Three Antidotes to Anxiety

Well, good morning. All right, wow, we're excited to be here. Today we're starting a two week series called With Thanksgiving, and through this series we're gonna be asking the question, what does it look like to live our lives with Thanksgiving? But first I wanna introduce myself, my name's Elizabeth, and if you're thinking, why do you look familiar? It's because I'm usually leading worship, but not this morning. They've given me a different kind of microphone, so this is gonna be fun.

I've been on staff for eight and a half years, but this is my first time preaching in the weekend services, so this is fun. Thank you. I'm currently in grad school right now at Western Seminary working towards a master's in ministry leadership, and I have an amazing family. This is my family right here. This is my husband Andrew and my two really cute kids. This is Ruthie, who's five and a half, and Sam, who is three, and they are just the joy of my life. Aren't they so cute? I mean, come on. They're so cute, and while they are the joy of my life, I will say parenting is by far the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Do any parents agree with me out there? Yeah, we'll talk about that in just a minute.

But today we are gonna look at one of my all-time favorite passages of scripture, and it's found in the book of Philippians. So if you brought your Bible today, you can go ahead and get those out. If not, there's Bibles in the pews, or we're gonna be showing the scriptures here up on the screen as well. So Philippians chapter four, starting in verse six, says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Would you pray with me as we begin?

God, this morning we come with hearts that are open to you. God, we believe that your word is alive and active. We believe that your Holy Spirit is moving and working and speaking. And so Lord, would you do a work in us this morning? Would you help us to hear what you want us to hear and receive what you want us to receive? We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, last month my son turned three and we had a little birthday party at our house, just a small little gathering. And I love having people over, I love hosting, but this had been just one of those crazy weeks where we had had a lot going on that week. And in an ideal world, I would have had all this time earlier in the week to do a bunch of stuff, I didn't. So that meant the morning of the party, which started at 10 a.m., we had a lot of prep we needed to do. We needed to clean up the house. We needed to put up decorations. We needed to put out food.

And the morning started out great. I was feeling good. I had my list of things I needed to do. I was watching the clock, feeling good about it, just checking things off the list. And I even remember thinking to myself, I am not gonna be stressed out today. I'm gonna be the go with the flow mom. I'm just gonna see what happens. I'm not gonna be a perfectionist about my house or having this party be perfect. I'm just gonna enjoy my son's birthday.

Well, fast forward to 30 minutes before the party is supposed to begin and we are not ready, you guys. And I start freaking out, okay? Go with the flow mom is gone. And I just start grabbing stuff and throwing it in our laundry room. I didn't know what else to do with it. We still have stuff all over every surface of our kitchen and I am just grabbing things, just who knows when I'm grabbing. I'm putting food out. I'm questioning everyone on why they're moving so slowly.

And my dear husband comes up to me. It's like, honey, do you maybe wanna take like five minutes just like by yourself upstairs? And I said, oh, we don't have five minutes, babe. People are gonna be here any minute. What are you thinking? He just smiled at me again and I was like, okay, okay. I'll try it, okay. And I marched upstairs and I gotta admit, let the record show my husband was right. He was right. I needed those five minutes to just breathe and take a minute and pray.

And when I came downstairs, everything was ready to go. No, it wasn't, that's a lie. Nothing was ready. It was still chaos, but I sure felt a lot better about it. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who's experienced something like that. Maybe it wasn't a birthday party, but it was something at work, something at school, something at home that happened that just set us off into anxiety. And sometimes it's not just one event, right? It's like the accumulation of stress and pressure that we're facing in our lives that just leads us to an anxious state.

As I'm sure you're aware, as a culture, we are more anxious now than ever. Check this out, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did last year. That's up from 37% last year and 32% the year before. Adults are especially anxious about current events like the economy and the election. And this doesn't even include the anxiety that you're probably facing in your personal lives.

In August, the Surgeon General posted an advisory on the mental health and wellbeing of parents. I don't know if you saw this, but it said, "Over the past decade, parents have been consistently more likely to report experiencing high levels of stress compared to other adults. In 2023, 33% of parents reported high levels of stress in the past month compared to 20% of other adults. And 41% of parents say that most days, they are so stressed, they cannot function. And 48% say that most days, their stress is completely overwhelming compared to other adults."

So parents, if you're stressed out, you're not crazy and you're not alone. Parenting is stressful, but it's not just the parents, right? We all are dealing with anxiety to some degree. It might be financial stress, relational stress, job-related stress, and where we live is really expensive, so you might be dealing with housing stress. And before I go any further, I just wanna say that I know that some of us in this room deal with severe clinical anxiety, and we need the help of medication and therapy, and I am so grateful for those resources.

You've heard our very own Pastor René talk about his need for those resources. So I wanna be clear that what I'm talking about today is not meant to be a replacement for those things, and I'm not meaning to be dismissive in any way of mental health issues. What I'm talking about is more of a general anxiety that we all deal with. And I believe that these verses we're gonna look at today are gonna be helpful for us, 'cause I think that God is offering us three anecdotes to our anxiety.

These are ways that we can cope with the pressures that we all face. 'Cause at the end of the day, I think we are all looking for peace. So let's look at this passage again. These words were written by the Apostle Paul in a letter that he wrote to the Church of Philippi, hence the name of the book, Philippians. And this letter is mostly a letter of encouragement and reminding them of what is true. I think there's some really good reminders for us as well.

But something you might not know about this book is that it was written while Paul was in prison in Rome. And so I think if anyone ever had something to say about anxiety and finding peace despite their circumstances, I think Paul probably knew what he was talking about. And for those of you who have heard these words before, maybe you've even memorized these verses, I know from personal experience, sometimes when we're really familiar with something, we can kind of check out and think, I've heard that before, yeah, I learned that when I was a kid.

But I wanna challenge us today to ask, am I living this? Do I actually do this? 'Cause there's a difference between knowing something and doing it. And so I wanna invite us today to read these words in a fresh way. And just wonder, what does God have for me in these words? Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

But I want us to actually back up a little bit. If you're looking at this in your Bible, I want you to look at the end of verse five. Because the first hundred times that I heard this passage, I had no idea what came before it. But I think that actually the context of this really brings this to life. And so the end of verse five says, the Lord is near. The Lord is near. When I'm the most anxious, I'm generally in an isolated state. I'm spiraling, I'm rushing around, or maybe I'm lying in bed at night and I'm just thinking about over and over again the things that happened and maybe what I would have done differently.

Or maybe I'm worrying about tomorrow or worrying about the future, worrying about what's gonna happen. But when we go to God in prayer, we begin by remembering that God is with us. And that's the first point on your message notes if you're taking notes today. Remember God is with you. The very act of prayer involves us acknowledging that God is with us and that God hears our prayers. When we know that we're not alone, man, that is powerful.

The feeling of isolation can be extremely anxiety producing but remembering God's presence with us, it reminds us that we have help. God has given us his Holy Spirit. So that means we're never alone. God is with us. So today this is our starting point. The Lord is near. And I think this is how the Apostle Paul is able to then say, do not be anxious about anything.

If you've ever been sick or in the hospital or going through some kind of crisis, you know how powerful it is when someone comes and is just with you. They don't have to have magical words or like the best scripture verse or some kind of solution. It's powerful when they're just with you. A few years ago, I went through a crisis of my own. I went through a series of miscarriages like I know that some of you have experienced as well. And we were devastated.

And I will never forget the people who came to my house and just sat on my couch and cried with us. I couldn't tell you anything that they said. They didn't have magical words that would make it go away. But their presence was powerful. God's presence with us makes all the difference when we know that we are not alone. Now this verse also says with prayer and petition, present your request to God. So God wants you to ask for what you need. That's number two, ask for what you need.

Now some of you grew up with parents that said, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. Right, any of you heard that? That's not what God's saying. God wants us to bring our request to him. And I know some of you, you don't wanna be needy. You don't want to inconvenience anyone. But God is saying in everything. That means the big things and that means the small things. That financial needs you have, the test you're taking this week, the medical issue you're facing, the big decision you're trying to make regarding your future, the relationship that feels broken, the housing you're hoping is going to come through, or the birthday party you're trying to throw for your three-year-old.

Everything means everything. Whatever that thing is that maybe is weighing on you this morning, God is saying ask for what you need. And I think that you're gonna find that the very act of doing this is going to build your relationship with God. Because when we're getting to know someone, we're spending time with them, we're talking with them, we're asking them questions, and we're maybe even asking for help.

And I also think that you're gonna find that you're going to grow your hope. When you bring your request to God, you're asking him for help, and you are opening up that possibility that maybe he's gonna change your situation, maybe he's gonna answer your prayer. And so your worry is able to change into hope. And when you ask for what you need, you turn that situation over to him. And this is powerful because we love to be in control. Right, we love to think that things are gonna get done on our own time and in our own way.

But when we turn things over to God, we're saying, God, you can have this. I need your help, you can do this. I can't fix this, but I know you can. So in doing so, there's this handing over of our burden. There's a handing over of our worry as we turn this situation over to him. So in this verse so far, we have seen the importance of recognizing and remembering that God is with us, and we're seeing what happens when we ask for what we need.

Now some of you are saying, didn't you skip something? It's coming. It's this phrase, with thanksgiving. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. So in the midst of God's presence and asking for what we need, we do this from a posture of thanksgiving. The third antidote for anxiety is to give thanks for what you have. This might be something material, this might be a relationship, but I gotta tell you, the biggest gift of all that we have is God himself.

And so we give thanks for who God is. His goodness, his justice, his mercy, his love, his presence, it's a gift. And we also give thanks for what he's already done. We call to mind his faithfulness from the past. We think of all those times where we didn't know what was gonna happen. We were asking for something that we thought was impossible, but God came through. The times he provided financially, the times he restored our hope, the times that he healed a relationship, the time that someone came to faith where we had given up hope. We call those things to mind once again and we say, "Thank you, God."

And sometimes this looks like in the middle of a tragedy, looking around and asking, "God, what are you up to?" In October, we had a prayer night following an accident that our Spanish ministry's pastor, Julian Pizarro, was in. He was hit by a car while he was out jogging. And while he was in the ICU, we gathered together, people from our English congregation and people from our Spanish congregation, to cry out on behalf of Julian and ask that God might heal him.

And in the midst of this prayer night, a dear woman from our church, Carol Hill, she prayed this. "Thank you, Father, for the miracle already present in this room, where two totally diverse cultures have come together as one in Christ. We are laying aside differences and laying aside language barriers, united in one purpose, Lord, to present our petition before you. What a miracle, Lord. Thank you for that." This is what it looks like to give thanks in the midst of a storm.

Even when you're in the midst of crisis, even before you have gotten the answer to your prayer that you're hoping for. And in the case of Julian, God answered our prayer, but not in the way that we hoped. We believe that he is healed and he is whole in heaven, just not here on earth. And even in the midst of this great loss, we can give thanks for what God will do. We believe that God is working and he's moving. We believe that he is gonna redeem this, that he's gonna bring good from this loss. He is not done yet. And so we give thanks in advance of what God will do.

Now, giving thanks is something that we're told to do, right? And so in some ways, it's an act of obedience. But did you know that gratitude is good for you? Science actually shows this, that gratitude is good for us. Check this out. A couple of psychologists, Robert Emmons and Mike McCollough, ran an experiment where they put participants in one of three groups. So the first group was told to each week, write down five things that they were grateful for. The second group was told to write down five things that displeased them. And the third group was told to just write down five things that happened that week. Might've been good, might've been bad.

Well, they did this for 10 weeks and the findings are fascinating. So group one who was told to write down five things that they were thankful for, were shown to be 25% happier than the other two groups. Not only that, but the people in that group were reported to have fewer health complaints, fewer symptoms of physical illness, and even spent more time exercising than the other groups. Now, I think if there was a pill on the market that could do those things for us, we'd all buy that, right? That is the power of gratitude.

It not only changes us mentally, but it helps us physically. So what happens next? We've remembered that God is with us. We've asked for what we needed and we've given thanks. Then what happens? Do we get what we want? Is it like a magical formula? Let's read on. It says, "The peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." God gives us His peace, His peace.

When we remember His presence, we invite Him into what we're going through and practice gratitude. There is a peace that we experience. And I love the phrase, "Transends all understanding." It doesn't make sense. Like this isn't a peace that we can conjure up on our own. This is a peace that comes from God. It's a gift. And this peace is what's gonna guard our heart and our mind. So when that anxiety starts to bubble up, we have a pathway to peace. And the pathway to peace is Jesus.

Jesus lived on this earth. He faced so many of the things that we face. He was mocked, rejected. He was killed. He was buried, but He rose again, defeating death and making a way for us to be reconciled with God so that we could have peace with God. Not only that, so that we could have peace with each other. And I believe peace within as well. That pathway to peace is Jesus.

Now this is not a one-time fix. This is a relationship. This is a rhythm that we need to have because you're probably gonna experience anxiety of some kind every single day. And you're gonna have a choice of what to do. Now we could be done. I could just pray right now, but I actually think there's more because I think a lot of us already know this. We know this intellectually. So I just wanna ask this morning, why don't we do it? 'Cause it sounds pretty good. So why don't we actually do this?

I wanna suggest four barriers this morning that keep us from living this kind of life. The first one is independence. We live in a culture that loves independence. We're taught to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. I still don't know what that means, but we're told to do it. We're supposed to figure it out on our own. Deal with it, fake it till you make it. We're independent.

The second one is numbing. A lot of us choose to simply ignore what's going on. We turn to screens, we turn to substances, so that we can just check out, we can numb out and forget what's going on, or at least be distracted for a little while. The third one is busyness. Some of us have so much going on that we don't even think to stop and pray. It's not like we're anti-prayer or something. We just don't even think about it. It doesn't cross our mind to pray.

The fourth barrier I see is lack of faith. And this is tricky because I know that for some of you, you are going through something so big that maybe it feels like it's too big for God. So what's the point? Why would I pray? Or maybe you've prayed about something in the past and God answered it in a way that was disappointing or confusing. And it's left you feeling like God can't handle this. All of those things can prevent us from doing what these verses say.

And I'm not gonna lie and say that there's an easy, quick solution for us. Sometimes we just need to practice. Sometimes we just need to build this muscle. Listen to these words from Sir John Templeton. He's an investor and philanthropist, and he said, he talks about the mind as being a garden. He said, "If you exercise no control, it will become a weed patch and a source of shame and misery. If you exercise wise control, then it will be filled with God's miracles and become a place of indescribable beauty." If our mind is a garden, then we need to take care of it a little bit every single day. We need to work at it.

I think we need to practice this rhythm of coming to Jesus with our anxiety. And I think we need a plan. We need a plan so that when our anxiety starts to bubble up, we have an alternative than just going down the same roads we always go down, to our screens, to our devices, to our substances. Instead, we're stopping and saying, "God, help."

And so I wanna offer us a very simple, practical prayer to pray this morning. And as I'm gonna teach this, I wanna invite the worship team to come on out. And this simple prayer goes like this. You are here. You can handle this. Thank you. You are here. You can handle this. Thank you. Would you say that with me? You are here. You can handle this. Thank you.

So in this prayer, we're remembering that God is with us. We are offering up our requests, and we're acknowledging that God is big enough for all of it. And we're saying, "Thank you." This could be, "Thank you for who he is. Thank you for what he's done. Or thank you for what he's still going to do." This is a summation of everything we've been talking about this morning. This prayer wraps it all up.

And I have to say, in the last month, I have prayed this prayer a lot. I have needed this prayer. I've prayed it driving down the road with my kids screaming in the back seat. I have prayed this at home. I've prayed this at work. There's been so many moments where I've needed to stop in the midst of my anxiety and bring it before God.

And so as I close, I want to lead us in a time of prayer. I'm going to say each one of these lines, and I'm going to leave some space. And I want you even right now in this moment to start thinking about what are those burdens? What are those anxiety-producing things that I'm facing in my life? And I want you to lay those at the feet of Jesus. So I'll pray. I'll take a little bit of time where you can silently pray about your own situation, and then I'll close us. Let's pray together.

God, you are here. God, you can handle this. Thank you. God, we thank you for your presence with us today. We thank you that you want to be in a relationship with us. You want us to bring our needs before you. God, you know those things that are weighing on our hearts, those needs that we have, those places of brokenness. God, we just bring it all before you, knowing that you are more than able to carry it for us, and knowing that God, with you, all things are possible.

And finally, we thank you. We thank you for the ways that you've worked in the past, and we believe that you will work in the future, and we know you are working right now, even in this moment. God, would you open our eyes to see the ways that you're already moving, and the ways that you've already provided for our needs? We say thank you. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.