Anxiety: The Anxiety Club | Part 1

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, good morning.

Good to be with you.

If you weren't anxious before, you are now.

If you're new, my name's Ryan.

We're absolutely thrilled to have you join us today.

And we're starting today a brand new series, a four-part series on anxiety.

And just a little thing so you know, I've been listening and reading a lot of books on anxiety.

In fact, I've listened to many books at 1.5 speed on anxiety, making me more anxious.

But before we dive in, I just thought I'd give you a few resources.

One is uh we actually did a series by this title a little over a year ago called Try Softer.

If you're in uh wanting to get dive in a little bit deeper on this, this would be wonderful for you.

I enjoyed it immensely.

If you have kids, this book, Scene, is a great book.

It's thin.

Our uh youth and family team uh uses this and encourage you uh check this book out.

And then uh this is just a this is a leadership book.

It's a Christian book called Managing the Leadership Anxiety, but I think it's good for everyone.

The principles are really, really powerful.

All right, commercial over.

You ready?

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for today.

Thank you for gathering us in this moment.

This is a holy moment that you've brought us to here.

And we invite you to speak to us, to meet us.

And so we bring ourselves our worries, our concerns, our doubts, our struggles, our pain, our hurt to you.

Would you meet us?

Would you bring healing and hope and purpose in life?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

I thought I'd begin this way.

Um, well, welcome to the club.

Yeah, it's exciting.

You made it, you're in.

You're a part of the club, and it didn't take a whole lot to be a part of the club.

If you're breathing and alive and human, uh, you made it.

You're a part of the club.

Go ahead and turn to your neighbors and say, Welcome to the anxiety club.

You can give them a high five too.

Go ahead.

Welcome to the anxiety club.

Now, some of you are a little uncertain about that.

You're like, I don't know if I'm a part of the anxiety club, Ryan.

Well, maybe you're just a visitor, maybe you are, you know, um, an attender from time.

You may not be a full-fledged member.

I remember when I became a full-fledged member, though.

Uh, it was 2004, and my daughter was born, our oldest uh was born the very first, and I didn't know the human heart had a capacity to love at that level in depth.

It was as if a chamber in my heart opened up and I was able to love.

I'm like, oh my goodness, this little being that I never met before, and I meet.

I I she was born in the middle of the night, and like 5 a.m.

I'm headed to Starbucks because I'm a copic addict uh and trying to bring Jenny and I coffee, and I show up to the Starbucks, I'm like, she's here, and they're like, What?

Are you going up?

I'm a dad! And they're like, just sh bring it down.

We'll give you free coffee if you just be quiet.

Um, and and I was just so excited, but then that capacity to love brought a whole new capacity and level of anxiety.

I mean, that drive from the hospital to our home was only about a mile, mile and a half.

I drove so slow.

And then um, my we were living in Atlanta at the time.

My wife's mom was out for the birth, and I had to drive her to the um to the airport.

Airport's about 45 minutes away.

I was in the slow lane driving so slow, it took us uh like an hour and a half.

Dangerously slow, and she and she's the most kind, wonderful, she's like never pressure anything.

She's like, Ryan, I'm afraid I'm gonna miss my flight.

I'm like, she did.

She she missed her flight.

I drove, I drove that slow.

And all of a sudden, I became a full-fledged member.

I was a tender before that, but I'm I became a full-fledged member of the anxiety club.

Fast forward maybe a decade later, and we're planting this church.

This was 11, almost 12 years ago, and the stress and the anxiety of trying to start a new community and then having three kids, and our youngest was um, you know, only about six months, or no, he's like two or three years old.

And I began to spiral out.

I don't know if you've ever been there.

I um I would stay up in the middle of the night and stare into the backyard, absolutely certain that somebody was gonna break into our home.

And I just would stare, watching for shadows and movements.

If we were gonna go to, like, say my brother's house who has a pool, my mind would spin the entire night.

I would be up.

What's gonna happen?

How are they gonna do?

And and then if we went to Disneyland, it's the happiest place on earth.

No, it's the most anxious place on earth with kids.

Am I gonna lose them?

If we went to, you know, a um a hotel, I'm like, well, I want to have the floor level uh because if we're up a couple levels, my I have two boys, man.

If they climb, they jump, they fall, they die, you know, and it's like that's where my mind went.

And the truth is, and the reality is, is anxiety has become an American epidemic.

We live in an anxious age, and we recognize this, we know this.

In fact, some of you are here simply for the reality that you know that we are walking through a mental health crisis.

Ed Eric Severied said this: the biggest big business in America is not steel automobiles or television, it is the manufacture, refinement, and distribution of anxiety.

That was written 60 years ago in 1964.

See, anxiety isn't a new problem, yet it is a heightened problem in our day.

Uh show you this graph, the percent of U.S.

anxiety and prevalence.

Uh, this is taken from uh the U.S.

National Survey.

It was used in a really prominent book that just released.

I'm currently reading it right now, The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.

Uh you'll notice since 2010 that anxiety from in ages 18 to 25 has increased 139%.

Ages 26 to 34, it's increased 103%, 35 to 49, 52%.

Age 50, you don't care.

You just don't care anymore.

It's gone down.

Good for you.

You you can go, you know, anyways.

And anxiety, Gen Z has been called the anxious generation, Gen Alpha.

And so we're going to spend the next four weeks, and today's just an introduction, getting uh our arms around this.

And not just our arms around this, but what God has to say.

Isn't it?

I just think we were praying earlier today.

Isn't this good news that 2,000 years ago Jesus spoke to this?

That God actually spoke into this, and He wants to meet us and guide us and lead us in this.

Well, as we begin, let's start just with what is anxiety in the first place.

Anxiety is the anticipation of future threats.

Fear is the emotional response to a perceived or real imminent danger, right?

Anxiety is the fear of a future threat, that something is coming.

And in fact, uh we live in an uncertain world.

Uncertainty leads to anxiety.

Anxiety is worrying about what will be, and anxiety ultimately produces fear of what could be.

One psychologist kind of gave general framing this way.

If we tend to overemphasize the past, we'll struggle with depression.

If we tend to overemphasize and focus on the future, we'll struggle and wrestle with anxiety.

And I just go, yeah, I got them both.

Hello, here we go.

Let's let's why go halfway?

Come on.

I mentioned Jonathan Hyatt's book, The Anxious Generation.

Um, he actually it's fascinating, it's worth a read.

I'm only about halfway through.

Not a Christian book, but it's getting a lot of press right now.

But he begins to talk about the effects of anxiety on our body.

That anxiety, just the same as fear, puts us in a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode.

And he talks about the impact.

And in it, he writes, anxiety affects the mind and the body in multiple ways.

For many, anxiety is felt in the body as tension or tightness and as discomfort in the abdomen or chest cavity.

Emotionally, anxiety is experienced as dread, worry, and after a while, exhaustion.

Cognitively, it often becomes difficult to think clearly, pulling people into states of unproductive rumination and provoking cognitive distortions that are the focus of cognitive behavioral therapy, such as catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, black and white thinking.

We'll explain those later.

For those with anxiety disorders, these distorted thinking patterns often elicit uncomfortable physical symptoms, which then induce feelings of fear and worry, which then triggers more anxious thinking, perpetuating a vicious cycle.

Well, what is anxiety?

Oh man.

It's this anticipation, this worry about the future.

Now, anxiety is actually a signal and not a root cause.

It acts like the light on the dash of our board to tell us that something needs to be addressed.

You need to lean in, you need to ask, what is the root cause?

And then anxiety, this is what's really challenging with anxiety, especially in our age, especially in the social media age, is anxiety is contagious.

We catch it from one another.

I remember in high school, my buddy Luke was a germophobic, and his girlfriend's like, that's nothing.

And they're at the movie theater going up the escalator, and she had her hand on the rail, thank you.

Uh, and then she licks her hand.

And then she got sick as a dog.

And then I became a germophobe after that.

Because all of a sudden it becomes contagious.

Those around us, we begin to catch it.

I even noticed that my anxiety began to be caught by my kids.

Anxiety.

It's this future threat, this concern of a future threat.

It's a signal, not a root cause.

Anxiety is contagious.

Now the question is how do we navigate it?

How do we navigate the anxious world we find ourselves in?

Anxiety's on the rise.

How do we navigate it?

More personally.

How do you navigate your anxiety for this world?

Navigate the anxiety in your world.

Jesus.

In the greatest sermon that has ever been told.

Actually speaks.

On anxiety and worry and concerns.

And my prayer is not to resolve all of your anxiety today.

But I'm praying for a breakthrough moment though.

That God wants to meet you significantly.

He wants to speak to you.

And he wants to lead you through what you're going through.

Here's what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, 25.

Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life.

What you'll eat or drink or about your body, what you'll wear, is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes.

Look at the birds of the air.

They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?

By the way, that last line that was powerful for me.

We'll close with that.

Well, how do we navigate the anxious world we find ourselves in?

What does Jesus say right at the beginning?

He says, Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life.

There you go.

There you have it.

Peace be with you.

Have a great Sunday.

We'll see you next week.

Don't worry.

Be happy.

Now, um, I know how to eliminate some things, right?

I know how to like, so okay, my wife and I are on an elimination diet to kind of find some kind of health stuff, and for me, it's just uh I want to lose a little bit of weight, let's be real.

Uh, in a cut a few weeks, you probably won't even be able to see me when I turn sideways.

I know how to cut out sugar in my diet, but I don't know how to not think about things or not feel things.

I mean, I let me tell you, uh, do not think about a purple elephant.

You can't.

Now that I said don't think about it, you thought about it.

Is Jesus telling us you have to just stop it right now?

Or that it's a sin to be anxious.

Gosh, man, that's where some have felt and some have been told.

Like if you're anxious, if you're worried, if you're concerned, it's sinful.

And then you feel guilt and the shame and more anxiety because you're trying to get rid of the anxiety.

Do not worry.

Present active imperative.

Here's what Jesus is saying.

He's saying there's an there's a state that you currently are in that needs to be addressed.

It's a command to lean in that you're currently experiencing worry, and so there's something in that you need to stop.

Here's what he's saying: resist the urge to avoid anxiety and address it.

Our natural, our natural is to do two things avoid or ruminate.

When it comes to anxious thoughts, we're gonna avoid it, we're gonna put it off.

We you know, that conversation that we don't want to have, that relationship that's struggling, uh, the issue at work, um, the concern with the fear, I'm just gonna avoid it, I'm gonna ignore it, I'm gonna keep putting it off.

And what uh one I love how one psychologist says that when we avoid it, it's like taking a small fire and putting a little bit of gasoline on it.

It just takes off and grows.

Or then we ruminate on it, we spin out, we think about it, we constantly go over it.

And Jesus says, resist the urge to avoid.

Address.

We gotta address it now.

Now, to address something, we have to be aware of it.

And some of us aren't aware that we're anxious.

In fact, um I experience anxiety physically.

You'll see me, like as I'm talking, holding my chest quite a bit today.

Because it comes right here.

That's where I experience it.

As my chest begins to tighten up, and I begin to feel like this knot build in my throat, like the anxiety.

For some, let's just be real, you're like, I'm not in the club, Ryan.

Well, by the way, 37% of college students say they're anxious all the time.

31% of college students say they're anxious at least half the time.

That gives 68% just of college students that are anxious half or all of the time.

And the reality is we're all anxious some of the time.

But we have to be aware of it.

And the question then, okay, is I'm aware.

Where is it in my body?

How am I addressing it or not addressing it?

Well, Jesus is gonna give us just incredible, incredible wisdom of how do we address it.

In fact, he gives us three questions.

Jesus has given us three questions uh to teach us how to think about how we think.

Like to think about how you're thinking and to begin to wrestle with the thoughts that are going through your head.

The first question that he gives us is simply this is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?

Okay, is not life more than what you're anxious about?

More than your job, more than uh that conversation you need to have, more than that family drama, more than is not life more?

Here's what he's saying.

He's saying, when you start spinning out, stop to zoom out.

When your mind starts to race, when your mind starts to spin, when your mind starts to either push it away or ruminate on it, instead of spinning out, would you begin to zoom out and get a bigger picture about life?

Because what happens is we begin to get a very small picture of life.

Our anxiety becomes our world.

In fact, a psychologist called this cognitive distortions.

Uh, when I did a series, uh we did a series called Navigating Normal.

We talked a lot about uh depression through Elijah's story.

Uh Barbara Zandu, she's a therapist in our church and a friend, she sent me a list of cognitive distortions.

Let me read a few of these because this is how we spin out.

We spin out in all or nothing thinking.

You see things in black and white categories.

If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

Maybe it's overgeneralization.

You see a single event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

Or maybe it's catastrophizing.

You focus on the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, and thinking that a situation is unbearable or impossible when it's really just uncomfortable.

Uh, this is kind of silly, but it's true.

Um when I was a youth pastor back in the day, there that I found this little book called The Worst Case Scenario.

And it was this little field guide thing, and it was meant to be funny, and it's like if you get bit by a snake, if you get caught in sand, you know, uh quicksand, and all these different, you know, bit by shark, all these different things.

That I I naturally go to the worst case scenario.

It was not helpful for me as I catastrophized.

Emotional reasoning.

You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are.

I feel it, therefore it must be true.

Now, friends, let's talk about this.

Your feelings are real, and they don't necessarily tell you what's reality.

It's both.

Your feelings are real, and they're a sign of what's really going on inside of you, and yet at the same time, they are not an indicator or telling you exactly what is reality around you.

And so when you start spinning out, stop to zoom out.

Isn't life more?

And the reason we don't stop to zoom out is because we spend our lives zooming through.

Life, don't we?

We live hurried, rushed lives that rarely have time to stop.

Isn't it funny?

I mean, just think about your this thing that doesn't allow you to stop, and then it's got stuff like this, like a breathe app.

Isn't that like why would we need to be told to breathe?

And then you read the book, breathe, and realize, oh, the way we breathe is terrible and it's changed, and like there's all this research that we're breathing quicker, shallower, and it's to the detriment of our own health.

Like we now track our sleep.

Why should we track our sleep?

Because we we live lives beyond the boundaries of nature now.

Electricity that allows us to work whenever we want.

We we live in an industrialized, technolized age where no longer do we move with the rhythms of creation, with the seasons of harvest and sowing and reaping.

No, we reap all the time, every day, all day long.

And we zoom through life to the detriment of our life.

When you start spinning out, stop.

Stop and zoom out.

Life is more.

First question to think about the way we're thinking.

And then Jesus says this, then look at the birds of the air.

They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Zoom out and then zero in, is what Jesus is saying.

Zoom out, get a bigger picture.

Your life's way more and way bigger than what you're anxious about.

It's not all there, but then zoom in on God's tender, loving care.

Because aren't you way more valuable than the birds?

When's the last time you looked at the birds?

Probably never.

Because we're too busy zooming.

Look at the birds.

And God cares about them.

How much more does He care about you?

The all-infinite, all-wise, all good, perfect, loving, heavenly Father, Creator, Sustainer, Sovereign God cares about you.

And so would you surrender to God's care?

Would you surrender to God's care?

It's a more effective strategy for your anxiety.

See, the reason we anxiously worry and struggle and strive is we want to have control over the things we don't have control over.

That's what anxiety is.

Is there's a future thing that I have no control over.

There's something looming on the horizon, and I want to have control.

But a better strategy is I don't have control.

I'm gonna entrust the one who does have control.

And surrendering to God is a far better strategy than what I'm currently doing.

Where I'd zero in.

I would zero in on God's tender care for me.

That's where Peter would say, cast all of your cares on him, cast all of your worries, cast all of your anxieties on him.

Why?

Because he cares for you.

That's such good news.

You're a daughter, you're a son of the God most high, who invites you into the family to be his kid, call you dad, call him dad.

He cares.

See, here's the illustration that has always helped me.

It's this little, this is what we do with our anxiety in this little quarter here.

If our anxiety or the things that you're concerned, the things that are weighing you down, let's say this represents your concern, your cares, your worries, your anxiety.

And let's just say this room represents your heavenly father.

Now he's what he's infinite, so he's way bigger than this room, but it's good enough for now.

Yeah?

Yeah, okay.

I said that by me.

You're with me.

Okay.

Here's what we do.

Our tendency is to zero in on our anxiety so we cannot see the activity of our Heavenly Father.

And it's all we see, and it's all we know, and so we live stressed, burdened lives.

And here's what Jesus is saying: zoom out.

Stop and zoom out.

Lives far much more, but then zero in on God's tender, loving care.

That the Almighty God knows your name.

That he loves you so much that he came to the cross to die for you.

That's how valuable you are.

He says, I care for you.

Steve Cuss, in his book Managing Leadership Anxiety, says it this way.

He says, When we are under pressure, exhausted, or feeling threatened, we revert to depending on the stories we tell ourselves rather than the story of God.

He goes on to say, the goal of managing anxiety is not simply relief, it is to connect more fully with God and to raise awareness of God of what God is doing.

Anxiety blocks our awareness of God because it takes our subconscious attention.

And so anxiety actually gets to be an early detection sign that we're depending on something other than God for our own well-being.

So Jesus says, resist the urge to avoid it, address it.

When you start spinning out, stop to zoom out.

Whatever your care, whatever your burden, what you're worrying about, would you surrender it into the care of God?

And then he says this.

He closes this way.

Well, he's still in the middle of it.

We'll get back to it.

But he says this can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?

Can you?

In fact, this is really fun.

Sometimes in church, you don't know the answers.

And so you just say Jesus.

Right?

You're like, I don't know the answer, probably Jesus.

But here's the thing.

Every single one of us know the answer to this question.

So I'm going to read again.

Let's just say it out loud.

If you get it wrong, I'm sorry.

Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?

In fact, here's what we know, and research tells us our anxiety doesn't lengthen our life, it shortens our life.

Has tremendous physiological and emotional effects.

And in fact, instead of being present, we live preoccupied lives, and so we're actually losing life.

See, worry is not just ineffective, it's counterproductive, isn't it?

And the funny part is we know this.

All of us, we know this.

And yet there's something in us, because we want to have control, we go back to it.

I go back to it.

We were preaching this passage about 10 years ago, and it was that line.

Can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?

That worrying is effectively ineffective.

And all of a sudden the light went on for me.

Like, what is staying up in the middle of the night staring into the backyard doing?

Ain't nobody come through the house.

Still to this day, it's crazy.

And what does spinning out, worrying about all the possibilities that could happen in Disneyland do?

Or the pool.

Or what's gonna happen at awakening?

Or a relationship.

See, the minute when we can get to the reality that my anxiety doesn't um actually help me, it hurts me, then we're in a place where we go, okay.

But we use anxiety as a coping tool for the uncertainty of life to try to have control.

And it's not just ineffective, it's counterproductive.

See, here's what's interesting back to that.

Would you surrender it to the care of God?

I love how Max Lucado says it.

He says, our anxiety decreases when our understanding of our heavenly father increases.

Your anxiety decreases.

What did I do with that quarter?

There it is.

When my understanding of my heavenly father increases, I just need more of you.

I need a bigger picture of you, I need a bigger vision of you because my vision is just me, my strength, my ability, my lack of anything to affect change over here, so I'm gonna anxiously toil and spin out.

Heavenly Father, I just return it back to you.

Anxiety is part of the human condition.

You're gonna experience anxiety.

Jesus is just telling us when we do, this is what we need to do.

And so as we close, I just want to lead us in a time.

We don't have enough time to stop and zoom out.

I just want to lead us in a time to stop and zoom out.

And so, would you do this with me?

Would you mind if you're not already put both feet on the ground?

Get your hands in your lap.

Why don't you just take a big deep breath?

You could even start your iPhone and breathe out if you want.

Big deep breath.

What are you anxious about?

What are you worried or concerned about?

What are the fears or the weight that you're carrying?

Where are you experiencing it in your body?

Is it in your chest?

Is there a tightness?

Is it in your gut?

Do you experience it in your mind or your head?

You might want to take your hands and just take a clenched fist and just open them up just as a sign.

I've been holding tightly on this, and now I'm gonna surrender it to the care of God.

Would you bring it to your Heavenly Father?

Friends, you are not what you do.

You are not what you have.

You are not what others think about you, or even what you think about you.

You are what God thinks of you.

Beloved.

And in this moment, bring your care and your worries to your Heavenly Father.

And you know that at some point later this week you're gonna take it back.

It might even be later this day.

And when you do, may it be that signal or sign, God, I'm gonna bring it back to you.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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