jesus. You remember what decision making was like. Before Jesus.

It was like this. Instead of getting God's best answer, you were left

with your best guess. That's not a good way to live. But this

issue, this condition right here, has become the resting heartbeat of our culture.

It's become cultural that we live this way. Instead of getting God's best

answer, we're left with our best guess. And everybody's making guesses everywhere all

the time, and we're exposed to all their best guesses, and it's making

nutty. There's a book called The Anxious Generation by an author named Jonathan Hate.

That's how you say his name. It's an unfortunate last name. He's

an atheist and you should watch. I would encourage you to go look for

his interview on The Daily Show a couple of weeks ago and what he talked

about in regards to Christianity. It's fascinating stuff. But this guy wrote a

book about the anxious generation, which is Generation Z. So my son Justice,

who was up here doing the announcements and what's coming for Generation Alpha are

kids that are up there in the room. What he would say is somewhere

around twenty thirteen or fourteen, a shift happened. All of a sudden,

The numbers for depression and anxiety and self harm and suicide went through the roof

in twenty thirteen fourteen. And what he suggests is that it was kind of

a twofold tragedy. He says, it's a tragedy in two acts. My

generation Generation X, we trained our kids and I didn't do this, but

many people I know did. But we trained our kids to be sort of

secure from any kind of pain. We are the generation that invented the participation

trophy. Okay, we invented it because we didn't want any kids to feel

the pain of not being first place. Everybody's good because everybody participated. So

then those kids when they get into the real world and they find out that

life is a meritocracy and you actually need to perform at your job, they

go, wait a minute, where's the participation trophy? Right, So then

depression starts. All that kind of stuff happened. So that's the first part.

Parents protected their kids from harm. And the second thing is while they

were being protected from the harms of the world, they were being exposed through

the internet, through their phones, through smartphones, and in particular, Jonathan

Haate says that the moment that there was a self facing camera, everything changed.

The moment that you could take a video of yourself and watch yourself do

it, everything changed. And then what came with that was social media.

Now, every generation has had its own sense of anxiety. My grandparents the

greatest generation, right, they suffered through parents that walked through the Great Depression.

You talk about a reason to have anxiety. What are we going to

eat tonight? We don't know, okay, And then they walked through World

War One, World War two. My parents' generation had anxiety about the draft

because many of their you know, people, their peers didn't want to be

in that fight, and they were nervous that their name was going to get

called our generation. I don't know. I mean, we were nervous about

like Nintendo, that's all we were really worried about. I mean, I

really needed to beat Super Mario three. It really mattered that I found that

warp, you know, it really really mattered anyway. But we struggled.

I mean I remember as a kid, I didn't have really any barriers on

me. I mean, my mom and dad watched this YouTube every week,

and they will testify that this is true. The only rule that I had

when I was growing up was be home before the street lights. That's right.

Now. Our generation heard about people abducting children. We heard about these

kinds of things, and so we put trackers on our kids to make sure

that no one is ever going to harm them. Right, So this is

what has happened. But this anxious generation, this gen Z, these people

who were they were secured from physical harm but exposed to the harm of the

world, he says. Jonathan Hay says that the anxious generation has grown up

with the world at their fingertips, and here's the problem. They can't discern

the difference or the distinction between all the things that are coming at them all

the time. So when gun violence breaks out in a school, they see

it and it's as real to them as if it were happening in their school.

When a war breaks out in Ukraine, they take up a charge for

these people because it matters to them as much as anything. When Jennifer Lopez

and Ben Affleck break up, it matters to them, like Bennefer's in trouble.

Do you know this, Dad, Benefer's in trouble? Right When all

of a sudden people think that there's aliens in Miami? Do you remember this?

A couple of months ago, they go, Dad, there's aliens in

Miami. It's as real to them as anything. And this is crazy what's

happening right now on the internet. I don't know if you know about this,

but there's this whole theory about Stevie Wonder. Do you know about this?

There's this whole theory about whether or not Stevie Wonder is actually blind.

Did you know this? Millennials and gen Z's are going crazy about this issue.

They really believe that Stevie Wonder's been lying to us for all these years.

And it happened at the Grammys. It happened at the Grammys at the

end of a performance. Lady Gaga was doing a performance and at the end

of it, she blows a kiss right here to Stevie Wonder and he blows

a kiss back. Now, how does Stevie Wonder know that Lady Gaga blew

a kiss at him? How did that happen? I want you to watch

it again, and I want you to watch this kid that's sitting next to

him. Watch this kid, he's as confused as we are. Watch this

now. I got to blow up with this kid because he's awesome. Look

at his face. He's like, did Stevie Wonder just blow a kiss at

Lady Gaga? Right? But here's what we don't see the unedited version.

And I want you to watch the woman that's standing next to Stevie Wonder.

This time. What happens is the lady's standing next to Stevie Wonder says to

Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga blew you a kiss, and then Stevie Wonder blows

the kiss back. Okay, so Stevie Wonder is blind, Okay, case

closed. Anyway, The point is this anxious generation can't tell the difference between

what's the most important and what's the least important because it's all coming at him

all the time, and so it's giving them too much reason to worry,

too many people to compare themselves to, and too little time to process the

information feeding into their timelines. And that phrase feeding into their timelines. What

is feeding our kids? What is feeding this anxious generation? And guess what,

moms and dads, parents, adults in the room, we're guilty to

We're looking at our phones just as much as they are. I know you

don't want to admit it, but we are. We're just as connected,

just as addicted, just as needy of that sort of dopamine hit that we

get from the phone. It's affecting all of us. And so because of

that, the pace and the patterns of our world, they're devouring us from

the inside out. They're causing us to choose to fight or to flight all

the time. And it's troublesome. And you know why the pace and the

patterns of the world are devouring us because of the one that's in charge of

the world, the enemy, the devil. He is in charge of this

world, and he's running it off a cliff, that's what he's doing.

And so that's the harm. What is the evidence. What's the evidence of

anxiety in our lives? What's the evidence of anxiety in your life? Throughout

this whole series, I've been giving you tons and tons of stats, right,

statistic after statistic. There many people that that many people. I'm not

going to give you any stats. I just want to ask you two questions

and then you can interrogate your own heart. Want to ask you this question

when you are faced with trouble, what do you do more? Do you

pray more? Or do you worry more? Which do you spend the most

of your time on? Another way to ask is which do you do more?

Do you trust God? Or do you fix things on your own?

Which do you do more? That's the evidence of anxiety in your life?

And I mean, I can't know your thoughts right now, I can't know

your heart right now, but he does and you do. So interrogate yourself

and ask yourself these questions because the evidence that anxiety has an outsized impact on

your life is the ratio difference between your prayer life and your worry life,

your surrender life and your I got this life, your belief to stand up

against the fight, or your willingness to run at every sense of trouble.

Our brains tell us that it's time to choose fight or flight. You got

two options, that's all you got. There's a lion. You got two

options, fight or flight. But the life of a Christian is marked by

a different F word. Just wanted to pause there for a moment. It's

marked by a different F word, and we're going to talk about what that

word is. First, let's hear from Peter. Now, this is a

guy, Peter, who was an expert both on fighting and flighting. Right

when they came to arrest Jesus, Peter pulls out his sword. He cuts

a dude's ear off right, and he's like, I'll fight for you,

God, I'll fight for you Jesus. Jesus has to put the ear back

on the guy and heal him and then put his chains on and go to

jail. And so you know, he loved to fight. But then just

a few hours later, a little servant girl said, hey, do you

know that Jesus guy? And what did Peter do? He flighted, he

denied the lord. So Peter is an expert on fighting and flighting, and

he would say to us that as a Christian. There actually is a third

option. He says, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God,

so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties

on him because He cares for you. Listen to this, He says,

be sober minded, be watchful, because your adversary, the devil, prowls

around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him. Firm

in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by

your brotherhood throughout the world. Here's what Peter's saying. He's saying, you're

not imagining it. That's a lion. It's real. That's not a prairie

dog. That's a predator. That's not a shadow. That's a lion.

And the thing that you're amygdala is telling you. It's not lying to you.

It's telling you the truth. You are up against a very difficult adversary

this moment in your life, this obstacle, this opportunity, is your chance

to choose what you're gonna do. And he says, to be firm.

And this is our f word. Firm in our faith. Firm in our

faith. The antidote that we're going to talk about today is faith. An

antidote is an elixir that counteracts a poison. Anxiety is a poison, and

faith is an antidote. Even when Paul says what he says in Philippians,

he's saying kind of the same thing. He says, do not be anxious

about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,

let your request be made known to God. You have a different option.

You neither need to knuckle up and get ready for a fight and do it

yourself, or buckle up and fly as fast as you can away from this

thing. He says, you have a different option. It's interesting to me

to juxtapose Paul versus Peter because Paul is saying, look, don't be anxious,

and Peter says casting all your anxieties, which I really love that,

because Peter's like, I'm not going to tell you not to be anxious.

You're going to be anxious. It's how your brain works, it's how it's

supposed to work. So I'm not going to tell you not to be anxious,

but I am going to tell you what to do with your anxiety.

I'm going to tell you where to take it. Paul tells us not to

be anxious. Peter says, cast all your anxiety upon Jesus. And so

what I'm saying is that a Christ follower is no longer constrained to either fighting

or flighting. We can utilize a different F word, and that F word

is faith. Faith. It's a powerful word. It's the antidote to anxiety.

And what we need to do, what we need to do, what

we need to learn to do together is we need need to learn to feed

our faith and starve our anxiety. That's what we need to learn to do.

And let me tell you, I hate it when preachers say things like

what I just said and then just like close the sermon. You know what

you need to do is feed your faith and starve your anxiety. Let's pray.

Because I'm sitting out in the audience going, oh, I don't know

how to do that, right, And so that's what we're going to talk

about. How do we do that? And that's why we use the L

for lifelines. What methods can we practice to maintain mental health? What does

it look like for us to fight against to bring the antidote against anxiety,

which is faith? How do how do we apply it to our lives.

I'm gonna give you four rs, because if they all start with ur,

you'll remember them, right, yes, true, yes, and you'll write

them down in your notebooks. Yes, everybody, you'll pull out your phone

and pull your notes out, notes app out, and you'll write this down.

Yes, everybody, nobody, Okay, all right, So for ours,

and the first one is remember remember now. We showed a video a

moment ago about Memorial Day. Memorial Day is the time every year when Americans

have put it on their calendar to remind themselves to remember. Right Today,

this day, I'm going to remember those people that fought for me. I'm

named after both of my grandpas, Thomas Fike and Buford Richardson. I'm glad

I'm not Thomas Bufford. I'm Thomas Richardson. Fight. Both of those men

served in World War Two and they both survived and they came back, but

they both lost comrades, friends, guys that they got to know during the

war. Memorial Day is a time when we choose to remember. We discipline

ourselves to remember right. The same as true in Christianity, we're supposed to

remember what the Lord has done for us. Remember how He saved us.

Remember what our trajectory was and what our trajectory is. Right. Remember,

oh yeah, the last time I was in trouble, I said, Lord,

will you help me? And he helped me. Right. Remember who

he is, what he does. Remember every time he's provided, every time

he's protected, every time he's shown you his heart. Remember those things.

And by the way, this idea remembering what God did for us is all

throughout the Bible. This is a word that is woven through scripture. You

know why, because we're not good at it, as human beings were really

bad at remembering God, especially in the face of trouble. In Chronicles,

it says, remember his marvelous works which he has done, his wonders,

his judgments. In Psalms, David says, I will remember. It's like

he's trying to convince us that he's going to do this. I will remember

the deeds of the Lord. I will remember your wonders of old. He

says, you are the God who works wonders. You have made known your

might among the people. And then just a few chapters later, he says

this to his own self, Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget

not his benefit. So this David who says I will remember, has already

forgotten, and he's telling himself, I need to remember. Thank God for

this because it allows for us to be human too. Right, Paul was

so good about remembering and reminding us of where we were headed and now where

we're headed. He says, once you were slaves of sin, but now

you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we've given you. Now you are free from your

slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living. And of

course, when Jesus broke bread with his guys the night before he was betrayed,

what did he say? Every time you get together, do this in

remembrance of me? Man. Remembering is powerful if you want to feed your

faith and starve your anxiety. First things first, remember who God is,

what He's done. The second one is rejoice, Rejoice, rejoice in the

Lord. I love this word. I love what it means. In week

one of this series, I told you about the right orbital prefrontal cortex,

the right orbital prefrontal cortex, and I told you that the idea of this

is that when we are little babies, sweet little babies we are scanning the

world for faces that tell us to whom we belong, people that smile at

us, people that have joy when they see us. I told you that

we are formed by faces, and we are fed by joy. That's the

way the right orbital prefrontal cortex works. I also told you that woven through

scripture there is the narrative of the face of God. And so what we

are to learn from this is God made us the way He made us,

so that we would be formed in the image of the one that we are

looking at the most, that we would be formed in the image of the

face of God, and that we would rejoice in him, that his joy

in us, the joy of the Lord, would be our strength. Not

the joy of my parents, not the joy of my kids, not the

joy of my wife. The joy of the Lord is my strength. And

so rejoice, rejoice. That's what joy is. Every time we remember what

He's done and who he is, we respond by rejoicing. Paul says this,

rejoice in the Lord, how often always, And then he says again,

I will say, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. The practice so nice

he named it twice. Why do you think Paul had to say it twice,

though, Why do you think Paul had to tell you twice to rejoice

in the Lord because you're gonna forget, because it's not normal for us to

do that. We're on to the next thing. Rejoice. A good way

to feed your anxiety is to forget the ways the Lord has shown you who

he is. And a good way to feed your faith is to remember and

worship him. So remember, rejoice. Here's the third one. Relinquish.

Relinquish it means surrender, it means in trust, it means embrace His way

is better than mine. Relinquish. I think this right here is why Jesus

was so fast fascinated by faith. You know, they say faith is the

evidence of things unseen. Well, everything is seen in heaven, so there's

no faith in heaven. There's just confidence. There's just facts. That's the

king of the universe right there. So Jesus coming to earth is fully God

and fully human. And every single time that Jesus came across someone who exhibited

or exerted faith, it's like he pressed Paul on the DBR and he said,

everybody, look at this, everybody look at this right here? Do

you see this? This is extraordinary, and every time he came across people

that weren't exhibiting faith, he said, everybody, look at this, This

is not how you're supposed to live. Faith is powerful, and it mattered

so much to Jesus. One author said the process of sanctification is a never

ending, ever unfolding revelation of how much of ourselves we have left to give

to God, and how much more of himself we have yet to make space

for in our own lives. The brother of Jesus, James, said this,

submit yourselves, all of yourself. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist

the devil and he will flee. Draw near to God, and he will

draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your

hearts. You double minded? I love that phrase as we talk about your

brain and your bible. You double minded? What does it mean to be

double minded? It means one day I say I totally trust in God.

The next day I'm doing everything on my own. One day I say I

trust in God, the next day I'm running from every trouble I see.

Don't be double minded, be single minded. So now let's get to Jesus.

As Jesus man, you think I'm in your chili. Listen to this,

he says. Therefore, I tell you, don't be anxious about your

life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about

your body or what you'll put on. Is not life more than food,

and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air.

They neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, And yet your

heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And

which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to your

life span? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of

the field, how they grow? They neither toil nor spend. Yet I

tell you even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one

of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which

today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much

more clothe you? Owe you of little faith. Therefore, do not be

anxious, saying what will we eat, what will we drink? What will

we wear? But the gentiles speak after all these things, and your heavenly

Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God

and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So

Jesus has a few questions for us today, a few questions we need to

really wrestle with. The First one is what is it that you are seeking

first? Seriously, when you wake up in the morning, what's the first

source of information that you pursue. What's the first source of affirmation that you

pursue? What are you seeking first? Because what you seek first is going

to shape what you seek most the rest of your day. If you were

to really think about your day, how much time are you spending asking the

Lord God, what's next for me? You said to follow you? I

want to follow you. What's the next step? Show me where it is

or how much of it is? Just like, yeah, I got this

God, I'm gonna do my thing, and would you just bless what I'm

doing? Right? What are you seeking the most? And what if what

you're seeking is what is causing you anxiety. The Huffington Post did a report

a few years ago. This is so funny to me, hilarious. The

post is about what we actually worry about. Look at this. It says

the forty percent of the things that we worry about will never happen. Forty

percent of the things that we have anxiety about will never happen. Thirty percent

of the things that we have anxiety about are things that have already happened in

the past that we can't do anything to control. Twelve percent of the things

are criticism that we've received by others, mostly untrue criticism. It makes us

crazy. Can't believe they said that about me. Ten percent are anxieties about

our health. And it gets worse the more we think about it. We

get stressed out, it gets worse. Only eight percent of the things that

we actually worry about actually come to fruition. And I think this is why

Jesus says, don't be anxious. I don't think it's him being punitive.

I don't think it's him saying, you know what, I need more faith

out of you. I think he's saying, I don't want this for you.

This isn't a life, this isn't Christianity, this isn't faith, this

isn't a free this is bondage. I don't want this for you. Don't

be anxious. Don't do that. Feed your faith, starve your anxiety,

remember, rejoice, and relinquish. If we stop there, we'd be very

incomplete. Do you ever talk to someone and just said, hey, you

really should just stop smoking, really should just stop eating poorly. You really

should just stop oversleeping, stop binging, YouTube, stop, stop, stop,

stop being anxious, just stop it Does that work? That never works.

You can't just say to someone stop something. There's another our word.

And all three of these guys give us something to think about. Peter says,

humble yourselves, cast your anxieties on him. Paul says, don't be

anxious, but instead everything in prayer. Jesus says, don't be anxious.

Instead seek first the Kingdom of God. So remember, rejoice, relinquish.

And this word is so important we have to replace. It doesn't work.

Everything I've said so far, none of it will work if you don't include

this step. We have to replace the bad stuff, the anxiety, the

anxious thoughts, with something good. And so I have a little word picture

for us. I'm going to show this to you. I didn't invent this,

but I love it. We're gonna have some science today. How about

that? You have some science, all right? But this right here represents

a clean mind. Okay, this is a fully clean, pure mind.

It looks like it's carbonated, but it really isn't. It's just water.

Okay, A clean mind, a sound mind, As the word says,

this right here is what happens when we give our hearts to Jesus. We

give our souls to Jesus. We are wiped clean. But what happens is

we start adding stuff to the equation. This is some lime juice. Okay,

lime juice. So we start adding this lime juice to our water because

we're green with envy, and our anxiety tells us that, you know,

I'm not good enough. I don't measure up to everybody else. I don't

measure up to that person. She's smarter than me, he's wiser than me,

that guy's more successful than me. And we start having all this anxiety

because we think, what if I never measure up to that person? And

then we get sour. We get some lemons in our life, right,

we get some lemons, and so we get a little sour. We have

some sour thoughts, some bitterness starts creeping in. Our water's not so clear

anymore. We're starting to think about thoughts like, you know, what if

nobody ever notices me? What if I'm not good enough. What if I

don't succeed? How come that person is so successful? Lord? What's up

with this? And our minds starts getting really cloudy. Now there's more and

more trouble all around us. And then you know, I don't know if

you've ever seen a baby eat a lemon, but that right there is what's

happening in your mind. Somebody's had this baby lemons every day. And so

this is what's happening in your mind. And you're starting to get bitter and

sour and it's bad news, bears man. And then what happens. You

get a little siracha, Get a little sirachia in this thing. Now you're

starting to get hot. Right, This represents anger. It represents all of

those angry thoughts that you start putting in your mind because you're starting to see

enemies everywhere. Everybody's a lion, everybody's out to get you. Everybody is

causing anxiety in you. You're frustrated, irritated, You're amygdala is telling you

it's time to knuckle up. We're gonna fight this thing. We're gonna fight.

I got this right, And then after that, everything starts getting dark,

really really dark. This is dark coffee. I'm not going to pour

this whole thing in here, but you're gonna see. We start getting some

dark coffee in our lives, right We start pouring all these dark thoughts in

our lives. And it's just ugly, man, it's just gross. But

that pure heart, that pure mind that was so clean, is now so

stained by these dark thoughts. Dark thoughts about like, you know, what

if I'll never become the person I'm supposed to be, dark thoughts about,

you know, our lives, and dark thoughts about maybe hurting ourselves because of

all the anxious thoughts that we're having. I can't keep living like this.

This is too much for me. Maybe we start inviting dark sin into our

life in this moment. Maybe you start having dark secrets in this moment in

your life. Maybe you start observing more and more pornography. Maybe you're considering

and fantasizing about infidelity. Maybe you're doing things just to make yourself feel something.

You're cutting yourself, you're harming yourself just so you can feel. And

this is what happens when your mind is filled with all of the wrong things.

And we need to replace this. We got to replace all of these

thoughts with positive thoughts, right, we got to do something about it.

And this is where all of that talk about do not be anxious, and

all of that conversation about in prayer and supplication, Paul actually gives us a

different answer. He comes through in the clutch. Listen to what he says.

He says, Okay, brothers, whatever is true, We're gonna start

pouring some truth into this cap. Okay, whatever is true, whatever is

honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever

is excellent or commendable, good thought, positive thought, faith, I'm going

to put my faith in geneval. Right, whatever is worthy of prey.

Start thinking about those things, and watch what happened. All of that dirt,

all of that junk, has to go. It has to get out

of there. And it might not take just one picture. You might need

two pictures, two pictures of good thought, two pictures of difference making thought

to turn that dirty, dirty mind, that heart that was filled with all

kinds of trauma and junk, it's now filled back to purity. And this

is the picture that God says. We can't just remember and rejoice and relinquish,

but we have to replace what was in our minds with positivity, with

things that are commendable, things that are beautiful, things that are worthy of

praise. The antidote to anxiety is faith. The antidote to anxiety is faith.

And the way to feed your faith and to starve your anxiety is to

remember, rejoice, relinquish, and replace. And you know what the result

is. Paul says this the peace of God, which surpasses all of your

understanding. It's going to guard your heart and it's going to guard your minds

in Christ Jesus. The result of pouring good thoughts, of doing these things,

feeding our faith, starving our anxiety is peace. Man. How many

people do you know that are walking and living and breathing and operating out of

peace? It is a rare commodity in our world. I'm going to give

you one more our word, just as kind of a bonus prize, because

you stuck with me this long. Okay, he says this. In verse

nine, he says, what you have learned and received and heard and seen

in me, practice these things we're talking about, practice, and the God

of Peace will be with you. What's another word for practice? Repeat?

Repeat? You can't do this once this has to become your life. This

has to become what it means to follow Jesus. This is what it looks

like. And if you do that, then you'll get to experience what is

my very favorite verse in the Bible about mental health. The con Timothy one

says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of

power and of love and a sound mind. This is a sound mind.

This is what the Lord wants for you. The antidote to anxiety is faith.

The way to get there is to feed your faith, starve your anxiety,

Remember, rejoice, relinquish, replace, and repeat over and over again.

Amen. Amen. And if we can do that, then we will

actually experience the brain that the Lord describes in your Bible. And don't you

want that? I want that. I want this kind of life for you.

God wants this kind of life for you. I want this kind of

life for me. I am as true challenged by this whole thing as I'm

sure you are. I am just as prone to fight or flight as you

are. And the Lord is telling me over and over to walk by faith,

to trust in faith, to live by faith. And I would pray

that you would do the same thing. So what's God leading you to do

next and how can we help? Would you send us an email to info

at Movement Church dot co and tell us how we can pray for you and

help you take the next step in your spiritual journey. If you'd like to

contribute financially to our ministry, text the amount you like to give to the

number eight four three two one, or look us up online at Movement Church

dot c. You can find the Movement Church on all social media platforms,

and we hope that you'll give us a follow God bless you, and remember

God is for you, and so are we.