I mentioned last time that the passage we’ve been looking at the last several weeks deals with three of the top personal problems people face: conflict, depression, and anxiety. We come today to the last of those three problems. We are going to deal with anxiety.
And, as I said before, the Bible is the most relevant book in the world. It is said that 40 million people in the United States alone have problems with severe anxiety. This does not include low levels of anxiety such as nervousness and unease. This would be major worry. The kind that would be considered chronic or on the level of panic. This would be the kind that people have sought professional help.
The good news is that the Bible gives us the answer. As we will read again, the Lord is the God of peace. When we live in submission to him, we may gain a peace that surpasses all understanding. In other words, we can have such repose that people will look at us funny and say that there must be something wrong with us because we are so calm. The Lord Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace, can steady our hearts and minds so that we do not experience such discomforts.
And with that, let’s get into the text for this morning. Let’s read together Philippians 4:2-9.
I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me--practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
INTRODUCTION
I want to begin with some good news. As we talk about anxiety, I want to talk about it in a way that is going to put it in perspective and give you a good outlook on things. I want to get you energized for this and really ready to praise God. And this is what I want you to take to heart: Anxiety is a sin.
Now, you’re probably sitting there thinking: Wait, how is that supposed to get me excited? How is that supposed to give me a good outlook? What kind of good news is that? This isn’t quite going in the direction I thought it would. You’re calling me a sinner for having bouts of anxiety. That’s not making me feel good at all!
Hang with me for a moment. I want you to understand something. Our passage says, “Do not be anxious.” And if you get worked up and start to worry, what are you doing? You’re not following the commands of Scripture. And that, by definition, is a sin.
And that is good news. That’s really good news for our world today. That’s because we know that sin can be fixed. There is restoration and redemption from sin. That’s what Jesus Christ bestows. He came to save us from our sins. And that means that we can be saved from anxiety. And that’s really what this passage is all about.
You know, in our world today anxiety is considered a medical problem. There are professionals out there who do not believe anxiety is a spiritual issue at all. It is a brain disorder or has its foundation in the different hormones that people produce. And think about that. If you have an emotional disorder and it is all about the mechanics of the body, then there is no real hope of ever being able to get victory over this issue. The best you can ever hope for is to cope with the problem. You’ll forever live with the anxiety of having an anxiety problem because the world has no solution. While they may give you some drugs and some few tips on how to get by, they cannot really do you much good because there’s no real solution. Escape and victory will forever remain elusive.
That’s why I want to start by affirming the Scriptural perspective this morning. I want us all to say gladly, “My anxiety is a sin!” This statement may sound grim at first, but it is a glorious reality when put in perspective of Christ’s redemption. Jesus has come that we may have life, and have it to the full. And he offers us the hope of gaining victory over this problem. He has died for the purpose of setting us free from this bondage.
And again, he reveals right here in this passage, the pathway to peace. You heard how this passage emphasizes peace. We can enjoy a peace from God when we put our trust in His word and conform our lives to his directions.
So this morning, I want to show you the pathway to peace. This passage says when our lives are ordered aright—when they are ordered in the way Jesus wants it to be ordered, then he will send his peace down into our souls—that surpassing peace.
How do you order your life aright? Well, it begins with getting a right order in your relationships.
I. Right relationships [2-3]
We cannot get away from Euodia and Syntyche. It is not a coincidence that the command concerning anxiety is in the same neighborhood as the passage which deals with these two lady’s relationship. When relationships are in right order, there is peace. A peace with God and a peace with people (horizontal and vertical) leads to peace within. Emotional peace is often directly related to relational peace.
So the very first thing you should do is ask yourself, “Are there any relationships that are askew?” “Have I done anything to cause a breach with someone?” Or, maybe, have you been the victim? Kids can have all kinds of anxiety and that can stem from their parents’ lack of relationship.
It was not long ago that I was speaking with a fellow. He mentioned how his parents had gotten a divorce when he was young and he lamented it and how much it had affected him. So even if it isn’t you who are the one having anxiety over the broken relationship, fix it for the sake of others.
Now when it comes to broken relationships, we recognize that not everyone will want to reconcile. That’s why Scripture tells us to “do your best to live at peace with everyone.” Sometimes people are not going to want to reconcile. But you can still do your part. You can offer your repentance. You can hold out your love to them. You can be gracious and make kind gestures that can show that you are doing what God wants you to in this relationship.
If you do your part, that can help to alleviate the anxiety. And you can be comforted in the fact that you have sought to honor God in that relationship.
That’s the first thing to do is getting your relationships in order. The next step is to get your attitudes in order.
II. Right attitudes [4, 6]
Let’s remember what was said last time, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.” Sometimes you need to say, no I’m not going to be anxious about this. I’m going to focus my energy and I am going to rejoice in the Lord. I’m going to rejoice that God is taking care of things.
And that goes along with what is said in verse 6. Notice what kind of attitude is required there. It is the attitude of gratitude. Paul says, “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.”
We’ll get to prayer in a second, but what is the attitude you should have while you are praying? You are to be thankful. Whatever it is you are worrying about is not a cause for worry. It is a cause for thanksgiving.
For the unbeliever, it is a cause for worry. They have no reason to be thankful. But we understand that God is active in this world. God, by means of His all wise providence—his governing and sustaining all his creatures and their actions, uses every situation for His good and glory. We can rejoice that the so called ‘bad things’ that come our way are according to His divine plan and are accomplishing His grand purpose in this world.
So give thanks. Give thanks when you want to worry about your finances. God is going to do great and wonderful things. Give thanks when you are at the end of your rope… God’s rope is limitless and this is a time when His divine power can be displayed. Find some silver linings or give thanks that despite your limited understanding, God is doing something beyond your understanding.
This attitude of gratitude will help to eradicate worry.
What do you mean thanksgiving? I’m not sure how the bills are going to be paid this month! How can I give thanks for that? The great thing about problems is that this is always a chance for God to work. You’re in a bind. There’s nothing you can do to make things go right. It is completely out of your power! Praise God! This is an opportunity for God to work. Be thankful that He has all the power in this world to take care of it. Your problems are God’s opportunities.
Bill was a guy who had issues with anxiety when he drove. He would get himself all in a fluster to the point he hated driving. It all started with stoplights. When he came to a stoplight he would get upset that he was being held up on his commute to work. When he was out on the open road, he was typically fine. But whenever something delayed him, he would start getting tense. This pattern became habitual and it started to become like a cancer metastasizing. His frustration turned to anxiety and he started to dread the drive to and from work each day. He would arrive at his destination all knotted up and in a frizzle.
He knew that things needed to change. So what he started doing is taking time to be thankful. Instead of cursing the lights, he would try to be thankful for them. These were little pit stops in his drive each day; a time to relax, rather than get tense. He would take time at these stops to thank God for something (his kids, the weather, etc). After practicing this new habit, he found that he started to really enjoy this part of his day. Instead of arriving home in a state of panic, he came home cheery and ready to interact with his family.
It was all because he chose to make a decisive change in his attitude. Instead of choosing to worry, he chose to be thankful.
You will find this to be true too. Once you start putting on the right attitudes, you’ll find that there’s great relief.
Add to this a robust prayer life.
III. Right prayers [6-7]
That’s the third thing we need and Paul talks about it in verse 6. Notice that it is a robust prayer life – in everything (not some things) by prayer and supplication (see how he doubles the language of prayer?), let your requests be known to God.
There are what we call superlatives in this passage. Everything; prayer, supplication, requests. Paul’s trying to say that prayer needs to be a major part of your life. As you are thanking God for what’s going on, you can be praying for these things. And not just these things, but for everything; you are praying for lots of different things.
Remember, we believe in a God who is using our prayers to accomplish his purposes in this world. And typically, we have not because we ask not. Think of the old hymn:
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.
I love that stanza of that hymn because it reminds us that worry is a self inflicted pain. It is a harm that we do to ourselves because we are not living by faith.
So what do you do when you are tempted to worry? When anxiety starts coming on, you should immediately pray. Maybe call someone and ask them to pray with you. And I like to say you’re your prayers much more inclusive. Don’t just pray about your issue; pray for other people’s issues. Pray for those in other parts of the world that are being persecuted or something.
Sometimes we offer what I call “worry prayers.” We pray about our concerns, but that only makes our worry all that more pronounced. “O God, please help me; help me; help me; help me. O God, get me free from this; make this go away God.” That’s not doing you a lot of good, is it?
This is a better way to do it: Lord, I commit this to your care. I know you will do right. Here is my desire, but I will submit to your will (come what may). May you be glorified in this and give me the steadfastness to walk through it. I now leave it in your hands. And I pray for those in China and North Korea who are undergoing greater pains and persecutions than I. I ask that they would be sustained and given relief from their oppression.”
That’s a better way to pray, isn’t it? Give yourself to prayer. Try to develop a robust prayer life. Slay that worry with this powerful, wonderful tool God has given you.
And then move on to the next step, which is getting your thoughts in order. You need right relationships; right attitudes, right prayers, and a right mind.
IV. Right thoughts [8]
Look at verse 8. Paul gives you a lengthy list of things that you should be thinking about. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Do you get what he is saying? Get your thoughts in order. Get your mind thinking the way you should. Once you start thinking right, then you’ll start feeling right.
If you are anxious, then you are likely violating something on this list.
Is your mind fixed on what is true? Or are you imagining situations? Sometimes this is called catastrophizing. You are making things out to be more catastrophic than it really is. So & so never said anything about you, but you think that’s something they would say or do. You’ve just accentuated the problem by making up a false scenario. You need to de-catastrophize, so to speak. You need to think about what is true. Come back to reality and stop telling yourself lies. Once you do that, then a lot of your anxieties will likely vanish with the false scenarios that you’ve been making up.
Let’s look at another one: When you are anxious, you are probably not thinking about what is honorable, are you? Now, the most honorable thing that one can think about is God himself, right? That’s probably the focus of a lot of the items on this list. God is the one that is lovely, commendable, has all excellence, and worthy of praise. So Paul is probably telling you to meditate on the nature of God. What is God like? What does the Lord do?
God’s attributes are like an antibacterial for anxiety. As you dwell on his sovereignty, you understand that there’s nothing in this world that should get you worked up. When you meditate on the depths of God’s wisdom - how he knows the end from the beginning, how he has framed the best possible course of history and your life – when you think about how his divine plan is being worked out in an absolutely flawless way – it has been framed according to the most precise wisdom, then what have we to worry about?
That is why praising God is the duty of each person every day, especially when you are tempted to worry. When you are feeling anxious, start singing. Start glorying in the absolute most praiseworthy thing you know of. And as you turn your eyes towards God, you’re anxieties will melt away. And as you build yourself up in God’s honorable-ness, you are making a preventative attack and keeping yourself from having bouts with this stuff.
So it’s important to get your minds in order. Think on these things. Do not let your minds run loose. Free range thinking only leads to worry and fear. Your mind need to be tethered to the truth of reality, of Scripture, and of the nature of God.
The last thing that you must do is get your actions in order. You need to Right your relationships, right your attitudes, right your prayers, right your thoughts, and get your actions in the right order too.
V. Right actions [9]
Look at the last verse we read (verse 9). Paul says, “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things.” What’s going to happen when you do that? “The God of peace will be with you.”
What’s Paul saying? He’s saying look at me. I’ve been an example to you. You’ve witnessed my conduct. You’ve heard how I’ve carried myself. You’ve received in me an example of kindness, charity, chastity, and restraint. All of this is what you need to be doing too. Once you start practicing the things that you’ve witnessed in me, then you will find that there is nothing to worry about.
Basically what Paul is saying is that we bring a lot of havoc into our lives. We are the main reason why we have not been enjoying peace. We’ve been acting out and doing things that provoke other people to anger and cause us more grief.
You’ve probably heard the proverb, “The way of the wicked is hard.” That’s kind of what Paul is talking about. Ungodly living will torment you. It is the seedbed of angst. When you start following Christ, then he will settle things down.
Think about it with this one example. If you are responsible with your finances and you make a budget and stick to it, things are going to be a lot better for you. If you’re out spending here and there and buying this and that without paying attention to where your money is going, then you’re going to be have all kinds of troubles when it comes time to pay the bills. You’re going to be fretting about the rent. You’re going to be pulling your hair out because you can’t afford to keep up with the telephone bill. You go out and sink a gazillion dollars into the latest techy phone, then you’re all in a fluster because you can’t afford the monthly payments or the water bill.
Your problems are not your finances, its your impulsive spending and lack of restraint. You’re too much in love with pleasure and not seeking to glorify God with your income. If you would take heed to your actions and make that budget, have a little discipline and stick to that budget, then you’d likely be able to build all kinds of wealth. You may even be surprised that you actually have a lot left over at the end of the month.
There would be financial peace. And it is all because you’ve sought to get your actions in order.
That’s just one example. And it goes to show that there is peace in the path of God. God’s ways are the ways of peace. The heavens will open up and heavenly peace will rain down upon you as you put the Law of God into action and begin to conform to Christ.
Conclusion:
Well there you have it. We’ve just briefly touched on these things, but you have the pathway to peace laid out for you. There’s the redemption that you can have from anxiety.
And I hope you notice that the anxiety is merely symptomatic. It is the tip of the iceberg that you see protruding from the cold waters of life. If you’d go below, what you find is that there is a world of things wrong underneath. The anxiety is just the surface that you see.
The Lord today has shown us that we need to go down to the root things. We need to get the order in our lives that he wants: in our thoughts, our prayers, our attitudes, actions and relationships. Do this and you will find that the iceberg of anxiety completely melts away.
And, as I said before, the Bible is the most relevant book in the world. It is said that 40 million people in the United States alone have problems with severe anxiety. This does not include low levels of anxiety such as nervousness and unease. This would be major worry. The kind that would be considered chronic or on the level of panic. This would be the kind that people have sought professional help.
The good news is that the Bible gives us the answer. As we will read again, the Lord is the God of peace. When we live in submission to him, we may gain a peace that surpasses all understanding. In other words, we can have such repose that people will look at us funny and say that there must be something wrong with us because we are so calm. The Lord Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace, can steady our hearts and minds so that we do not experience such discomforts.
And with that, let’s get into the text for this morning. Let’s read together Philippians 4:2-9.
I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me--practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
INTRODUCTION
I want to begin with some good news. As we talk about anxiety, I want to talk about it in a way that is going to put it in perspective and give you a good outlook on things. I want to get you energized for this and really ready to praise God. And this is what I want you to take to heart: Anxiety is a sin.
Now, you’re probably sitting there thinking: Wait, how is that supposed to get me excited? How is that supposed to give me a good outlook? What kind of good news is that? This isn’t quite going in the direction I thought it would. You’re calling me a sinner for having bouts of anxiety. That’s not making me feel good at all!
Hang with me for a moment. I want you to understand something. Our passage says, “Do not be anxious.” And if you get worked up and start to worry, what are you doing? You’re not following the commands of Scripture. And that, by definition, is a sin.
And that is good news. That’s really good news for our world today. That’s because we know that sin can be fixed. There is restoration and redemption from sin. That’s what Jesus Christ bestows. He came to save us from our sins. And that means that we can be saved from anxiety. And that’s really what this passage is all about.
You know, in our world today anxiety is considered a medical problem. There are professionals out there who do not believe anxiety is a spiritual issue at all. It is a brain disorder or has its foundation in the different hormones that people produce. And think about that. If you have an emotional disorder and it is all about the mechanics of the body, then there is no real hope of ever being able to get victory over this issue. The best you can ever hope for is to cope with the problem. You’ll forever live with the anxiety of having an anxiety problem because the world has no solution. While they may give you some drugs and some few tips on how to get by, they cannot really do you much good because there’s no real solution. Escape and victory will forever remain elusive.
That’s why I want to start by affirming the Scriptural perspective this morning. I want us all to say gladly, “My anxiety is a sin!” This statement may sound grim at first, but it is a glorious reality when put in perspective of Christ’s redemption. Jesus has come that we may have life, and have it to the full. And he offers us the hope of gaining victory over this problem. He has died for the purpose of setting us free from this bondage.
And again, he reveals right here in this passage, the pathway to peace. You heard how this passage emphasizes peace. We can enjoy a peace from God when we put our trust in His word and conform our lives to his directions.
So this morning, I want to show you the pathway to peace. This passage says when our lives are ordered aright—when they are ordered in the way Jesus wants it to be ordered, then he will send his peace down into our souls—that surpassing peace.
How do you order your life aright? Well, it begins with getting a right order in your relationships.
I. Right relationships [2-3]
We cannot get away from Euodia and Syntyche. It is not a coincidence that the command concerning anxiety is in the same neighborhood as the passage which deals with these two lady’s relationship. When relationships are in right order, there is peace. A peace with God and a peace with people (horizontal and vertical) leads to peace within. Emotional peace is often directly related to relational peace.
So the very first thing you should do is ask yourself, “Are there any relationships that are askew?” “Have I done anything to cause a breach with someone?” Or, maybe, have you been the victim? Kids can have all kinds of anxiety and that can stem from their parents’ lack of relationship.
It was not long ago that I was speaking with a fellow. He mentioned how his parents had gotten a divorce when he was young and he lamented it and how much it had affected him. So even if it isn’t you who are the one having anxiety over the broken relationship, fix it for the sake of others.
Now when it comes to broken relationships, we recognize that not everyone will want to reconcile. That’s why Scripture tells us to “do your best to live at peace with everyone.” Sometimes people are not going to want to reconcile. But you can still do your part. You can offer your repentance. You can hold out your love to them. You can be gracious and make kind gestures that can show that you are doing what God wants you to in this relationship.
If you do your part, that can help to alleviate the anxiety. And you can be comforted in the fact that you have sought to honor God in that relationship.
That’s the first thing to do is getting your relationships in order. The next step is to get your attitudes in order.
II. Right attitudes [4, 6]
Let’s remember what was said last time, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.” Sometimes you need to say, no I’m not going to be anxious about this. I’m going to focus my energy and I am going to rejoice in the Lord. I’m going to rejoice that God is taking care of things.
And that goes along with what is said in verse 6. Notice what kind of attitude is required there. It is the attitude of gratitude. Paul says, “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.”
We’ll get to prayer in a second, but what is the attitude you should have while you are praying? You are to be thankful. Whatever it is you are worrying about is not a cause for worry. It is a cause for thanksgiving.
For the unbeliever, it is a cause for worry. They have no reason to be thankful. But we understand that God is active in this world. God, by means of His all wise providence—his governing and sustaining all his creatures and their actions, uses every situation for His good and glory. We can rejoice that the so called ‘bad things’ that come our way are according to His divine plan and are accomplishing His grand purpose in this world.
So give thanks. Give thanks when you want to worry about your finances. God is going to do great and wonderful things. Give thanks when you are at the end of your rope… God’s rope is limitless and this is a time when His divine power can be displayed. Find some silver linings or give thanks that despite your limited understanding, God is doing something beyond your understanding.
This attitude of gratitude will help to eradicate worry.
What do you mean thanksgiving? I’m not sure how the bills are going to be paid this month! How can I give thanks for that? The great thing about problems is that this is always a chance for God to work. You’re in a bind. There’s nothing you can do to make things go right. It is completely out of your power! Praise God! This is an opportunity for God to work. Be thankful that He has all the power in this world to take care of it. Your problems are God’s opportunities.
Bill was a guy who had issues with anxiety when he drove. He would get himself all in a fluster to the point he hated driving. It all started with stoplights. When he came to a stoplight he would get upset that he was being held up on his commute to work. When he was out on the open road, he was typically fine. But whenever something delayed him, he would start getting tense. This pattern became habitual and it started to become like a cancer metastasizing. His frustration turned to anxiety and he started to dread the drive to and from work each day. He would arrive at his destination all knotted up and in a frizzle.
He knew that things needed to change. So what he started doing is taking time to be thankful. Instead of cursing the lights, he would try to be thankful for them. These were little pit stops in his drive each day; a time to relax, rather than get tense. He would take time at these stops to thank God for something (his kids, the weather, etc). After practicing this new habit, he found that he started to really enjoy this part of his day. Instead of arriving home in a state of panic, he came home cheery and ready to interact with his family.
It was all because he chose to make a decisive change in his attitude. Instead of choosing to worry, he chose to be thankful.
You will find this to be true too. Once you start putting on the right attitudes, you’ll find that there’s great relief.
Add to this a robust prayer life.
III. Right prayers [6-7]
That’s the third thing we need and Paul talks about it in verse 6. Notice that it is a robust prayer life – in everything (not some things) by prayer and supplication (see how he doubles the language of prayer?), let your requests be known to God.
There are what we call superlatives in this passage. Everything; prayer, supplication, requests. Paul’s trying to say that prayer needs to be a major part of your life. As you are thanking God for what’s going on, you can be praying for these things. And not just these things, but for everything; you are praying for lots of different things.
Remember, we believe in a God who is using our prayers to accomplish his purposes in this world. And typically, we have not because we ask not. Think of the old hymn:
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.
I love that stanza of that hymn because it reminds us that worry is a self inflicted pain. It is a harm that we do to ourselves because we are not living by faith.
So what do you do when you are tempted to worry? When anxiety starts coming on, you should immediately pray. Maybe call someone and ask them to pray with you. And I like to say you’re your prayers much more inclusive. Don’t just pray about your issue; pray for other people’s issues. Pray for those in other parts of the world that are being persecuted or something.
Sometimes we offer what I call “worry prayers.” We pray about our concerns, but that only makes our worry all that more pronounced. “O God, please help me; help me; help me; help me. O God, get me free from this; make this go away God.” That’s not doing you a lot of good, is it?
This is a better way to do it: Lord, I commit this to your care. I know you will do right. Here is my desire, but I will submit to your will (come what may). May you be glorified in this and give me the steadfastness to walk through it. I now leave it in your hands. And I pray for those in China and North Korea who are undergoing greater pains and persecutions than I. I ask that they would be sustained and given relief from their oppression.”
That’s a better way to pray, isn’t it? Give yourself to prayer. Try to develop a robust prayer life. Slay that worry with this powerful, wonderful tool God has given you.
And then move on to the next step, which is getting your thoughts in order. You need right relationships; right attitudes, right prayers, and a right mind.
IV. Right thoughts [8]
Look at verse 8. Paul gives you a lengthy list of things that you should be thinking about. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Do you get what he is saying? Get your thoughts in order. Get your mind thinking the way you should. Once you start thinking right, then you’ll start feeling right.
If you are anxious, then you are likely violating something on this list.
Is your mind fixed on what is true? Or are you imagining situations? Sometimes this is called catastrophizing. You are making things out to be more catastrophic than it really is. So & so never said anything about you, but you think that’s something they would say or do. You’ve just accentuated the problem by making up a false scenario. You need to de-catastrophize, so to speak. You need to think about what is true. Come back to reality and stop telling yourself lies. Once you do that, then a lot of your anxieties will likely vanish with the false scenarios that you’ve been making up.
Let’s look at another one: When you are anxious, you are probably not thinking about what is honorable, are you? Now, the most honorable thing that one can think about is God himself, right? That’s probably the focus of a lot of the items on this list. God is the one that is lovely, commendable, has all excellence, and worthy of praise. So Paul is probably telling you to meditate on the nature of God. What is God like? What does the Lord do?
God’s attributes are like an antibacterial for anxiety. As you dwell on his sovereignty, you understand that there’s nothing in this world that should get you worked up. When you meditate on the depths of God’s wisdom - how he knows the end from the beginning, how he has framed the best possible course of history and your life – when you think about how his divine plan is being worked out in an absolutely flawless way – it has been framed according to the most precise wisdom, then what have we to worry about?
That is why praising God is the duty of each person every day, especially when you are tempted to worry. When you are feeling anxious, start singing. Start glorying in the absolute most praiseworthy thing you know of. And as you turn your eyes towards God, you’re anxieties will melt away. And as you build yourself up in God’s honorable-ness, you are making a preventative attack and keeping yourself from having bouts with this stuff.
So it’s important to get your minds in order. Think on these things. Do not let your minds run loose. Free range thinking only leads to worry and fear. Your mind need to be tethered to the truth of reality, of Scripture, and of the nature of God.
The last thing that you must do is get your actions in order. You need to Right your relationships, right your attitudes, right your prayers, right your thoughts, and get your actions in the right order too.
V. Right actions [9]
Look at the last verse we read (verse 9). Paul says, “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things.” What’s going to happen when you do that? “The God of peace will be with you.”
What’s Paul saying? He’s saying look at me. I’ve been an example to you. You’ve witnessed my conduct. You’ve heard how I’ve carried myself. You’ve received in me an example of kindness, charity, chastity, and restraint. All of this is what you need to be doing too. Once you start practicing the things that you’ve witnessed in me, then you will find that there is nothing to worry about.
Basically what Paul is saying is that we bring a lot of havoc into our lives. We are the main reason why we have not been enjoying peace. We’ve been acting out and doing things that provoke other people to anger and cause us more grief.
You’ve probably heard the proverb, “The way of the wicked is hard.” That’s kind of what Paul is talking about. Ungodly living will torment you. It is the seedbed of angst. When you start following Christ, then he will settle things down.
Think about it with this one example. If you are responsible with your finances and you make a budget and stick to it, things are going to be a lot better for you. If you’re out spending here and there and buying this and that without paying attention to where your money is going, then you’re going to be have all kinds of troubles when it comes time to pay the bills. You’re going to be fretting about the rent. You’re going to be pulling your hair out because you can’t afford to keep up with the telephone bill. You go out and sink a gazillion dollars into the latest techy phone, then you’re all in a fluster because you can’t afford the monthly payments or the water bill.
Your problems are not your finances, its your impulsive spending and lack of restraint. You’re too much in love with pleasure and not seeking to glorify God with your income. If you would take heed to your actions and make that budget, have a little discipline and stick to that budget, then you’d likely be able to build all kinds of wealth. You may even be surprised that you actually have a lot left over at the end of the month.
There would be financial peace. And it is all because you’ve sought to get your actions in order.
That’s just one example. And it goes to show that there is peace in the path of God. God’s ways are the ways of peace. The heavens will open up and heavenly peace will rain down upon you as you put the Law of God into action and begin to conform to Christ.
Conclusion:
Well there you have it. We’ve just briefly touched on these things, but you have the pathway to peace laid out for you. There’s the redemption that you can have from anxiety.
And I hope you notice that the anxiety is merely symptomatic. It is the tip of the iceberg that you see protruding from the cold waters of life. If you’d go below, what you find is that there is a world of things wrong underneath. The anxiety is just the surface that you see.
The Lord today has shown us that we need to go down to the root things. We need to get the order in our lives that he wants: in our thoughts, our prayers, our attitudes, actions and relationships. Do this and you will find that the iceberg of anxiety completely melts away.
Want more counsel on how to gain victory over this problem?
We are happy to help you understand more of God's solutions
We are happy to help you understand more of God's solutions