God's Got This!
Notes
Transcript
Big Idea: Anxiety, fear, and worry often come when we loose sight of our identity. We are children of the creator of the universe and He knows our needs and cares for us. The issue of anxiety, however, is rarely as simple as just having more faith. In fact, its been this approach that has often led the church to be quite harmful to those suffering from anxiety, depression, and other issues of mental health. We are going to examine one leg of the three-legged triangle of mental health…the spiritual aspect. God desires to use all three legs of our health (physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual) to help manage our anxiety.
“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
“And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
“And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’
“For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
2018 Stadia Assessment Story
It isnt just that though...
That’s what I’d call a storm - Anxiety comes and passes when the stressing factors have come and gone .
There are squalls - Probably not familiar with that or the language of a tropical depression up here in the PNW though. This is anxiety that sticks around for weeks at a time.
There are seasons - Like the nine months of rainy season we experience here…for some of us, anxiety and worry is not a passing emotion but can come and hover over us for seasons at a time. This makes even the simplest tasks like getting out of bed or getting ready for work or working through your to-do list seem like insurmountable tasks.
Panick attacks - Perhaps some of you are familiar with panic attacks. The sudden onset of anxiety so strong that there are actual physical side-effects. It can be as benign as having a hard time catching your breath to actually feeling like you are having a heart attack and hyperventilation.
Social anxiety - For some of you, just coming to a place like this and sitting in a room with fifty other people is incredibly draining and takes all that you have. For some people the thought of being around groups of people is so debilitating that you are constantly cancelling plans or backing out of engagements where you know there will be large gatherings and this only serves to increase the feelings of failure that anxiety is so keen to whisper into our ears which in-turn produces more anxiety and higher stakes in the future.
Some of these are caused by actual chemicle imbalances in the brain and honestly its just the way your body works.
But for some us, it isn’t a chemicle imbalance at all. For some, the source of your anxiety is rooted in past experiences.
PTSD - Some of you have experienced events so traumatic or jarring that even sights, sounds, smells, and talking about the event can have serious effects on you. Those effects can range from being uncomfortable and an elevated heart rate to a full-blown Panick Attack.
OCD - For some, whether it is rooted in a chemical imbalance or a past traumatic event, your anxiety manifests itself in an unavoidable obsessive compulsive action. That action has to happen exactly perfectly in order for your mind to move on, get closure, or lower the anxiety levels. And if that action or environment is perfect, you will obsessively re-apply the action or attempt to fix the environmental circumstances until the anxiety abates.
For some of you, just me bringing up the subject is painful. Right?!? This is your personal struggle and nobody really knows the depths of this issue for you. Nobody could understand what a war it is just to get out of the bed and face the day. People don’t understand why you won’t join them at that party they’ve invited you to. People don’t understand or even make fun of the fact the you dread fireworks on the fourth of july because it brings up horrors they couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams.
40 Million people.
10 Years.
We’ve done a terrible job as the church…give people religious platitudes.
Have more faith
Give it to God
Pray through it
Read your Bible more
Not wrong answers just incomplete answers.
To a hammer everything looks like a nail.
This problem is physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual in nature.
Broken leg = meal train. Debilitating and crippling anxiety and can’t get out of bed = nobody takes a picture of that.
We’ve perpetuated the stigma of it.
So I want us to be a different church. I want us to be a church that addresses issues of mental health with the care and concern required to deal with these incredibly complex issues.
So today. We are mainly going to look at the spiritual because that’s what we have right in front of us…but even in this, you are going to see that Jesus has more in mind than simply the spiritual.
Let’s take another look:
“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
The greatest weapon of anxiety is the lie that this is all there is to life.
Its the lie that:
You will never get any better.
You will always feel this way in social situations.
You will never enjoy life the way you once did because your fears simply won’t allow you to.
Its the lie that there is something wrong with who you are as a person.
Its the lie that the problems and concerns facing you will never go away.
Its the lie that your problems are unlike anyone else’s.
Its the lie that you are all alone and nobody else feels the way you do.
Its the lie that you are a drain on your loved ones because you just can’t seem to get your stuff together.
And perhaps most sinister of all…its the lie that everyone would just be better if you weren’t here.
This is the pattern…do black hole vortex.
So Jesus tells us to simply stop worrying..
How does that work…Husbands does that ever work for your wife when she is upset?
Do Parking ticket bit...
So Jesus gives us this awesome visible picture that is meant to help us disrupt the thought vortex.
Read:
“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
“And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
“And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’
“For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
Explain as you go...
Do the vegetable garden and the veery thrush bit...
Our anxiety is often tied to our need for control.
Good news is you are not in control.
That actually sounds like the worst news in the world for someone struggling with an anxiety issue that is rooted in a need for control. And it would be if Jesus hadn’t immediately followed up with this invitation.
“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Will you give God control today?
God is in control so you don’t have to be.