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Ask Pastor John
Defeating Daily Anxiety
00:10:58
When we face day-to-day pressure and stress, Jesus’s teaching steadies our hearts and minds. Pastor John offers eight truths to fight anxiety.
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- [00:04]
A
The alarm buzzes. You wake up or try to wake up. You haven't even gotten out of bed yet, but your phone is in your hand and World War 3 is trending on Twitter. Your email inbox is full of new messages to respond to. You regret opening your phone. This sort of low grade dread comes over you partly from another day ahead of bad news online, but partly because you're reminded of overdue bills. And the day ahead is full of challenges and things you don't really want to do. You just want to stay in bed, but you can't. You have to fight Today on Ask Pastor John Defeating Daily Anxiety the experience is global and the question comes from Juliana in Brazil. Pastor John, hello and thank you for APJ As a woman in my mid-20s, I feel the constant weight of anxiety. Not full blown debilitating panic attacks, but more of a persistent background hum of dread, pressure and exhaustion. I feel all the time between social expectations, a non stop cycle of bad news I see on my phone and from my own overthinking. I just feel overwhelmed and I feel it almost every day. How can someone like me cultivate peace, sanity and spiritual steadiness in a world that feels to be driving me into a state of relentless hyper anxiousness? What practical steps minimize the nerves I feel every day in order to live like how a daughter of the Sovereign King should live?
- [01:34]
B
Well Juliana, since I don't know you well enough to diagnose all the factors that might be making you anxious, maybe the most responsible thing I can do is to ponder with you some words of Jesus that He spoke exactly so that you would be free from anxiety. That's his aim. There are eight arguments or reasons in Matthew 6:25 34 that Jesus speaks to help you not be anxious. It's amazing. I know there are people who think they've told me so that arguments or reasons don't affect our emotions. Well, Jesus did not believe that or he wouldn't have spoken the way he's about to speak. He expected that his words in the power of the Spirit and believed by his disciples these arguments, these eight reasons, would make them amazingly bold and free from fear and anxiety. So let me just preface these few comments with the fact that Jesus really did believe in the absolute, meticulous, pervasive sovereignty of God that's assumed in this passage. He believed that it would have an effect on his disciples to know that he said in Matthew 10:29 not one sparrow will fall to the ground apart from your Father. So fear not Juliana. That's for you, fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows. That's the way Jesus argued. In other words, believing that God is that much in control of the details of the world steadies the Christian heart and makes us bold, makes us free. So I'm going to take Matthew 6:25 to 34, one argument at a time, and draw your attention to it and why it can help take away your anxiety. Matthew 6:25 do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Argument 1. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? In other words, God has already given you the greater gift of life and body. Will he not give you the lesser gift of food and clothing? Your life and your body are astonishing. They are astonishing works of God. Be amazed at the wonder of your own life and your own body. And if he created those, how easy it is for him to meet your physical needs. That's argument number one, verse 26. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Argument number two. Are you not of more value than they? This is an argument from the lesser to the greater. If he concerned himself with the least valuable mere birds, billions of them, mere birds, will he not concern himself with the greatly valuable, namely his disciples? Yes, he will. So don't be anxious, as if he won't take care of you. Verse 27, argument 3. And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? In other words, anxiety doesn't work, it doesn't help. It makes matters worse. Jesus really does expect us to think this way. I mean, people scoff at this kind of argument like stop. It doesn't help. And he expects that our thinking this way is going to make a difference in our feelings. Preach to yourself. So say self. This feeling of anxiety is not helping me at all. It's only making matters worse. So stop it now. We may laugh. We may laugh at that kind of assumption. I used to. I don't anymore. I don't. I think we can preach to ourselves and to our emotions in the power of God's spirit much more effectively than we think we can. Verse 28 and why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one one of these. And here comes argument number four. 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, O you of little faith? In other words, if God provides lavishly for the ephemeral lilies the grass, will he not provide for his children? Yes, he will. He will give us the clothes we need to do his will and glorify his name. Yes, he will. Verse 31. Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek these things. When we are anxious, we are acting like unbelievers who have no heavenly Father who cares for them. You don't want to act like an unbeliever, and so you renounce anxiety. You put it to death. You say to your anxiety, you are not telling the truth about me. Anxiety. You are not telling the truth to me, and you're not telling the truth to other people. You are lying about who I am. I am a child of God. You are making me look like I don't have a heavenly Father. So stop it right now and go away. You are a liar. Get out of my life. Verse 32. Argument number six. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. In other words, you have a Father in heaven. Not a cosmic force, but a father. Not a slave master, not an employer. You have a father, a need meeting Father who is meticulously sovereign over your life and this world. Your Father knows every need, and he is God. Implication, he'll meet your needs. Yes, he will. Believe him. Verse 33. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Argument number seven. All these things will be added to you. In other words, the reason God meets all our needs is because he loves the advance of his saving rule in the lives of his people. He loves the advance of his righteousness in the lives of his people. He loves to support his mission. All these things will be added to you. Everything you need to do his mission, to do his will, to glorify his name. Verse 34. Last one. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow. Argument 8. For tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient for the day is its own trouble. In other words, tomorrow's trouble is appointed for tomorrow. And there will be new mercy for it tomorrow, not today. Don't try to run tomorrow's car on today's guests. That's not what it's for. His mercies are new every morning because our troubles are new every morning. And there will always be sufficient mercy for the day's trouble. So, Juliana, take your precious Savior at his word. Hold fast to God's pervasive sovereignty and goodness and preach to yourself reason after reason after reason from the Bible why you do not need to be anxious in this world.
- [09:51]
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Yeah, I guess that's the thing about anxiety, right? We tend to think of it as a untamable monster, something just normalized that you have to live with, have to get used to. But Jesus says, no, you don't. And he employs divine logic to fight worry so that we can preach against our anxiety. You are lying about who I am. I am a child of God. You are making me look like I don't have a heavenly father. So stop it right now and go away. You are a liar. Get out of my life. Yes. Love that pushback, Pastor John. Thank you. And you know, when it comes to social media, we've covered a lot of ground when it comes to the worst of our compulsive phone habits. You can see my summary digest of all those mini episodes in the Ask Pastor John book on pages 277 to 290 on smartphones, social media, and selfie sticks to see kind of what we've covered in the past on our worst social media and smartphone habits. And when it comes to the evil that we see on our phones, what do we do with it? Should those become the theme of Sunday morning sermons? That's next time preaching outrage. I'm Tony Reinke. See you on Thursday.