Four Biblical Steps Towards Navigating Anxiety.

The other day my familly watched a movie called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Some of you remember the children’s book. In the movie, Alexander has a bad day. It stars off with him setting fire to his crush Becky Gibson’s notebook, a friend sends an embarrassing photoshopped pic of him to the whole school, and even though his birthday party is coming up, all of his friends are going to Philip Parker’s birthday party instead of his. So the rest of this movie is bad thing after bad thing happening, until the end everything works out all right. But even as the credits rolled, I did not enjoy watching this movie - I noticed that movies like this focused on the consistent misfortune of the main character give me anxiety. The whole movie, you’re waiting for something bad to happen. Movies like this give me anxiety.

What causes you anxiety?

This week I read that 1 in 2 people at some point in their lives struggle with a mental health issue, whether that be depression or anxiety. 31% of U.S. adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.[1] In 2017, it was estimated that 19% of adults had an anxiety disorder in the past year. I believe some of these numbers have skyrocketed in the last year. On the CDC website it is reported that in late June of 2020, 40% of adults reported struggling with mental health and/or substance abuse.

Unfortunately, often the Church has ignored issues related to mental health, but all of us know that if something is off in one area of your life, the rest of your life will be off too. In other words, spiritual health, mental health, and emotional health are all connected.

The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus, but it is hard to make disciples when you yourself are not a healthy person. Now I know our culture is overly obsessed with self-help, self-discovery, and everything else related to the self, but Jesus DID say “love your neighbor as yourself,” and if you are not paying attention to your own health, how can you expect to help others? Jesus said take care of the plank in your own eye before you try to deal with the speck in your neighbors’. In other words, when it comes to depression and anxiety, the healthier you become, the more helpful you become to others.

How do we Overcome Anxiety?

At the end of the letter to the Philippians, in the passage we read, Paul offers some concluding exhortations to the church. The Church at Philippi was a church that brought the Apostle tremendous joy. It was not like the Church at Corinth that was filled with sexual immorality and division – The Church at Philippi was one which, every time Paul prayed for them, he prayed with joy.

Acts 16 records three conversions in the city of Philippi that would become the church there. Now, this is just conjecture, but as I think about these three converts, I imagine different ways they may have struggled with anxiety.

Lydia, as we have learned, probably had to be constantly on guard as a successful women in a world dominated by men. She had to have a special drive to achieve, as a seller of purple cloth, that allowed her to get to where she was. Had to be constantly vigilant. The Slave Girl likely had experienced some trauma having lived much of her life being exploited by those who would seek to profit from her condition. The Philippian Jailor at one point wanted to kill himself because his prisoners were going to escape. These are the people that made up the Philippian congregation, and for all its virtues, this was an anxious Church. Not only that, but Pual himself was no stranger to worry and anxiety: The apostle Paul wrote that apart from the unrelenting external pressures he had to face, such as persecution, hardship, and imprisonment, he also had daily upon him the internal pressure “of concern for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28). So as one intimately acquainted with this struggle, Paul concludes his letter by giving four specific instructions as to how they and we can overcome our anxiety.

Consciously decide to rejoice.

In Philippians 4, verse 4, Paul says “rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

Twice Paul repeats this command to rejoice. Is Paul just offering cliché advice to people suffering with anxiety? Only if joy is an emotion. Our culture tends to think of joy primary as the emotion of overwhelming happiness. If that’s what Joy is, Paul might as well be telling us to lasso the moon. Especially those of us for whom worry has gotten down into our hearts. Christian joy is not an emotion. Paul is not commanding us to manufacture positive feelings. When Paul says “rejoice,” he is saying that you have to consciously choose joy. Paul is also likely thinking about his own imprisonment. He’s thinking about the future of the Philippian church. He’s imagining possible persecution they might have to face. What will give them the power to choose joy in the face of all that’s coming? That’s why the prepositional phrase is so important. Where is our joy? In what are we supposed to rejoice? Paul says rejoice IN THE LORD.

The act of rejoicing is a basic discipline in the Christian life. Its what empowers us to endure whatever life throws at us. To rejoice means  recognizing, realizing, remembering who God really is. How does this help anxiety?

It helps because we can rejoice in God’s Sovereignty. I think the reason why many people have allowed worry to get down into their hearts and bodies is that they have been carrying the weight of trying to control their situation. Max Lucado said “anxiety is often the consequence of perceived chaos. If we sense we are victims of unseen, turbulent, random forces, we are troubled.”

 And what is the ultimate way we attempt to overcome chaos? By controlling our world. Never board a plane without a parachute. Never enter a restaurant without bringing your own clean silverware. Never leave the house without a gas mask. Never give away your heart for fear of a broken one. Never step on a crack lest you break your mother’s back. On and on it goes. Often the most stressed out people are the biggest control addicts. The more they try to control, the less they realize they can control. Life becomes a cycle of anxiety, failure, anxiety, failure and on and on. But rejoicing in the Lord means recognizing that God is in control of everything, and that He is always working for the believer’s good and for His own glory.

The good news of Christianity says you were never in control, and its okay if you lose your perceived control, because God is in control! The theological word is “sovereignty.” We can at any moment, no matter what is going on, we can rejoice in God’s sovereignty – that HE is in control. He is the pilot. And there is nothing in this world that causes God anxiety. Nothing ever catches him off guard, nothing phases him, nothing scares him. If you are a believer in Christ, you can trust that God is always at work around you working for His glory and for your good.

Tony Evans tells a story about a man was in a hurry, anxious to catch an airplane He ran, huffing and puffing, down toward his gate. He passed a guy who was dressed in a pilot’s uniform. The guy said to the breathless man, “Where are you in a hurry to?”“Oh,” the man said, “I am late for my plane. I don’t want to miss my plane.” He proceeded to tell the guy what flight he was hurrying to. The uniformed man said, “Don’t be in a hurry, I am piloting that plane.” If the pilot is chilling, you chill too. Stabilize your soul by rejoicing in God’s Sovereignty.

We can also rejoice in God’s character. Max Lucado has a good illustration. Imagine your dad is a world-famous surgeon. He is highly skilled, highly sought-after orthopedic surgeon. Everyone respects him. The waiting list to get in to him is 6 months out. With the confidence that a mechanic removes spark plugs, your dad replaces hips, needs, and shoulders. At ten years old you’re too young to comprehend how amazing your dad is. But you’re not too young to stumble down the stairs and twist your ankle. You roll and writhe and scream for help. Weeks away from your first baseball game. This is no time for crutches and limping. In walks your Dad. He looks at the injury. You groan at the size of the tennis ball shaped lump, and your anxiety kicks in. “I’ll never walk again!” “no one can help me.” “No one knows what to do!” and suddenly your Dad says “do you know what I do for a living?” actually you don’t. You know he goes to the hospital every day, but beyond that, you’re clueless. Its time you learn dad says. The next day he takes you to the hospital, and hands you a manual for orthopedic surgery that bears his name. You wrote this? Yes, dad says. In you go to surgery and you find out that if your dad can do orthopedic surgery, he can certainly handle a sprained ankle, and your anxiety is gone. All of our worst fears are like sprained ankles to God.

Here’s the point. As knowledge of your Heavenly Father increases, anxiety decreases. AS you learn of his character, who he is, how much he loves you, how powerful he is, How wise he is, your trust in him increases. Learn about God’s character in the person of Jesus. Study his Word to get to know him better. Then you can rejoice in what you know to be true of him.

Be gentle with yourself.

“Let your gentleness be evident to all;” Paul continues. “The Lord is at hand.”

Anxious people are often extremely hard on themselves and others. When your ultimate goal is to control the world, when you fail to control your environment, you get self-critical. Anxiety causes us to be unkind to ourselves and harsh with others who get in the way of our attempts to control our environments.

The Greek word translated here as gentleness (epieikes) describes a temperament that is seasoned and mature. It envisions an attitude that is fitting to the occasion, levelheaded, and tempered. The gentle reaction is one of steadiness, evenhandedness, or even fairness. Sober minded and fair. This means when you find yourself gripped by anxiety, or overwhelmed with emotion, it’s the ability to pause, to assess your own emotions, to approach yourself with kindness and curiosity. We are to seek to move towards gentleness with everyone, but most of all with ourselves. Hurting people hurt people. Harsh people are harsh towards people. Those critical of themselves are critical of others. Let your gentleness be evident to all – especially to yourself. 

If you had to choose one character quality for christ, what would you pick? Love? Kindness? I love what Ray Ortlund says in his book. The one place in the Bible where Jesus let’s us peer into the core of who he is we are not told he is austere and demanding in heart. We are not told that he is exalted and dignified in heart. We are not even told that he is joyful and generous in heart. Letting Jesus set the terms, his surprising claim is that he is gentle and lowly in heart. And when the gentleness of Christ takes hold of your life, it is a contagious calm. This is a calm from knowing that God is near and that he is in control. Take a deep breath. Pause. Assess your emotions. Journal your thoughts. Get acquainted with your own body and the sensations it is feeling. Let God’s gentleness touch your life.

Find creative ways of introducing gratitude into your life.  

Verse 6 says: “do not be anxious about anything, 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 your minds in Christ Jesus.

Whenever you pray, do it with complete gratitude. I have a friend that did an experiment. He put a piece of paper on the wall and had each member of his family write down one thing per day that they were grateful for. Before long, the piece of paper was full of things to be grateful.

That word “guard” is a good word. Philippi being a Roman colony and a place where retired military settled was filled with Roman soldiers and guards. In the same way that the soldiers guarded the city, the peace of God would guard their hearts and minds. IT was a great word picture.

The result of gratitude is that it invites God’s peace into your lives. It helps us remember that God is sovereign over all things, and keeps us humbly grateful for his many good gifts. It also takes our mind off of the ghost of the future, the chaos of our world, and puts our minds on God’s amazing care and provision. So find creative ways to express your gratitude to God.

Let your thinking dwell on the truth.

Verse 8 says: 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. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

This long list of different words that all share the same idea: think about things that are true and that are good. Tell yourself the truth. Preach to yourself. The command Paul gives is to “think about these things.” The word is not the same word used elsewhere. Its not phreneo, but logizomai. This word means “to calculate,” or “to dwell on” or to “evaluate” or “carefully consider.” Its more than juts entertaining thoughts.  Believers are to meditate on the truth and its implications for their lives.

David Martin Lloyd Jones said this: “Faith, according to our Lord’s teaching … is primarily thinking.… We must spend more time in studying our Lord’s lessons in observation and deduction. The Bible is full of logic, and we must never think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous things to happen to us. That is not Christian faith. Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, and draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them.… Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man or woman insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down.… The trouble with the person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else, and, as we put it, he goes round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry.… That is not thought; that is the absence of thought, a failure to think. The New Testament calls us to the mental discipline of biblical thinking.

So much of Christianity and culture these days is focused on the emotions. Emotions are often much more powerful than thoughts. We are mostly driven by our emotions. But many fail to recognize that many of the emotions we feel are based on untruths – things we’ve been telling ourselves that are not actually true. Proverbs 4:23 says “Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life.”

To live according to our emotions is extremely dangerous. John Stott said: “sin has more dangerous effects on our faculty of feeling than on our faculty of thinking, because our opinions are more easily checked and regulated by revealed truth than our experiences.”

Discipleship, then, is learning how to slowly but surely over time replace the very real and valid emotions we feel with what God has said to be true. If you are struggling with anxiety, I invite you to begin looking into God’s Word, reconnecting with God, studying his Character, learning to trust him. Dwell on the great themes of the Gospel. Look at the life of Jesus, how he treated people, how he lived, the gentleness with which he approached sinners. Logically consider the claims of the Bible about God. the Promise is that the more you do this, the God of peace will be with you.

The good news is that Jesus Christ died on a cross under the wrath of God so that you and I can permanently rest in the peace of God. I love the part at the end of the Gospels when the resurrected Jesus appears to the terrified disciples who have locked themselves in for fear of the Jews and John’s Gospel tells us that he breathed on them and said “peace be with you.” Maybe you find yourself spioriutal out of breath and you need God to breath his peace on you. Or maybe you’re barely holding on. Be gentle with yourself. Go to the Lord.

Ps. 94:18–19 NIV says When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your love, O LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.  Do you want His great consolation? Let’s ask God for that right now.

[1] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disorder.shtml