Peace in Anxiety

Introduction:

When I was close to your guys’ age, I had something happen that I will never forget.

I came home, and my step-dad was finally gone.

I noticed that my electricity was not connected.

Most of our valuables(what little we had) were stolen.

My stepfather abandoned us, and left us in the dark ages.

He left my mom pregnant, working three jobs, and us in massive debt.

He left us for the woman he was cheating on my mom with.

This brought about major negative emotions.

The thoughts and feelings I had were unimaginable.

I would never wish anyone to feel them.

Mix this with my alcoholic father, and being the victim for bullying in my life, I had a lot of major feelings and emotions to deal with.

I had anxiety, depression, anger, and many mixes in between.

They are not good things to deal with.

We all deal with them, and this is my experience when I was young.

These emotions all go into a field called Mental Health.

All of these emotions fall under the realm of mental health.

What this means is, is your mind healthy.

It is a big part of our overall health.

It is something that is gaining more research and awareness.

We are finding out that mental health is a big part of success and big part of the outcome of our entire life.

Mental Health was not taken as seriously in the past as it is now.

I remember many people telling me to just get over it.

I struggled with it, and needed someone to help just understand.

We are going to look at another passage in 1 Peter.

Peter was one of Jesus’ disciples, and probably the one mentioned the most in the Bible.

He had many faults and quirks that made him have a hard time.

He always had his foot in his mouth, and spoke before thinking.

He went on to denying Jesus 3 times before Jesus was crucified for our sins.

God gave Peter grace and Peter witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He became a good leader in the early church.

Peter was used mightily by God to help bring the good news around the world of the gospel.

This is the good news of what Jesus has done.

Peter now is writing to a few bunch of churches.

These churches are all under the leadership of Peter.

Peter is being used by God to talk to a lot of people who are dealing with mental health problems.

The Christians that Peter is talking to are going through one of the first Christian persecutions.

Who here knows what the word persecution means?

It means extreme violence and bullying towards a people group.

It is uncalled for negative treatment towards a group.

It is being abusive, physically and verbally.

It is like bullying to the max.

It is typically in an unjust, prejudiced, and unfair way.

They were being persecuted for being Christians.

Not because they had anything bad that they did.

They were not criminals.

They were not violent.

The Christians were making oaths that they would not deceive or harm another person.

The Romans were pretty hardcore brutal to them.

They were being thrown to lions.

They were being tied to chariots and being driven around until they die.

They were being burned and boiled alive.

This would obviously be a very hard time in people’s lives.

There would of course be a lot of anxiety and stress.

These people have had people thrown in prison.

They had the possibility of having one of these things happening to them.

This would have caused some mental strain.

There would have been some mental health problems.

Peter is being used by God to write them this letter to help comfort them.

To help them be encouraged.

Positive encouragement is a big deal.

It is very important when you are going through desperation.

God understands that there is a place to make sure that we deal with our mental well-being.

He created it and knows the limits.

When you and I go through a hard time, there are real thoughts, emotions, and feelings that are occuring.

They are the response to the hard things happening.

God created us to respond certain ways.

The Christians that Peter is writing to are in need of hope.

As we mentioned,hope is something that plays a role in peace.

If I know and believe that I am going get through it, I will have peace.

This will help my mental health.

My emotions, and feelings will definitely benefit from this.

Hope is a powerful thing, and is really more necessary than we all think.

We all have hopes and our faith in them.

A lot of the reason for most people’s depression is because of them putting their faith in false hopes.

Their expectations are off.

You expect one thing, and then something else happens.

This is very bad in desperate situations.

It is not fun to have your hopes fall through.

It makes you feel disoriented(not knowing where you are anymore).

God wants us to be putting our hope in the right things.

It is like a bank account or an investment.

Investing is putting something like money into something like a product, project, money, etc. and hoping it does well to make you more money.

If it does not do well, then you will lose your money.

Putting our hope in Jesus Christ is the best investment you could ever make.

It is not investing money, but your life.

There are so many things this investment will do.

Things like eternal life, forgiveness of sins and guilt, a Father and eternal family.

Another awesome thing that it gives us is a hope now to get through this life.

There are many people out there who do not have the hope of Jesus.

They need us who do have that hope to share the gospel or good news of Jesus.

If you don’t have the hope, or fully understand what it means, come talk to me after or your cabin leader, or another leader.

Peter gives some very good instructions for having peace in our anxiety.

We are going to have, by the end of this, the 3 steps to help all situations of anxiety.

I hope you can take this and live with it.

It is good advice.

He is telling the Christians so things that apply to us today.

I hope you can apply it to your life.

This means to take and learn something and take what it means for you and do it.

Turn to 1 Peter 5:6

We will be doing verses 6-8

1 Peter 5:6 NKJV

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,

Peter first mentions humility.

What is humility?

It is knowing that you don’t know it all, and cannot do it all by yourself.

This is key to handling anxiety/depression and other emotions.

Most people seclude themselves when they are going through a dark time.

Please do not isolate yourself.

You need to let others help you.

People that you trust.

God created us to have fellowship with each other.

2 Cor 1:7“7Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.”

Phil 4:14 “In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.”

Humility is not being prideful.

We all have pride, and that is not good.

There are things we can take pride in, like our family, school, etc.

But most people do not want to appear weak.

If they show their emotion, they are not as strong as they want others to think of us.

Pride, gets in the way of so many people getting the help they need.

We need to be humble before God.

Ultimately, we need to trust in Him.

God sees the emotions.

He sees the struggles.

He knows them from before you feel them.

Peter says that we need to humble ourselves under His mighty hand.

We need to give him the control, and He will exalt us.

This word exalt means to lift you up.

God wants to help lift you up, but you have to let Him.

We have to trust in Him and be humble.

1 Peter 5:7 NKJV

7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

The next part is to cast our cares upon Him.

The word cast paints a picture to throw, or toss.

Think of casting a fishing rod.

I love this picture.

What are we casting?

Our cares.

This word also means anxieties.

Those same things that we are talking about.

The picture is to cast, throw, toss, your anxieties on to what/who?

Onto God.

You can get rid of them.

Give them to God.

Let Him handle them.

Why?

Because He cares for you!

Did you hear that?!

He cares for you.

Think about that...

The God of the universe.

The maker of all things,

The One who is all all powerful, all knowing, all perfect… Cares for you.

He is bigger than reality and cares about us.

Have you ever considered...

How small we are compared to the planet?

How small this planet is to the solar system?

How small that is to our galaxy and then to the trillions of galaxies?

I love the verse Psalm 8:4:

Psalm 8:4 NKJV

4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?

God loves you and is interested in your life.

In your thoughts and feelings.

He has a plan and wants to be a part of your life.

Why, because He does.

There is no explanation.

He loves you and me.

He has adopted you and become your Father if you have given your life to Him.

If you put your faith in Him.

What a beautiful reality.

This right here just gives me peace to know.

What a hope, and awesome truth....

1 Peter 5:8 NKJV

8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Be sober and vigilant.

There is that word sober again.

This is important, because so many people try and escape with things that will intoxicate them in times of anxiety and low mental health.

They try and find things that are going to help them escape in a fake way.

We need to deal with our mental health in real ways.

The word vigilante means that we are in control, not some distraction.

Why?

Because our enemy the devil does what?

Roams around like a roaring lion.

Doing what lions do.

Seeking whom they may devour or consume or destroy.

Could you imagine if there was a lion, like a real lion, when you went our of this chapel to your cabin.

I would pee my pants.

You would know by instinct that you need to flee.

I do not think you would try and take any chances.

Imagine you had a bunch of baggage.

Things weighing you down.

Would you hold onto them?

Would you try and outrun a lion with tons of extra clothes, bags, etc.?

You would not, because that would be foolish.

You would cast it all off and run.

This is what God wants you and I to do with our anxieties.

To give them to Him.

Because otherwise, Satan will whisper lies and use that extra weight against you.

Do you see the picture?

God wants to take the burden.

He wants to help you through it.

He wants you to come to Him.

He do it with you.

Conclusion:

God cares so much about your mental health.

He cares so much, because if it is healthy, you have peace.

If not then there is something wrong that He wants to help fix what it is.

This requires humility and putting your trust and faith in Him.

Casting those anxieties and letting Him help you.

God gave you and I the Bible as a love letter.

In this letter, He speaks everything that you need to know for life.

Praise the Lord math is not in the Bible.(JK)

God speaks a lot about many things, but one of the main things is dealing with anxiety and fear.

I wanted to share just a few verses that you should meditate on when you are going through a time of anxiety/depression/fear.

A time that is not peaceful.

I want to share some of these verses for your benefit.