How to Fight Anxiety

Philippians 4:7

May 7th 2023

Our world, brothers and sisters, and not simply this culture, which we will talk about soon enough, is filled with as many temptations as there are ways to think of more. Since we left that Garden thousands of years ago, the forces of darkness that live here in our King’s World, have been leaving dangers untold for us to fall to, on our road into the future.

They have left deep, gaping trenches of temptation and indulgence, that have swallowed up entire families within their craggy and rock strewn crevices. But we are called to walk this road, with our heads held high, our hands firmly gripping the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, and have our eyes forever steeled upon the glorious victory of life and godliness that awaits all those who have repented of their sins and believed in Jesus Christ. Through the briars and snares of sins so sweet that we may forget the poison they give us in place of promise --- we walk. Doing our best to avoid the brambles of lust, and ditches of hate. Doing our best to avoid the traps of doubt, and disguises of fear, that our enemy offers us --- we march onward. Forever our gaze should be focused upon the nail marked hands of our King, that have never moved from opening themselves to us the moment He replaced our hearts. From that moment until we are welcomed by those same hands in person, they are unmoving, unchanging, unaffected by the storms and swords of the road of this world. There is where we look, brothers and sisters, when the snares and snakes upon our road entangle and attack us. To His water bleeding side we jump to, when that which in this world breathes anxiety into our open mouth as we gasp for strength to continue. 

And He will strengthen us. He will strengthen us, because we are His children, having been made righteous in the eyes of His all-knowing Father. By whose scar stained back and thorn touched brow, we, who were one time enemies of God deserving nothing but His wrath for our sins…have been made righteous.

In His eyes, oh daughter of God…He sees you, oh son of God…In the eyes of the all-knowing, thrice holy King of the Cosmos…you are righteous. Not because you did your best to avoid the pitfalls and lies of satan. Not because, on the road into eternity, you carefully examined each place your foot would fall and did your utmost to ensure that they fell not in the quicksands of lustful indulgence or upon the coiled vipers of bitterness and animosity. We all have strayed upon that road forward, walking this way and that, that way and this; standing still when we should have been sprinting with ferocity, and sprinting with ferocity when we ought to have been standing still. We all have willingly reached our hands down to touch those coiled vipers, we all have seen the snares of satan and selfishly stepped the soles of shoes into the slime slicked sins he so willingly offers us. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

This, brothers and sisters, is the soil in which anxiety grows. The foundation of anxiety is our sin and our innate knowledge of a Holy God that hates it.

It is no coincidence, that our verses this morning come immediately after the Apostle exhorting us to rejoice always. Without a relationship with Jesus Christ, based on His life, death, and resurrection…there can be no relationship with God, and there can be no joy. And when there is no joy, there is anxiety.

Anxiety is the opposite of joy. 

It breeds fear. It creates doubt. It breathes worry deep into our heart that our sins will get the final say over our life, that our mistakes will be what defines us, and that those choices in our life that we hate and wish never happened, are all the generations who come after us will ever remember us for.

But be warned, because you are undoubtedly assuming where I am going next and what I am going to be say next….but be warned.

Without God…without repenting of our sins and believing in Jesus Christ…without His blood removing our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh that performs good works…without Jesus Christ…all you are is a by-product of your mistakes, and eternal endless anxiety is all that awaits you when you open your eyes in the world to come.

Anxiety is the opposite of joy.

How then, you may be asking, can we attain eternity? When anxiety grips the reigns of our hearts, and the reigns of our mind, but we read the words of the Holy Spirit, penned into the fabric of reality by the sanctified stylus of the blessed Apostle Paul? How can we who listen to the anxious thoughts directing us this way and that, leading us into the territories of not trusting our King, or the realms of doubting His words? If it seems, oh blessed saint, that if the promise of an eternity of joy is barely noticeable through the flashes of lightning bursting forth from the thunderclouds of anxiety and worry and doubt and fear of the future…and you begin to doubt that heaven awaits you, when you doubt your salvation, or if you aren't saved, you doubt that God could ever save someone like you, and you're surprised that the Church didn't collapse when you walked in…take heart!

Take heart not because of your actions and inactions, as if your own understanding has the final say in your journey into the future!

Take heart not because your understanding, you may claim, has figured everything out, and that the storms clouds which have followed you for your entire life, are ones that will be there until the day that your body is laid beneath the road you have done your best to walk upon.

Take heart not because you are strong or wise, or because all of those other people who you have seen on your journey down this road have fallen in ways in which you haven't, or because you have fallen in ways in which they haven't.

Use nothing, oh sinners, nothing from this world as the standard by which you will judge what happens when you reach the next! Not your failures or your successes.

You, oh child of the most high, you, oh saint of God, you are adorned with the heavenly robes of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, because the punishment that should have been yours, was instead poured out upon Him ---who DID--- land His holy feet precisely upon the road into eternity where He should have. Perfectly He fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

• When anxiety strikes, and its burning fingers sink their broken and yellowed nails into the soft flesh of your new heart…

• When anxiety strikes, and its bolts of light crackle their way through every thought you have, altering them to do its own bidding…

• When anxiety is birthed out from the fears and worries that you know have climbed into bed with one another…

• When anxiety, in all of its crippling and wicked power persuades you with fears so sweet they can’t be resisted…

• When you doubt that the God of this world has adopted you into His family because you have believed the lies of the devil and the anxiety in your life is the proof that you use to come to such a conclusion…

When anxiety strikes you in this World…look unto the God who uses nothing in this world to come to His own conclusions! He saves His children based on Him…not them. He walked that road 2000yrs ago, knowing full well how you would walk your road…and He saved you in-spite of it.

You did nothing to earn or gain or garner your salvation, it was all from God.

This is where we must start the battle against anxiety my beloved. 

Yes, last week we talked about some practical steps. Repenting of it, Fasting, reading and studying Scripture, asking God to give you strength against it if He isn't going to remove it, and in a moment we will talk about prayer…

But before all that, we must come to the conclusion that our Salvation came from God and not us. For the moment we think we played any part in our Salvation apart from the sin that made it necessary, we are opening the door of our heart, and inviting anxiety in…we are opening up the door to a thousand possibilities of us losing our salvation. 

And if there is anything in all of reality that can attack our hearts and minds, and take away our peace…it is thinking that we can wriggle free from the hands of Him who saved us; or that He will ever declare the sacrifice His Son went through to no longer be effective against our sins.

So…to double down on this truth…that God has saved us… because it is the foundation of joy; whereas our sin is the foundation of our anxiety, and the two are opposites…

We have to accept that it is beyond our comprehension, beyond our intellect, beyond our wisdom, that a Holy and righteous King, who, in and of Himself, is the literal definition of pure existence…Him who is uncreated, existing beyond the limits of reality, and who Himself created the limits of reality….Him who wears entire galaxies as nothing but rings upon His holy fingers and whose royal robe spans beyond the farthest reaches of the entire Universe, falling off its ever-expanding edges and drapes its colors over the nothingness of the great beyond…this same God, became a human and saved us.

We have to do our best, to wrap our puny human minds around the truth that Him who sits in the Heavenlies and does as He pleases…Him who no man can stay His hand or say to Him “what have you done?”...Him who laughs as He counts all the Nations who have ever existed as nothing but the dust upon His heavenly scales, whose holy breath blows them from the surface of the highest mountain tops that they have built for themselves in defiance of Him in order to replace Him…this God…instead of casting them into the thirsty and famished gullet of hell, the flames of which will never be satisfied though its blood-stained caverns be full…this God, who it would have been fair of Him to destroy us….saved us.

He saved you.

From His own wrath He saved us.

By His own wrath, poured out onto His own Son, He saved us.

For His own glory, He saved us.

It wrenches our mind to think that a perfect God would willingly undertake the pains and stresses of daily life. It pulls out thoughts into directions that our brains are unable to travel down, to even begin to think that a Holy and Perfect King would climb down from His throne, take off His royal robes, find the dirtiest, most rotten, wretched, evil, enemy of His own Kingdom, pull them up out of the filthiest manure filled alleyways and side streets, clean them off and place His own robes upon them, taking from them their death stained, torn, worn, and ill-fitting robes.

For this is what the Apostle means, when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write our verse this morning. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding…”.

No matter what this world & the devils therein may lay before you on your path into eternity…

No matter the pitfalls and temptations that lay in our future, waiting for us to see them…

No matter the height of the boulders that have fallen from the darkest mountains, no matter how much of the path they obscure, no matter what sins and snares lay hidden in your future, be it the future of this evening, or the future a decade off.

No matter what they are or how high, dangerous, evil, or wicked they may be…

Each of them is there by the divine permission of the King who saved you. And He custom made you…on purpose…to walk the road that He placed you on…knowing full well the dangers that you would face. Making you in such a way to face them for His glory and your good. If that wasn’t enough, to heap shame and derision and ridicule and humiliation upon those things in your life that have caused you to stumble and become anxious…He uses them as the means to work out the greatest good of your entire life. He mocks that which hurts you, by using it for your good.

Be anxious for nothing, oh Saint, you were literally made for this.

Let not the sins of anxiety, fear, and doubt, fester within your heart. Let them not take root within your soul. Let them not send their roots outward, into other areas of your life.

Let not your worry, infect your love.

Let not your doubt, infect your Worship.

Let not your anxiety, infect your happiness.

“How can I do this?” You may claim. “These words are hard to hear, harder to accept, and still harder to put into practice in my life! You do not know me.” You may continue to think. “You do not know the road I have been down, the road I am currently on. You know nothing of my trials, my temptations, my fears and doubts. You know nothing of the height of the storm which has been swirling around the wagon of my life since its wheels first started to turn and the road behind me was nothing compared to the road before me!”

Oh beloved, you are right…I do not know you. I do not even know myself. But there is one who does. Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe, knows you, and made you on purpose for the fight He knew you would be fighting.

He knows your strengths, for He gave them to you.

He knows your weaknesses, for He allowed you to have them.

If your salvation was up to you…then you should live in anxiety, fear and worry. It should flow through you deeper than blood. You should be anxious about every demon around every corner, and you should think that there is a demon around every corner.

But that is not the case - You didn't earn your salvation so you can’t lose your salvation. You heart and your mind…our verse tells us …are being guarded. Can you think of something you would rather have guard your heart and mind…than the peace of God? 

Can your good works guard your heart and mind?

Can your job, be it something noble and honorable…guard your hearts and minds?

Remember, our sin and the knowledge that God hates it, is the foundation of anxiety…and when a Holy God hates something in our life, that we can’t seem to get away from….what can guard our hearts and minds against that?

Only that same God, taking the punishment that we deserve, can bring us a peace that guards our hearts and minds.

You have been righteous in His eyes - Be anxious for nothing!

You are no longer His enemy, you are His friend - Be anxious for nothing!

You are the child of a perfect and holy King, who owns every square inch of the Universe, and can literally never fail or do wrong -- Be anxious for nothing!

----

This peace of God, that guards our hearts and minds (stay with me here) even though we have sinned and fallen short of His glory…this peace surpasses our understanding.

Which means something profound to us this morning brothers and sisters. Something deep. Something at the bottom most layer of our heart that we hide from everyone in our life, is pricked by the tip of the sword of the spirit….when we read the words “surpasses our understanding”.

You see, when we turn our eyes inward, to look into the beady and yellow eyes of our anxiety, whose gaze has frightened us into submission for years…when we feel his warm and moist breath filling our nostrils with worry…and to give in to him would be easier than to fight him…we are operating, we are living, we are acting, under our own understanding.

It makes sense to feed the beast in our heart, so that it doesn't get hungry and attack us!

It makes sense to us, to massage the ego of our anxiety, because it's something that we can do!

And because we are all fallen humans, whose very nature is bent away from God, we love to do whatever we can to live into the lie that was told us that day we left the Garden. 

“You will be like God”.

You have this problem in your life? --- YOU can fix it.

You have this issue going on in your family? --- YOU  are the one to resolve it.

You have a storm, looming upon your heart, whose cracks of thunder deafen everything else in your life? --- Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps, do every single thing in your power, use all of your tools, all of your strength, all of your ideas and know-how, all of your skills, and fix it ---- because everything rides on you and you alone.

This is the exact lie that the serpent vomited out over his forked tongue thousands of years ago.

If we so desire our anxiety to be gone…and we read that the peace which dispels our anxiety…surpasses our understanding…then we must realize and admit that our understanding can be surpassed.

We are not the end all be all of our life.

Is everything riding on me, my choices, my mistakes, my thoughts, my beliefs, my job, my body, my ideas, my actions, my words, my inactions, my effort, my strength, my wisdom, my grit, my understanding? 

Or can my understanding be surpassed? --- some of us will loudly proclaim “Of course God has the final say over my life, and He is ultimately in charge” …but do you live like it? Is your anxiety proof that you think you are in charge, or that God is in charge?

---

I'm going to let that sink in, let the words of Scripture penetrate to the most guarded parts of your heart, before the “spring loaded” questions of what I'll answer next, comes up.

“Does your anxiety tell a story of you being the end-all-be-all of your life? Or does God saying that He will never leave nor forsake you, that He will lead you in the paths of righteousness…even if you have to go through the valley of the shadow of death, dispel and dissipate your anxiety?”

Is your anxiety proof that you believe what God says…or is it proof that you believe what you say?

---

I pray that these words have struck you. I pray that you see that your own understanding has an immovable ceiling atop it. It is glass, yes, and you can see through to the other side. Even if you cant understand what is there, you know that it is God, and that He is sovereign. 

Hold this truth in one hand….and the question I know you have in the other, as we move forward. Hopefully, before you leave today, you can let go of that question.

We are pilgrims, brothers and sisters. Walking a road of toils and temptations, making our way to a celestial city of neon beauty that would fracture our minds into a million fragments, were we to get a simple peripheral glance of the beauty of Him who sits upon the golden throne of that city.

And on this road, as we talked about earlier, there are dangers untold. There are pitfalls of pride and self-reliance. There are ditches of lust and anger, whose sides are slick with the mud of self depreciation, so when we fall into them and try to climb back out, we are made aware of our own fallen state. There are thieves upon this road, who offer up to us entertainment in amounts that humanity has never had to deal with, pleasures at the push of a button, and indulgences that would have Solomon blushing. They threaten to steal our strength and steal our time away from doing that which is Godly.

This road has the coiled serpents of anger, goaded forward by people who claim to believe in the same things we do. We will come across traps and snares, specifically designed to lure us away or entangle us in our favorite sin. 

Not only does this road have dangers and thieves, traps and ditches…but it has more luxuries than the Saints of the past ever had to deal with. Why keep moving forward? Why face the enemy? Why kill our own sin, and take actual physical steps against it? Why march with your brothers and sisters against tyrants and lions? Why stand up for the innocent and downtrodden? Why go to the abortion clinics and pervert story hours to call them to repentance? …when you can order your favorite food…to be delivered directly to your house…while your favorite TV show is on…while your favorite temperature is on the thermostat of your climate controlled house…where the drugs that make you happy are…when you're in your most comfortable clothing…after indulging in your favorite sin through the screen of your thousand dollar smartphone…after taking a 45 minute shower under your whenever you need it hot water…

The best trick the devil plays on us, here, in this culture, today…is making us as comfortable as possible. We cry out, and he feeds us, changes our diaper, and whispers “look how beautiful and important you are” as his goat fingered hands rock us back and forth until we give in and slumber.

And when the Christians in this world who refuse to be comfortable, kick and scream against the comforts and indulgences of America…we are seen as troublemakers….but that's a different Sermon… 

…I hope that question is in your hand, and that what I just said has made you want to ask it all the more…but not yet.

This road that we are on, with its comforts and dangers along the way, has on each side of it… a cliff.

We move too far to the left, and there is a cliff side, covered in sharp and broken rocks, hidden beneath the beautiful rose bushes that grow there. We can see their blooms, smell their sweet scent, and be lured into rocks so sharp that if they don't kill us before we hit the bottom, they will cleave muscle from bone and bring forth more blood than we thought we had.

We move too far to the right, and there is another cliff. This one is slick and smooth, and incredibly efficient at causing us to descend into the shark infested waters of self-reliance. One step is all it will take on this cliff, and the next thing we know, we are being torn asunder by a holier than thou attitude towards people dying on the other cliff.

Is that question still in your hand? Do you still have it spring loaded and ready to rise up? Remember, it is good to ask questions, to think, to wrestle over the truths of Scripture, but it is also good to accept the conclusions that Scripture brings us.

“If God is sovereign over my life, and I therefore have no reason to be anxious…then should I just sit back and be a passive participant in my own life, even when anxiety strikes?” 

“Do I just sit back, turn up the dial of apathy and turn off my feelings and thoughts?”

“If God is the end all be all of my life, and I therefore have no reason to be anxious --- do I simply sit back and do nothing?”

• “Our government is running out of control, endorsing and encouraging evil --- but God is in charge, so I'll do nothing…. Right?”

• “My spouse cheated and left me…but God is in charge, so I'll do and feel nothing…right?”

• “There are perverts caked in make-up, reading stories to little kids, and our culture approves of it…but God is in charge, so I’ll do nothing…right?”

• “I lost a loved one…but God is in charge, so I’ll feel nothing…right?”

• “I don’t know how I am going to pay my bills next month, fold my laundry this week, and wear a smile while I do it all., but God is in charge, so I don’t have to be anxious…right?”

Just like last week, if our immediate response to “Be anxious for nothing” is “What about this!” Then we have deeper issues we need to resolve. We need to spend more time in Scripture than we do browsing our favorite streaming service. We need to spend more time study God’s words than we do studying the words of whatever news station we like. We need to spend more time in prayer, than we do in worrying and doubt.

And yes, I mean those all literally.

Before I answer those hypothetical questions….I have to ask you why they came about in the first place.

When we read: “Be anxious for nothing” ….God means it. He isn't being vague or exaggerating. He is telling you to not be anxious about anything. Period. Not about the potential of World War Three, not about the perverts in the streets barfing rainbows everywhere. Not about your spouse falling into sin and leaving you. Not about your loved one passing away. Not about your daily responsibilities. Be anxious for nothing.

But how? If God is sovereign over all reality, and I don’t think I'm supposed to do nothing…what can I do…that doesn’t cause me to fall off the cliffs of apathy or self-reliance? Or doing nothing and doing everything?

God tells us, here, in our verse. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

How do you fight anxiety? How do you wrestle it? How can you lay your hands upon those dripping fangs that have bitten you time and time again in your life, directing you, puppeteering and controlling you? How can you fight anxiety without relying on yourself and your own understanding?

In everything, by prayer & Supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Prayer.

Prayer, as Charles Spurgeon once said, pulls the rope on Earth, and the bell in heaven rings in God’s ears. Prayer is one of the means that God uses to accomplish His will in our life. He doesn't simple snap His fingers and make things happen, though He could. He doesn't simply think situations into existence, though He could. Though He created reality with the words of His holy mouth, and created everything in all of Creation using no tools and no materials, no means…He acts in the lives of His children using means. Using tools, using materials. He uses the prayers of the Saints to unfold His will in their life.

We pray…precisely because God is sovereign and can do whatever He pleases. If He was not sovereign, and could not do whatever He pleases…then praying to Him would be a fruitless, meaningless expression of self-righteousness. It would be thinking that we are the only way by which our anxiety can ever be fought against. It would be using us as the litmus test. “I pray so good, God HAS to answer me” or “I didn’t get the answer I wanted, God must not love me.” Both are us focused.

But if God is sovereign, then our prayers are heard and used by Him to unfold His will. Do you want to be anxious for nothing…then pray for EVERYTHING. Everything? Yes. Is your anxiety crippling, paralyzing you from living your life? Then pray even more. Pray in overwhelmingly over-the-top reactions in proportion to your anxiety. Does your anxiety control you for hours? Then pray for days. Does it control you for days? Then pray for weeks. Is it simply some bothersome little thought that that pops up? Then pray for months. Bloody your knees in hours of prayer to your God. 

Prayer fights anxiety, because it perfectly walks that line between our free will and God’s sovereignty. I'm going to say that again, because of how incredibly important it is. Prayer is the primary weapon you MUST, you MUST pick up, if you ever want to fight your anxiety, because it perfectly walks that line of accepting the limits of our free will under the sovereignty of God.

Not a prayer in the morning and a prayer at night…but turn your phone off, lock your door, get on your knees, and pray. Stand up and pace, walking back and forth, praying out loud with your mouth, asking God to take your anxiety away. This is what it means when it says “supplication”. Asking. And then comes the hard part…thanksgiving. Let your prayers of supplication to take your anxiety away, be filled with thanksgiving. 

Thank God for everything in your life, your salvation, your home, your mind, your body, your clothing, your food, your family, and then…here's the hard part (it's so hard, please don’t ignore it)…thank Him for the anxiety that you hate. Thank Him that He allowed something in your life that caused you to draw closer to Him, and that He is going to, guaranteed going to use it for your good.

Would you have spent this time in His presence without it? Would you have acknowledged His sovereignty over your life…without it? Thank Him for it, and that He is using it for your good as Romans 8:28 teaches.

In closing there are two more truths we need to look at. The first is in 1st Corinthians 12:7-9:

7 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Be weak brothers and sisters, so that the power of Christ can show through you. If you and your actions are the cure for your anxiety…then you are robbing God of His glory. Let your weakness be known, so that when you continue through life….which you will because God is faithful and will lead His children…when your weaknesses are upfront and known…then when you continue through your life the power of God will be made known to the people in your life.

Be weak. Be small. Be frail. Be fragile. That the power of Christ is known in your life.

And the last thing. 

When you are weak ,when you are in prayer against your anxiety, when you are walking between those two cliffs of apathy and self-reliance…between doing nothing and doing everything….when your knees are bloody and the path that you pace in prayer in your room is worn and your children’s children will tell their children that their grandmother or grandfather prayed so much that it left a path in the wood of the very floor they learned to walk on.

When your prayer life becomes your default, not because you tried hard to make it that way, but because you cried out to God and He used your cries as the means to give you the strength to make your prayer life your default…when your prayer life is your default….know deeply within yourself that peace is not the absence of things that previously gave you anxiety.

The peace of God that surpasses understanding, isn't the absence of strife and trouble. It is the presence of hope in the midst of it all. It is knowing that God is in charge, and you have a duty to uphold. That you have prayers you can pray. That you have A bible you can study. That you have a friend or a family member that you can witness to. That you have problems you can go to your Pastor or friend for help with.

Our understanding says “if trouble is here, I have no peace.” But the peace of God that surpasses all understanding ....surpasses all understanding because it coexists with strife, trouble and the things that may cause you anxiety….and then it uses that same strife and trouble, and things that cause you anxiety….for our good.

Though you may walk through the valley of the shadow of death…you will fear no evil. 

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.