Anxious for Nothing

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Hello from San Antonio, Texas, just down the street.

What about that extra hour of sleep?

Why can't we do that every Saturday night?

Is there some some reason we can't?

I love it because now my clocks are right for six months.

It's really a treat to be with you, and it's really a special treat.

I have uh my daughters with me, one daughter and one sister-in-law, and my wife Deanlin have come along for the trip.

And so that's really a fun blessing for me to have them here.

Also, I have a granddaughter here somewhere, and we all traveled a little bit together.

You know, when a fella finds the right wife, that's something special.

Some people say my wife is my better half.

I say my wife is my better 99%.

I looked for a wife when I was in college and found a girl that I thought was the perfect one, and um uh I took her home and mom didn't like her, so I took her back.

I found another one I thought was the one, and so I took her home.

Mom didn't like her, so I took her back.

And I went through a uh a dormitory full of uh of girls until I found just the right one.

I and I thought she was the right one, at least.

I I thought because she looked like my mom and she talked like my mom, she walked like my mom, but mom surely would like her.

I took her home and then dad couldn't stand her, so I had to take her back.

We live not far, uh church.

I mean, it's just off the interstate there at Interstate 10.

So funny things happened.

There was a car that got pulled over on Interstate 10 sometime back and for going too slow.

Going too slow.

I mean, they were going dangerously slow.

So the highway patrolman uh stopped the car and walked up to the side of the car.

Noticed it was an elderly gentleman and and the gentleman's wife.

And he said, Sir, you're just going so slow, you're a hazard on the highway.

And the gentleman said, Well, I'm just going the speed limit, and and he pointed at the sign that said Interstate 10.

And the officer corrected him.

He said, Sir, that's not the speed limit sign, that's the highway sign.

And then the officer noticed that the gentleman's wife was just the face of terror.

Her eyes were wide open, her hair was blown back, she was holding on to the dashboard.

He said, Sir, what's wrong with your wife?

He said, I'm not sure.

We just got off of Farm to Market Road 177.

So if you've ever known the fear of going too fast, you're not alone.

And I think that's uh the the topic of of our discussion today will help address that.

We're talking about a life in which we're anxious for nothing and how God has a plan to help us deal with anxiety.

Heavenly Father, please help us now as we soften our hearts to receive your word.

We pray blessings on this church and upon Pastor Robert and the amazing people here that you would continue to bless them, keep them free from uh anxiety and centered in you.

Please forgive our speaker today.

His sins are many.

Help us to see Christ, just Christ.

Through Christ we pray.

And all the church said it's 2.30 in the morning and you cannot sleep.

You roll from one side to the other.

You pound your pillow.

Nothing helps.

Everyone else sleeps.

Your spouse has entered the world of dreamland.

Your dog is curled up in a lump at the foot of your bed.

Everyone else sleeps, but not you.

It's 2 30 in the morning.

In six hours, you begin a new job, new chapter, new season, new era of life.

You'll be the rookie on the sales team.

And you're wondering if you made the right decision.

After all, the hours are gonna be long.

The competition is severe.

The economy is threatening to decline.

Besides, you're 23 years old right out of college.

33 years old with two kids to feed and a family to care for.

Not the perfect time to begin a new career.

63 years old, what happened after retirement and time with the grandkids, regardless of the age.

Anxiety can come like a tornado through a Texas prairie, sucking every final vestige of hope out into the sky.

And so it's 2 30 in the morning, it becomes 3 30, and you still haven't slept.

The only light in the room is the green light that comes from the clock.

The only light in your life, indeed.

All of a sudden, a new strain of worry enters your mind.

You feel a twitch in the back of your neck.

Oh no.

It's a tumor.

Just like great-grandpa.

I knew I was next in line.

I knew my time was coming.

Will the insurance kick in soon enough to cover chemotherapy?

Who's gonna take care of the kids?

And anxiety begins to have its way with you.

Another hour passes.

You cover your head with a pillow.

You feel like crying.

What a mess.

What does all this anxiety mean?

All this insecurity, all this trepidation, all this worry, all this restlessness.

What does it mean?

Well, it means simply this.

You are a human being.

You're not stupid.

You're not emotionally underdeveloped.

You're not immature.

Your parents didn't fail you.

It doesn't mean you failed them.

And this is important, it does not mean you're not a Christian.

Christians battle anxiety.

Jesus did, for heaven's sake.

In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion, he prayed for the cup of suffering to be taken away from him.

And he prayed with such ferocity that the capillaries burst and and rivulets of crimson rolled down his face.

Jesus battled anxiety.

He faced fears.

But he fought through his fears and surrendered them to God and fulfilled his mission.

And anxiety did not win.

And such is God's plan for you.

Anxiety comes with life, but it doesn't have to dominate your life.

God's plan for you is not a life that is drenched in anxiety.

It is his will that you and I learn to live a life that is characterized by calm and not chaos, by peace and not panic.

There's a pathway out of the valley of fret, and God has used the apostle Paul to sketch the map in this passage from Philippians chapter 4, verses 4 through 8.

Philippians 4:4–8

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again I will say, rejoice.

Let your gentleness be made known to all men.

The Lord is at hand.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.

A person would be hard-pressed to find a passage more practical and applicable to our day and age.

Wouldn't you agree?

The land of stars and stripes has become the land of stress and strife.

We are now officially the most anxious nation on the planet.

And this is the most anxious nation since anxiety has been measured.

How could this be?

Our cars are safer than ever.

We have more technological tools, well, more than our great-grandparents or grandparents could have ever even dreamed of.

And yet, citizens of third world countries score healthier on the anxiety meter than we do.

In fact, when people from third world countries move to the United States, their anxiety spikes.

It is as if anxiety is contagious.

One of the calmest nations in the world is the one that we assume is one of the most stress-filled, and that is Mexico.

And yet across the border, we who pride ourselves in not having what Mexico sometimes has are the nation that battles with anxiety enough to make me want to move to Acapulco.

How do we explain it?

What's more, our college kids are feeling it as well.

A recent study of 200,000 incoming freshmen stated students reported all-time lows in overall mental health and emotional stability.

One psychologist said the average child today exhibits the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient of the 1950s.

Kids have more toys, more opportunities, more clothing than ever, but by the time they go to college, they're wrapped tighter than Egyptian mummies.

We're tense.

The doctor received a patient, and the patient said, Doc, I have a problem.

Last night I dreamed I was a pup tent.

Night before I dreamed I was a teepee.

What's wrong with me?

The doctor said, Oh, that's easy.

You're too tense.

You are one rough crowd, I'll tell you that.

We are tense.

And we pay a price for it.

One doctor friend told me to see the consequences of anxiety, just read half the ailments in a medical textbook.

The psalmist said, Do not fret, it only causes harm.

Harm where?

Well, harm to our necks, to our jaws, to our backs, to our bowels.

Anxiety can twist us into emotional pretzels.

It can make our eyes twitch, our blood pressure rise, our heads ache, and our armpits sweat.

Anxiety ain't fun.

So what can we do?

Can I be clear?

I do not want to leave the impression that anxiety can be waved away with one sermon, one book, or one season.

For some of you, anxiety is the challenge of life, and it has been.

And part of God's healing for you might very well include professional help, therapy, a counselor, a physician, some medication.

And if that is the case, you are not a second-class citizen.

God has healing, and sometimes that comes through professional help.

All of us, however, could benefit from a general, I'm sorry, from a healthy dose of Philippians chapter 4, verses 4 through 8.

Philippians 4:4–8

And right in the center of this passage, the apostle says, now be anxious for nothing.

I would have been happy had he said, just be anxious on Thursdays, or be anxious on occasion, or be anxious only on tough days.

How can some can somebody really live a life in which they're anxious for nothing?

On occasion, it's helpful for us to remember that sometimes the Bible uses tense, Greek tense language that helps us understand what the apostle meant.

In this case, the phrase is written in the present active tense, which implies an ongoing state, which could lead us to translate the passage: do not let yourself be caught in a state of perpetual anxiety.

That's what he's saying.

It's impossible to lead a life free of anxiety, but we can discover a life that is void of perpetual anxiety.

Anxiety comes with life, but it does not have to dominate our lives.

But how do we do it?

How do we find this?

Well, I think this passage can help us.

Paul lists here four helpful ideas for winning the war on worry.

I think they make a nice acrostic that spells out the word C-A-L-M.

And if you want to move from chaos into calm, consider what Paul says.

First, celebrate, celebrate God's goodness.

Rejoice in the Lord always, he says.

Again, I will say, rejoice.

Paul, ever the preacher, knows to repeat what he wants to say.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

You weren't listening, Locato.

Again, I say, rejoice, and then he sticks an exclamation point on the end of it, as if to say, Come on! Rejoice in the Lord always, the apostle writes with chains dangling from that Roman jail cell.

Rejoice in the Lord.

Always, he writes, with no penny in his pocket.

And perhaps the sound of the footsteps of the executioner in the hallway.

Rejoice in the Lord.

Always, he writes, beneath the shadow of Nero and the threat to the church.

He says, Now just rejoice in the Lord.

Always.

His point is don't meditate on the mess.

The more you stare at the problem, the bigger it gets.

The more you stare at the problem, the bigger it gets.

So when you have a problem, lift up your eyes and rejoice in the Lord.

The minute the anxiety comes, rather than giving in to the anxiety, you lift up your eyes and you rejoice in the Lord.

This was the counsel of the psalmist.

He said, I will lift up my eyes to the hills.

From whence comes my help?

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

Do you see the intentionality in those words?

I will lift up my eyes.

This was the decision that the psalmist made.

The apostle Peter is a testimony to this.

You remember how when the storm struck the Sea of Galilee, he knew what ten-foot waves could do to a fishing boat.

Maybe that's why he volunteered to walk on the water when he saw Jesus walking on the water.

And Peter cried out, Lord, if it's really you, then command me to come to you on the water.

And Jesus said, Come.

And Peter left the boat and walked on the water to Jesus.

But when Peter saw the wind and the waves, he became afraid and he began to what?

Sink.

As long as he kept his eyes on Christ, he was able to do the impossible.

But when he saw the wind and the waves, when he turned his gaze away from Christ, he began to sink.

If today you feel like you're sinking, or the next time you feel like you're sinking, lift up your eyes.

Set your gaze on Christ.

Rejoice in the Lord.

Rejoice in his sovereignty.

Is God greater than your problem?

Has God ever faced this problem before?

Does God have solutions you've not thought of?

Has God got you through these types of things before?

Does God have a good track record?

Is God strong?

Is God sovereign?

Is God still on the throne?

Is he overall?

See how you lift that up?

You're rejoicing in the Lord.

You're lifting your mind away from the problems and you're setting your mind on the one who can solve it.

Do not meditate on the mess.

I have a childhood memory I'm fond of.

When my dad had everybody in the house in bed, I was probably eight or nine or ten years of age.

I had an older brother.

When he had us in bed, his his wife was in bed.

He'd make the rounds in the house.

And he'd stop in the kitchen and drink a glass of buttermilk and crumble up some cornbread in it.

Can you guess I was raised in a small West Texas town?

And then he was always, always, I just remember he's always wearing his t-shirt and his boxer shorts.

And then he would make the rounds and he'd make sure all the doors were locked, which took about two minutes because there were three doors: front door, back door, and door to the garage.

So click, click, click, click, click, click.

And then, as if he were a commander of a great vessel, he would bellow out loud enough, probably for the neighbors to hear everything is locked up.

You can go to sleep now.

It's safe.

And you know, I believed him.

You might say, I rejoiced in my father's strength.

Because he spoke, I could calm down and I could go to sleep.

I have no inclination to think that God loves buttermilk and cornbread.

But everything in my spirit says he wants you to hear what my father would say to us.

And that is, I'm in charge of this house.

You're not.

And I've checked the entrances and the exits.

And I determine who enters and who leaves.

You can rest now.

So you rejoice.

That's what it means to rejoice in the Lord.

Oh, I've got a great God, I've got a wonderful Father.

I rejoice in the Lord.

And then the apostle says, having done that, you'll be ready to ask God for help.

You've calmed yourself down.

Now you ask God for help.

Let your requests be made known to God.

You see, fear triggers either despair or prayer.

Fear triggers either despair or prayer.

So choose wisely.

God said, Call on me in the day of trouble.

Jesus said, Ask and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find.

Knock and the door will be opened to you.

The path to peace is always paved with prayer.

That's why the devil doesn't want you to pray.

The path to peace is always paved with prayer.

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said, put the Lord in remembrance of his promises.

Keep not silence.

God told Isaiah, put me in remembrance.

Let us contend together.

That is to say, go ahead and remind the Lord of what he said he will do.

Not that he needs the reminder, but we need the reminder.

We are agreeing with God, which stands in defiance of the devil and any demons who might be lurking away.

You're standing not on the pain in life or the problems of life, but you're standing on the promise of life.

Lord, you said you'd walk me through the valley.

Lord, you said you would never leave me or forsake me.

Lord, you said that you would walk me through the waters.

So you find a promise that fits your problem, and then you make a prayer out of it.

You find a promise that fits your problem, and then you just make a prayer out of it.

And these prayers touch the heart of God and activate the angels in heaven.

Your prayer might not be answered overnight, but it will come with an answer to prayer, and you will overcome.

And having done so, you can then do this leave your concerns with God.

You celebrate God's goodness, you ask God for help, then you leave your concerns with God.

Please raise your hand if you have ever taken anything to an appliance store.

How about a computer to be fixed?

Have you ever done that?

Have you ever taken a car in to be fixed?

So you know what it's like when you take something to be repaired.

When you take something to be repaired, you take a sleeping bag with you, do you not?

And you roll it out on the floor and you tell the repair.

I'm just gonna lie here until you get it fixed.

In case, sorry, in case you need my help.

That's not how it works, is it?

You take it to the repairman and you leave it with him.

When you offer a request to God, do you tell God, now God, I'm just gonna stay around until you get it fixed.

If you need my advice, I'm gonna be putting you on the clock.

I'm gonna check in with you.

No.

You leave your concern with your Heavenly Father.

Please raise your hand and repeat after me.

I hereby resign as ruler of the universe.

There, doesn't that feel better?

It was never your job anyway.

Let your requests be made known to God.

And the word for request there is a word that could be translated itemized requests.

These are specific concerns that you have.

The more specific you can get, the better.

So you wake up in the morning and you think, oh, I've got that interview with that person at 2.30 this afternoon.

I always get tied up into a knot thinking about how difficult that's going to be.

But today, instead of giving in to the anxiety, I'm going to offer a specific prayer based on a specific promise.

And so, Heavenly Father, please, at 2.30 this afternoon, go ahead of me.

Go into the room.

Be preparing it.

Clean it out.

Change the atmosphere.

Be softening his heart.

Be giving me wisdom.

Grant that I can know exactly what to say before I get there.

And then get specific with it.

Give us this day our daily bread, Jesus taught us to pray.

Give us today what we need.

And then between early in the morning and 2.30, when you feel that anxiety coming, you can say, Oh no, I left that at the repair shop.

I left that with the Heavenly Father.

He's working on that.

He has gone ahead of me.

I trust him.

Instead of giving in to the anxiety, then you can rejoice.

You can say, Oh, good, I'm going to rejoice in the Lord because I know he's going to keep that promise because he's a faithful father.

I'm going to leave that with him.

And instead of giving in to that tailspin, that quicksand of anxiety, you lift up your eyes and you rejoice in the Lord.

And by the time it's time to go into the meeting, you're a better person.

You're a better person.

You're going in armed with faith.

And consequently, where that anxiety has gone, you can now place gratitude.

Gratitude.

Look what the apostle says.

He says, in everything by prayer and supplication, with what?

Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving.

Anxiety and gratitude cannot share the same heart.

Test me on this.

Anxiety and gratitude cannot share the same heart.

If someone comes to see me as a pastor about anxiety, I say, let's just make a list of ten good things in your life.

Sometimes I have to talk them into it because they've gotten hooked on their anxiety.

It can be addicting.

But if we can get them out of that mindset and say, no, let's just think about 10 good things in your life, as they begin making the list, you actually begin to see light returning to their face.

Test me on that.

Try it sometime.

The next time you're anxious, begin to make a list of things for which you're grateful.

Because anxiety and gratitude refuse to share the same heart.

I have a friend named Jerry who's a retired dentist.

He's 78 years old, and he regularly beats me on the golf course.

He often shoots his age.

If I do the same, I'll need to live to be a hundred.

And he's the most joyful, happy man.

You'd never know that his life has been marred by crisis.

Over the last 18 years, his wife has battled Parkinson's disease.

And what they thought would be a wonderful season of retirement and travel has been populated by multiple trips to the hospital and managing medication.

It's not what they'd hoped it would be.

One day I asked him, I said, Jerry, how do you stay so peaceful, so happy?

He said, Well, every morning when Ginger and I wake up, she says, Can we sing a hymn?

And I say, What do you want to sing?

And she always says, Can we sing?

Count your many blessings.

Name them one by one.

And so we do.

And they have learned the importance of dealing with anxiety through the power of gratitude.

So you leave your concerns with him.

You fill your heart with gratitude.

And then lastly, meditate on good things.

Meditate on good things.

And the apostle gives us a long list here.

He says, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.

Don't let anxious negative thoughts take over your mind.

You cannot control your circumstances, but you can control how you think about them.

One of the most difficult days of my life found me in Dalton, Georgia.

I was 19 years old.

I had spent the night before in a salvation army.

If loneliness was water, I was soaked to the bone.

On the promise of fast cash and new sites, I had signed on to sell books door to door and got shipped out to Georgia from Texas.

My two good friends who signed up with me, they quit the first day.

So I was all by myself.

I learned something.

I learned that people don't like door-to-door salesmen.

Even a nice one like me.

I would knock on the first door.

Hello, I'm Max Slam.

Hello, I'm Max Slam.

Hello, I'm Max Slam.

The next day wasn't any better.

Noon on the second day.

I pulled into a diner, nursed my bruised ego, and ate a hamburger.

As I was paying for the burger, next to the cash register, there was a display of magnetized, rubberized truisms, little quotes, slogans that you could purchase and maybe affix to a refrigerator or something.

Well, one of them was shaped like a lemon.

And in it were the words, you know what I'm gonna say?

If life gives you a lemon, make it folksy, it was homespun, it was overused, it was corny, but I'd never heard it before.

And it was exactly what I needed.

And so I purchased that little rubberized, magnetized truism, yellow and shaped like a lemon.

If life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.

And I affixed it to the metal strip on the dash of my 1973 duster.

I can't tell you how many times over the summer I would rub my thumb over that little quote.

I made it through the summer.

People still slammed doors, and life gave me a lemon, but I discovered the idea of trying to make lemonade out of the lemons of life.

Now that's 40 years ago.

Well, not quite, heading toward it.

And you know what I've learned?

Life still gives lemons.

And the lemons that I was facing that day back in Georgia are nothing compared to the lemons some of you are facing.

Spoke to a lady this week, a single mom.

She genuinely wonders if she'll ever have a good night's sleep again.

Spoke with a fellow on Friday, ran into him 70 years old, and is going through a divorce of all things at age 70.

Spoke to a lady whose husband battles dementia.

He was a pilot for the Air Force.

But now he can no longer drive a car, and she was gonna have to go and take his keys away from him.

Life still gives limits.

Life gives limits to young people, to old people, to rich people, to poor people, to good people, to bad people.

Life comes with limits.

But you don't have to suck on them.

Anxiety happens as we suck on limits.

The apostle says, meditate on good things.

Some years ago, I wrote this in a journal.

I read it quite often.

Today I will live today.

Yesterday has passed.

Tomorrow is not yet.

I'm left with today.

So today I will live today.

Relive yesterday?

No.

I will learn from it.

I will seek mercy for it.

I will take joy in it, but I won't live in it.

The sun has set on yesterday.

The sun has yet to rise on tomorrow.

Worry about the future?

To what gain?

It deserves a glance and nothing more.

I can't change tomorrow until tomorrow.

Today I will live today.

I will face today with, I'm sorry, I will face today's challenges with today's strength.

I will dance today's waltz with today's music.

I will celebrate today's opportunities with today's hope.

Today.

May I laugh, listen, learn, and love.

And if tomorrow comes, may I do it again.

The next time that anxiety awakens you at 2.30 in the morning, would you believe what I'm suggesting to you?

And that is, it is not God's will that you lead a life of perpetual anxiety.

That your heavenly father will help you.

He will help you pull out the roots of your anxiety.

He will help you deal with the fears that face you.

He loves you.

And what my father would say to us in our small West Texas home, your heavenly father says to you, everything is safe now.

You can rest.

Heavenly Father, have mercy upon us now.

I have a sense in my heart that there are those who truly needed to hear this message directly from you.

Not from me, but from you.

And you're promising them a new chapter.

You're ready to turn the page and begin a new season.

The sun has come up.

The skies are going to be blue again.

And this season is going to pass.

You're with them, Father.

You're with them.

And you have allowed this time of testing to develop the skill, the muscle of faith.

Help them not to see the presence of the problem as the absence of God, but just the opposite to see the presence of the problem as an opportunity for God for you to do your work.

May you do so in Jesus' name.

And all the church said, thank you.