When Panic Attacks

Well, Flawed Follower is the name of our series on Simon Peter, that impulsive, inconsistent, loudmouth that Jesus transforms into a stable, consistent, strong leader, inspiring to all the rest of us flawed followers too. And I'm just kind of curious, who is inspired by this? Who is here today? Who has any flaws? Can I see a show of hands? Perven you came to church at a message that's designed just for you.

And this sermon series also ties into a book that we wrote that you can pick up in our lobby today or on Amazon, Audible. All proceeds go to Twin Lakes Church. Again, my name is René, one of the pastors here. And today, week four, when panic attacks, panic and anxiety, everybody knows are on the rise right now. And in the book, I describe my own personal experience that I've shared here before. I go into much more depth in a sermon called Five Practical Keys to Mental Health. I put the URL for that sermon at the bottom of your notes, and we're also going to put it on screen.

But in brief, I describe in the book how early on in my job here at Twin Lakes Church, I had no admin, no Valerie, no executive pastor, Mark, no graphics person, no video person. I was trying to do every one of those things and more all by myself with predictably chaotic results. For example, one time I double booked a wedding, another time I forgot to show up for a funeral that I was officiating. It was almost my own funeral and many, many more failures. I felt like if I fail, the whole church is going to fail because it was in a tough situation. And the problem was I kept failing. So the pressure was enormous.

And one day at home, I got up from our couch to go to yet another meeting and I collapsed onto the floor. I couldn't breathe. I had tunnel vision. I had chest pains, headache. Lori thinks I'm dying. I think I'm dying. She rushes me to Dominican Hospital and after a battery of tests, it turns out I'm not having a heart attack. I'm not having a stroke. I'm having severe anxiety attacks that were just debilitating as any other physical symptom. I had never even heard of anxiety attacks before I started having anxiety attacks. And it was a years-long battle to get out of that pit. I go into detail in this message.

But in that moment, I was really experiencing some very common reasons for anxiety. And maybe you can relate to these right now. First of all, I felt inadequate for the task in front of me. And maybe you kind of feel overmatched in your job. Or some of you parents who dedicate babies, even in your role as a parent. I heard the story of somebody who watched a young father and he was pushing a cart at Safeway and he had his toddler in the little cart seat for toddlers. And the toddler was just screaming and screaming as toddlers will. And the dad kept saying, "Calm down, Tommy. Calm down, Tommy. It's okay, Tommy. It's okay, Tommy."

And the man who was watching said eventually, "You know, I just got to tell you, this kid has been screaming this whole time. You're calmness in the face of that is just remarkable the way you've been speaking to Tommy." And the guy looks at him and says, "Mr., I'm Tommy." Maybe you can relate to that. You can feel inadequate. And also, I felt like my efforts were insufficient, right? Like even if I succeeded for a day tomorrow, it's all pushing the rock uphill again like Sisyphus. And my work is just insignificant. It doesn't mean anything in the long haul because what if I fail and everything just crashes and burns again.

These three emotions were pushing all of my buttons, keeping me up at night every night. Now, I got professional help, including medication, but the most effective tool for me was meditation in terms of cognitive therapy, memorizing scripture, and then meditating on it. And of all the verses I memorized, one verse helped me the most. One verse stayed with me the longest and that one verse is the verse I want to share with you today. Now, I'll warn you, at first glance, it has nothing to do with panic or anxiety.

What I didn't know then, and perhaps this is part of this verse's DNA and why it was so effective for me, was that this verse was first spoken in front of the ancient pagan temple of panic. Let's go there. Many miles north of Galilee, there's a very tall cliff with a yawning cavern where there was a temple to a pagan god. This is the region of Caesarea Philippi and that god was named Pan, from which we get our word panic. He was known as the god of ghosts, rather goats and forests, and of panic. So you could really call this place the temple of panic.

In fact, the Roman army prayed here to Pan in the year 8060 for the Jewish rebels to be instilled with unreasoning fear and panic when the Romans attacked them later in Jerusalem. And indeed, it looked like that prayer was answered. In those days, this was also known as one of the gates to the underworld, which in those days was called Hades. And you can kind of imagine that here, can't you? It's a very kind of creepy feeling, dark place. And it's in this unlikely spot, this shrine to panic, that Jesus, the prince of peace, asks his disciples a question. And of course, who answers for all the rest? When Jesus says, "Now, you disciples, I've got a question for you." Who goes, "Oh, oh, me, me, me, me." Who do you think? Simon Peter, exactly.

And in Simon Peter's answer, he gets one huge thing right and one even bigger thing completely wrong, as usual. So the story comes in two parts. First, part one, what Peter gets right. And let's start in Matthew 16:13. It says, "When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi," the area I just described to you, "He questioned his disciples." Who do people say the Son of Man is and Son of Man was Jesus' name for himself? They replied, "Well, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." But what about you, Jesus asked? Who do you say I am? And of course, that's the question Jesus always asks any one of us, isn't it? What about you? Who do you say that I am?

Simon Peter answered, "Well, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Now, Christ is not Jesus' last name. That is from the Greek word for anointed one, the Messiah. The Hebrew scriptures prophesied that one day God would send the Messiah to set all things right. And Peter is saying, "I've been watching you. I've been listening to you. I've been following you. And I think that's you." And Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon, Son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven." What Jesus is basically saying is, "Did you just said that, Peter? I know you did not come up with that on your own, because you are just not that clever. That had to come right from God."

And then here is the one verse that comforted me, that stabilized me, that brought me so much confidence. And this morning, I pray that if you walked in feeling panicked or anxious about anything, that this will bring the same kind of comfort to you too as we walk through it. Here it is, Matthew 16:18. Jesus says, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." Here's why these verses comforted me. It shows three ways Jesus builds his kingdom. Now by kingdom, of course, that doesn't just mean churches. It means the whole new community he's building. And the church, of course, is the central part of this, but it permeates into everywhere, into your work life, into your neighborhood, into your family life.

He is at work in every church, every family, every person in you. God is up to something. God is building something. And this verse tells me, number one, that Jesus builds it with flawed people. Say flawed people. Flawed people, like Peter and like you. Look at what he says. "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." How encouraged are you that Jesus says these things to his most impulsive, loudmouth, cutting ears off of people, randomly, disciple, right? Now watch this. Jesus is actually making a pun in the original Greek petra, which means rock. Sounds like Peter's new nickname Jesus is now giving him. Petros, which also means rock. If he was speaking Aramaic, it's the same thing. It's the same exact word for both, kepha.

Plus, remember this is happening near a literal, gigantic rock. So it's kind of a triple pun. Jesus is saying, "What I build with flawed people like this guy of nicknamed Rocky, Peter, is going to outlast even the stone temples on that rock." And that did happen. Peter ended up doing amazing things, as we're going to see in a few weeks. Now maybe you're thinking, "Well, good for Peter, right? He especially was the same, but I'm still a loser." Here's what Peter says about that. He writes to all of us believers. Peter's writing this later. "And you also are living stones that God is building. You, God's using you. God values you. God's working through you with all of your flaws. In fact, your flaws are part of what's got your, your biggest weakness and your biggest failures are going to become the root of your biggest ministry." Just like they were for Peter, because second, Jesus says, "I will build my church." Jesus builds it himself. He builds it not me.

So for example, I don't have to come up, I feel the pressure of trying to come up with some silver bullet idea to grow this church, which is part of what landed me in the hospital that day. He is the mastermind, always working behind the scenes. Now some of you know, I saw this in Living Color some years ago when I was pastoring a church up at Lake Tahoe. It was a, it was a smallish congregation, but it was growing. We were up to three services, but the problem was, it was around Christmas time and I was looking ahead to Easter and I thought, "We're not going to be able to fit everybody in here, not in three services. Where are we going to meet?"

And in South Lake Tahoe at the time, there was no big place to meet except for the casinos and their showrooms and convention centers. So what I did was I, you know, in those days, a typewriter, I kind of put a piece of paper into the typewriter typed out, "Dear Harvey's Casino, to whom it may concern, I'm a local pastor, can we have church in your casino?" Put it in the mail. Now at the time that church was very, it had come from a tradition that was very separatistic. They taught what's known as second degree separation, which means that Christians not only cannot gamble and drink and so on, but that Christians can't even associate with other Christians that gamble and drink and so on. And so what did that mean for that church? Did that mean that church was made pure? What do you think? No, that meant that meant the church was full of people who lied about what they did and who they hung around with.

But I knew that the board of that church would never approve this. So I'm like, "Well, I'm just going to send it out and see what happens. Better to ask for forgiveness and permission in some cases." I never heard back from Harvey's Casino for a month and so I figured, well, you know, they looked at it and laughed and threw it away. So maybe a month or two before Easter, a guy comes up to me. I'd never seen before, new attender. And let me try to describe him. He's this East Coast looking dude, maybe 45 years old. He's wearing an expensively tailored Italian silk suit. His black hair is slicked straight back with all kinds of goop in it. He's wearing a gold chain around his neck. He's wearing a gold Rolex. His fingernails are polished. He smells of cologne. You know the kind of guy I'm talking about?

And he comes up to me and he goes, "Hey, preach." Just exactly like this. He says, "My name's Pascuali." Pascuali Penner. That was his real name, not making this up. "My name's Pascuali Penner." And I just want you to know I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart here a few weeks back. He's totally changed my life. Know what I'm talking about. Just like that. And they go, "Yes, yes, I do know what you're talking about. I do. Should I be afraid of you right now? I don't know." He goes, "Hey, I just want you to know I got your letter." And I thought he was talking about the letter for people who indicated they've accepted Christ and want to be baptized. I said, "Wonderful. Our baptism is in two weeks." He goes, "No, no, not that letter. I'm looking forward to be baptized, but I'm talking about the letter you sent to hobbies. You see, I'm the administrator of said facility." He says it exactly like that.

And I'm thinking he wants to apologize that he can't help me out, so I'm saying no for him. And I said, "Ah, you know what? That letter, I'm sorry. I know it's a ridiculous idea." He interrupts me, "Hey, don't worry about it. We'll fix you up just fine." And I said, "Well, because I'm having second thoughts now, right? I don't know if we can afford your rates." He goes, "I said don't worry about it." "Well, I don't know if we have enough tech people to work at." "I said don't worry about it." And I'm thinking, "Great. Now I'm doing church with like the sopranos and I can't get out of it." So we proceeded.

Harvey's casino slogan that year was, "The parties at Harvey's." So no lie, we took out ads, had signs all over town that said, "Jesus is risen. The parties at Harvey's." But I don't know if anybody's going to come to this. I'm thinking this is the worst idea you've ever come up with. Casino people don't show up to go to church on a Sunday morning and church people are going to want to do this. So I'm sitting on the edge of the stage Easter Sunday morning going, "This is a disaster. This is the last service I'll ever preach as pastor of this church." Sitting right next to me is my new mafia friend Pasquale and we're both wondering.

And all of a sudden people start filtering in. People I've never seen before, 300, 400, 500, 600 people. I'm like, "How did you hear about the church?" Well, I found out that a group of teenagers visiting from Lascatas, who I had no idea they were even there, didn't know them, didn't ask them to do this, they saw our newspaper ads and they went to the local Kinko's and copied off hundreds of copies. And they're standing on the street corners in front of the casinos right next to the people handing out flyers to all kinds of stuff going, "Hey, come to the church service, Easter morning. Hey." So they're our publicity team.

And on Easter Sunday morning people keep coming in. There's 700, there's 800, there's 900, there's 1,000, there's 1,100, there's 1,200. It's the largest church service in the history of Lake Tahoe and it's in a casino. It's just incredible, but it gets better because little did I know that Harvey's had employed about a six and a half foot tall juggler comedian to dress up as the Easter Bunny. And he's in a full Easter Bunny suit like Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. He's completely covered up, big googly eyes, big floppy ears. And he hears about the church service and he tells his boss, "I want to take my half hour break to go to the church service."

His boss says, "Well, you only have a half hour. That's not enough time to get out of your costume and I don't want you to take your head off because I don't want little kids to look back there and see the Easter Bunny decapitated with his head in his lap. So if you go to that church, you're going to have to go on your whole Easter Bunny costume." He goes, "Okay, I will." So he decides to come to the half an hour. That's the sermon. And as I get up to preach, I look back, I see the door open and I see these legs poke through. And I think I'm hallucinating because the Easter Bunny is coming into our church service. He sits down, crosses his legs. He's taking notes on the sermon, nodding like this.

And it gets better because at the end, when I'm saying, "Listen, during the last song, if you want prayer, if you want to find Jesus Christ as your savior, just come forward." I look up, the Easter Bunny is coming forward for prayer. He's standing in the line of the people who want to talk to me. They're all dressed normal. And he's like this six and a half foot tall Easter Bunny, just like waiting for his turn in the line. He gets to me, he puts his hand, paw, whatever, on my shoulder. "Pastor, I just want to accept Jesus." Listen, to cut to the chase, that man became a leader in our children's ministry. A whole tech team volunteered from our Harrah's Casino across the street to become tech volunteers. They became leaders in our tech ministry.

That service is an example of Jesus Christ being a chess master who put all the pieces together that I could never have anticipated. What did I do that was any different than what I normally do? I wrote a letter. That's it. And God said, "Great, René, thank you very much. Waiting in the wings, René, I've got Pasquale, this mafia guy. I've got these teenagers from Lascatus. I've got a tech team. I've got all kinds of people waiting for you that you know nothing about. And now that your little piece is done, all these other pieces are going to move into place. And that same thing has happened again and again. And that same thing is happening in your life. You just do your thing and God does his thing. And that means you don't have to worry.

That means you can go out there and try stuff joyfully and fearlessly and you can watch God work. And then Jesus says finally, "And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." That means Jesus builds it to last. Say Jesus builds to last. Jesus builds to last. Those disciples must have looked up at that cliff face, the gates of Hades, and those days bristling with stone temples. And in those days they look around at Jesus, "All he has left are these 12 bozos." And they must have thought, "Us outlast that? Never. But that's what happened. The Christian church under the Roman Empire, 8065, about 7,530 Christians in the whole world. By 8300 there's about 6 million. And after 10 years of severe persecution at the beginning of that century, by 8350 there's 33 million Christians. The gates of Hades did not prevail.

And this has happened hundreds of times again and again proving Jesus' words to be true. And I'm here to tell you this is true today for TLC and Espanyol with Pastor Julian in the hospital. I was just there before this service started. Jesus has not abandoned that church. Jesus will build that church. Jesus will do work in Julian's family. Jesus is working right now in the hallways of that hospital this morning because he is always working. Amen?

Can you see how my reasons for distress were answered by this one verse? I felt I'm inadequate. But Jesus reminds me, "Well, but he builds with flawed people." It doesn't matter how inadequate you feel. I felt my efforts were insufficient, but that's okay. Jesus is building it, not you. I felt my work is insignificant. No, it's not because Jesus builds it to last. Amen?

Here's the big picture in this verse. This is why this encouraged me so much. I'm going to say a phrase I want you to repeat it after me. God is always working behind the scenes, within me and around me, within me and around me, and nothing can stop him. Nothing can stop him. Amen?

I wish I could stop this sermon right there, but that's not where the story ends. Peter gets this much right, but there's a second half. Part two, what Peter gets wrong. And this is classic Peter, isn't it? He walks on water, then he sinks. He says something amazing, then he says something completely not just foolish, but anti-Christ. And of course I love this because that's just like us. And this is in the Bible to show this is just the life of a disciple. We veer, and Jesus always calls us back. Watch what happens next. From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief, free scribes, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

I don't think the disciples heard that last phrase. They just heard suffer and killed because look what Peter does. Peter took him aside, maybe emboldened by the fact that Jesus had just told him, "Oh, you just said an amazing thing." Peter took him up aside and began to rebuke him. He's correcting Jesus about the crucifixion, about the most important part of the faith. Far be it from you, Lord, he said, "This shall never happen to you." He's not just like, "Oh, I don't want you to die." He's rebuking him. Why? Because that's not what the Messiah does. Don't miss this.

When Peter called Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, he didn't think of that the way we do today, right? We've been conditioned by 2,000 years of Christian theology. The Messiah is the one who died on the cross for our sins, praise God, and rose again in those days when they thought of the Messiah coming back to Israel and restoring the kingdom. Here's what they thought of. One typical description was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are these caves outside of Jerusalem, down south of Jerusalem in the desert, where archaeologists have unearthed 2,000-year-old scrolls, and one of them is called the War Scroll, and it decides what life is going to be like when the Messiah comes.

And here's part of the description. This is just typical. It goes on and on like this. The Hero of War. That's what the Messiah is, by the way. He's the Hero of War is with our company, and the host of his spirits is with our steps. Rise up, O Hero! Take your captives, O glorious one. Take your plunder. Lay your hand upon the neck of your enemies and your foot upon the backs of the slain. Crush the nations, your adversaries, and may your sword devour guilty flesh. Praise God, right? I mean, but this is, they're thinking the Messiah is going to come, and you know, they've watched Jesus. He has so much charisma. He has supernatural power. Man, he's the guy. He's our Hero of War.

And here's how much their imaginations were conditioned by this. Almost exactly 200 years before this story happens in the Bible, there was something that happened in Israel called the Maccabean Revolt. And what that was was a group of brothers led by their father from Galilee successfully led an armed revolt against the Syrian Greek foreign oppressors, drove them out. It worked until civil war weakened the new Jewish kingdom of the Romans, rolled in, and took over again. But, but this revolution cast a long shadow over the imaginations of the Jewish people, to the point that 200 years later, guess what people are naming their children? Look at the names of the Maccabean brothers and their fathers, Simon, Judas, John, Jonathan, Mattathias.

Now look at the names of most of the disciples of Jesus Christ. Simon, twice, Judas, twice, John, Matthew, Mattheias later replaces Judas. What does that tell you? It tells you that these were the heroes of the country. It tells you that this story had captured the imagination of parents and children. It tells you that Simon's dad probably told him many times, "Maybe you'll, you'll be another Simon Maccabee." Maybe this is why, one of the reasons why Jesus changed Simon's name to Peter. You ever thought about that? He's trying to recast his imagination. He's saying, "Peter, Peter, you're, you're not like those people, because I'm doing something different." But this is what they're thinking of with the size.

So Jesus says, "No, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna suffer and be killed." And they're like, "No, no, no, this shall never happen to you. Far be it." And watch how Jesus responds, "Get behind me, Satan." And Peter must have been like, "Wait a minute, two minutes ago, I'm The Rock and now I'm Satan? What's going on here?" Right? Jesus goes on, "You are a stumbling block to me. Why? Why would Jesus call him Satan? I think Matthew wants us to deliberately think of this as a, as a callback to Jesus Christ's very first temptation of the desert." Do you remember?

The devil tempts Jesus Christ and says, "I will give you all the authority and splendor of the kingdoms of the world." Think of how much good you could do, Jesus. You can have it right now. It's mine to give. All you got to do is bow down and worship me. Just be in league with the devil. You could do a whole lot of good. Jesus, of course, refuses, but the Bible says when the devil left him, he left until an opportune time. And I think Jesus is seeing this as one of those opportune times because the temptation is the same, to have the kingdom without the cross. And Jesus knows he could raise a pretty good army. He is the most charismatic, authoritative, powerful person that these people have ever seen. So this is a temptation.

He says, "But it's a trap. You're a stumbling block to me, Peter, for you do not have in mind." And that is such a crucial phrase. "Have in mind in the original Greek conjure is savoring, imagining." What has captured your imagination, Peter? It's not the things of God. It is the things of men. See, Peter imagined Messiah as some kind of a super-powered revolutionary, right? Jesus is going to lead us. We're going to do the Maccabean revolt again, but this time we're going to get it right. But Jesus is saying, "Peter, Peter, Peter, for three years now, the thing that I've talked about most has been what my kingdom is going to be like." A hundred times Jesus says the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is like this.

Among the things he says, things like, "Well, it's like mustard seed, right? Nobody plants it. Nobody tends it. Nobody waters it. It grows silently, but soon it takes over and it carpets the whole world. That's what my kingdom's like." Or it's like a child to enter the kingdom of God. You've got to have the innocence and the wonder and the helplessness of a baby. Or the people who lead in my kingdom are like servants. And here's a painting of a Roman dinner. And if you go down the painting, you see the servants. And you'll notice the servants all look small, right? They're not children. They're rendered that way because they were seen as insignificant, as smaller in importance and significance. They were the little people.

And look at what they're doing. This guy's putting on somebody's shoe. This guy's giving somebody another drink. This guy is holding a guy who's so drunk, he can't even stand up, right? The servants like the house elves in Harry Potter or something. "That's how we lead," Jesus says. "That's our style. Mustard seed, baby, servants." And even, he now says, to the point of crucifixion, he says, "That's actually going to be how we get victory." Ultimately, Jesus's crucifixion through which Colossians 1 says he disarmed all the evil powers when he died for us on the cross. But he says later in the next verse, in fact, he says, "And anyone who wants to be my disciple must take up his own cross and follow me." In other words, "Must do things in this way, the way of my kingdom."

See, there's the things of men and the things of God. Peter's idea of how it was all going to work was domination to defeat the enemy, leading to destruction. But Jesus's idea was different. Jesus's idea was not domination, but sacrificial service, not to defeat the enemy, but to save the enemy. The goal is not destruction. The goal is redemption. The things of God or the things of men. To Peter, the cross was an indignity. To Jesus, the cross was the strategy. And guess what? It still is the strategy. Serving people quietly like mustard seed or yeast working its way through dough. That's the strategy. And that's why our Acts of Kindness initiative that we do this month is not just about niceness. It's about Christ-likeness, about living Jesusly.

And you can get all the details at TLC.org/AOK. But let me just give you some examples. This month, we're putting together gift bags for every single staff member at New Brighton Middle School. Why? It's super hard being a public school teacher. And all they hear is complaints. And so we just want to say, "We love you. We support you. We serve you." Next Saturday, we're assembling bags of pajamas for kids in transitional housing and hygiene bags for the homeless. And by the way, church, we need hundreds more pajamas brought in this week so that we can help out Project Pajamas, which is something that a judge here in Santa Cruz came up with because she saw kids moving into transitional housing without even pajamas.

And every weekend, all month long, we're helping refurbish Word of Life Church in Santa Cruz. Framers, painters, electricians are volunteering their time. Soon our food drive for the food bank starts. Why are we doing all this stuff? Why would we serve in this way? Because that's how Jesus rolls. And so that's how we roll. You want to have a long-term influence for Jesus. It is important to vote. It is important to vote our biblical values. But let me just tell you something. Everything you vote for is temporary. Every person, every proposition ultimately is temporary. Important, but temporary. Jesus builds to last through service, through us carrying the cross, through us being, you know, mustered, going everywhere, quietly through service. That's how the kingdom is manifest here.

But Simon Peter doesn't get that yet. Simon Peter was right about the who of Jesus in part one, but Peter was completely wrong about the way of Jesus in part two. And so that begs the question, what about me and you? What do you have in mind? What are you savoring? What's been capturing your imagination? Am I right about the who of Jesus yet not practicing the way of Jesus? What images of the kingdom of God or the way the kingdom of God could come into the earth have been capturing your imagination? This has always been throughout history the biggest failure of Christians, not the gates of Hades. The gates of Hades won't prevail against the church. The biggest threat to the church is this.

We slip back to seeing the kingdom of God through the lens of the things of men and not the things of God. You could say the Maccabean way instead of the Jesus way. This slippage is what led to the Crusades. It's what led to the Inquisition. Many people today are seeing Christians who use militaristic, aggressive language and behavior. Let's make sure we get the who of Jesus right and the way of Jesus right and be a non-reactive, serene, peaceful agents of God's love in a world full of chaos and panic. And by the way, if you feel convicted you haven't always gotten this right. I love the fact that these two stories are together, right? Peter had this amazing insight and he's rebuked by Jesus about two minutes apart. Classic theater. Float sinks. And of course that's all of us.

Our hearts can be captivated by Jesus then we immediately do something stupid. Peter truly is a flawed follower. But what's so encouraging about this is Jesus doesn't reject him, does he? In fact, Jesus promotes him to be his chief of staff. What an encouragement. Because you'll fall too. You'll fail to get it right too. And Jesus will correct you too. But Jesus will never give up on you. Jesus will pull you back up again and again and again. And in fact, he'll give you new responsibilities and give you new insights and give you new strength if you just keep following.

So remember to claim this truth no matter what is happening. Affirm this truth, however you fail, whatever you face, whenever you're in trouble. Let's say it together again. Let me hear you say this out loud, church. God is always working behind the scenes within me and around me. Nothing can stop him. Amen?

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I just want to pray for anybody here who's feeling dread or anxiety. And I just want to speak to them these words. Don't panic because the Prince of Peace is far greater than some alleged God of panic. And the Prince of Peace is at work behind the scenes. And so help us to stick to your game plan. Lord, may your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I pray for anybody here who may be feeling low on confidence, low on motivation, discouraged, saddened that they would fix their eyes on you, Lord, and on your promises, on your love for them, your love for the church. For we know that yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

You know, another verse that I loved to memorize during my own times of chaos and panic was where Jesus says, "Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And the choir is going to sing you a song based on those words that I know is going to recenter you and give you peace. So just take a deep breath for a minute. And if you're feeling anxious, let the words of this beautiful song sink into your soul.