Celebrate God | Anxious for Nothing - Week 1

so guys i've heard it described in so many different ways i've heard it described as a low-grade fever a dread a constant concern that trouble is just around the corner you you try to you try to relax but you can't seem to find a way you find it difficult to sleep it's just a matter of time before this storm or this situation destroys everything it seems in your life that's important any piece you might feel seems like it's only temporary i mean bad things are going to happen guys airplanes are going to continue to fall out of skies bull markets are going to go bare terrorists are going to terrorize the fine print will eventually reveal itself you're just waiting at times for the other shoe to drop so what about you are you a worrywart a nervous nelly does your anxiety keep you awake at night do you fret about everything and anything from your health to your kids grades do you stress about job interviews unpaid bills identity theft or covid or maybe just the future in general at times we at times i think we fret over the silliest things what am i going to do a half dozen people saw me pick at my wedgie i wonder how many people noticed that black speck that was in my teeth oh my gosh do you think that anyone saw me trip over that chair it's like anxiety stress and worry have become a normal part of our life so today today we're going to start a new four-week series talking about the struggles of anxiety because admitted or not guys i think we all struggle with anxiety in our life i know i do i do i'm a pastor i'm not supposed to be anxious i'm not supposed to be stressed out over things i'm supposed to be the one that encourages you to trust god in every area of your life i can preach sermons about anxiety i can quote the scripture that relates to anxiety i can recite an eloquent prayer but when darkness of night sets in there are times not often but there are times where i find myself staring at the ceiling feeling anxious over what might happen in some particular area of my life psalms 112 says worry weighs a person down and i think that is so true you know twice a year i get together with a group of pastors i've talked to you about this before they're all in large churches there's 20 of us and in fact we're meeting uh in about two weeks again in dallas but we get together about twice a year and we've developed a strong relationship and we all talk about every time we get together we talk about our families we talk about our churches we talk about our country we just talk about all the things that are going on we also talk about common trends or common problems that we're seeing in the church world common trends or things that we're seeing in our culture and i would tell you that no matter what part of the country that you live in anxiety comes up every time we talk about the issues oftentimes talk about the issues of anxiety worry and stress and how they've become a major problem in our country and in a short amount of time we've seen anxiety levels spike because of the pandemic because of all the racial tension because of the political unrest because of the unemployment all of it all of it's causing stress and worry and people are taking it out on each other people's anxiety level has hit an all-time high you know one one of our staff here a couple months ago was on a flight and he said people people were fighting on the airplane not literally physically fighting but they were fighting on the airplane over masks he said people were flipping each other off people were angry the tension was high because some people were wearing masks and other people's weren't wearing masks and it's just like you think seriously it's just a mass but tension levels because of the anxiety levels being so high tension levels have risen to an all-time high as well people are taking it out on each other according to the american psychiatric association nearly half of all americans are anxious about the possibility of getting the coronavirus 40 are actually worried they'll die from it listen anxiety is the number one health issue among women today and it's the number two health issue for men only for men it's only behind drugs and alcohol and honestly i think it's actually number one but most guys don't like to admit they're anxious most guys don't like to admit that they ever worry about anything it feels like it's weak to admit that statistics listen to me statistics tell us that 40 million adults or one in five people admit to struggling with a serious anxiety and if you have teenagers listen to me parents if you have teenagers in that demographic we're seeing a sharp upward turn like never before in a recent study for instance in a recent study by a pew research they surveyed the top problems that teens are seeing among their peers here's a a graph that i've got here a graph that we've got here that says anxiety and depression 70 then bowling 55 drug addiction 51 drinking alcohol 45 poverty 40 now this was a pew research done among teenagers in other words the questions were asked to teens i found that interesting 70 listen it might surprise you but bullying and drug addiction and drinking alcohol and poverty were not at the top of the list but 70 percent of teenagers identified anxiety and depression as the number one problem they see among their friends today and then guess whose surveys say is the most anxious nation in the world no it's not switzerland it's us it's the united states you you would think it would be someplace like africa or india or mexico because of all the poverty or or maybe colombia because of all the drug cartels but no it is the united states we get the gold medal for anxiety in fact i read on in this article get this studies have shown with people from other countries listen from people from other countries who move to the united states it says their anxiety level actually increases when they move to the u.s their anxiety level actually increases and i think how in the world can that be i mean you could argue that the united states is one of the most prosperous and safest countries in the world our cars are safer than they've ever been before medical care has never been as good as it is today people are living longer parents are certainly more protective of their kids than they've ever been before i mean parents parents listen you wouldn't think of letting your kids ride a bike today without a helmet and i think about that and i think you know when i was a kid you never saw a kid wearing a helmet you just never saw a kid wearing a helmet we had seat belts get this somebody say well yeah but you're old steve listen we had seat belts in our cars nobody wore them there was no law about it you never even thought about it i mean i noticed them but i never as a kid remember one time seeing my parents put on their seatbelt or us putting on our seatbelt we didn't think anything about riding in the back of a pickup truck one of the relatives had a pickup truck all the kids piled in the back and we wrote in the back today i think you'd get a ticket for doing something like that when i was a kid i loved to climb up in the back of the car there was the the uh in a sedan there was a place you could lay in the back window you know that flat part there and i loved as a kid to climb in that back window because i loved it when my dad had to stop fast and it threw me i just thought that was a blast and you know what it didn't ever see i don't know how many times i flew out of that back window it never seemed to bother them i mean i don't know what that says about but anyway it never seemed to bother them so why is it guys why is it that we have le we have less to be anxious about today and yet anxiety continues to spike in america well i want to give you some reasons today and that is the number one reason get this the number one reason is that we've removed god from our country i believe that is the number one reason i could spend all the rest of my time talking about this point alone in fact i thought about this today i thought you know i could do a series on this point alone we have we have removed god from our country we have removed god from our schools we've removed god from our family life god is no longer a priority and in many cases honestly he's not even a thought and parents i'm just telling you i believe that that's the number one reason for the spike of anxiety among teenagers today do you realize listen to me on this and again i'd love to spend a lot of time on this do you realize that historical revisionism has taken god out of our history books and schools when i was taught as a kid about the reason for the the pilgrims and the reason that they discovered american candy none of that's taught today as far as the the part about coming to worship god all that's been taken out of the history books the courts have taken prayer out of our classroom and our commencement ceremonies the ten commandments are being removed from the parks and from courthouses and through political correctness many institutions have literally succeeded in removing god from the essence of our american society listen the spiritual compass has been removed in our country and we are we are going to reap the consequences of that and i think that's what we're seeing and i truly believe that's the reason that that anxiety levels are on the rise another reason number two we are less socially connected we are less socially connected listen guys i've talked a lot about this in the past but we were created i believe that god created us with a need for community we were created to be uh not to be independent not to be dependent but to be interdependent on one another we were created with the need for fellowship god never wanted us to be an island god wanted us to be there for one another just 30 years ago people hung out and they did life together i mean you know it's like almost every night the family wasn't sitting in front of a tv as much as they were going out with friends and hanging out together but all of that has changed today we come in we drive in we push a button the garage door goes open we pull in we shut the garage door behind us we stay indoors we never go outside and if we do go outside now we go outside in backyards with six foot fences so that the neighbors can't see over now not everybody i think in our culture today there is a push back on that and there are some people saying i don't want to live that way i want to get to know my neighbors but i'm saying overall the majority that's the case i love and i'm going to tell you i love technology and i think it's opened up all kinds of new opportunities for us as a society and yet it's also created all kinds of problems i mean who doesn't love the the cell phone i mean the the cell phone is literally i've thought before i literally can almost care i carry my entire files around with me on a cell phone what used to be just for phone calls because of the smart phones everything that i could need is right there in my back pocket but at the same time we've become so dependent upon it it's like it's a crutch in our life it's like we're addicted to it i sat in a restaurant and i watched four people four people sitting there over a meal and all about the same age i would say they were probably college age early 20s that type all of them on their phone texting not talking with one another and i'm thinking to myself here's four people that went to the effort to make arrangements and to say hey let's go let's go do lunch together let's go out together they made the effort and made the arrangements to all get together and sit down but they sat down and they're not communicating with one another they're communicating with someone else somewhere else i mean this went on i just kept watching i kept thinking well this is just for a few minutes this went on most of the meal and i'm just telling you dads listen to me moms listen to me if you have kids how many times in a restaurant i've set and i've watched the child sit there bored why mom and dad are texting or while mom and dad are on their cell phones i'm just telling you guys you need to put down the phones and communicate with your kids because communication listen communication will actually lessen their level of anxiety so you're asking you're like well what can i do i don't want my kids to feel so anxious i don't want my kids to be so caught up in all that's going on what should i do talk to them communication more than about anything you can do communication lowers the level of anxiety in our life the less communication that we have in our life the more the anxiety levels rise and so again it's so so important and i'm telling you it's getting worse in our culture think about cell phones again it used to be we had a phone so that we didn't have to go see people because we could just call them on the phone now we don't even use the phone piece now we just text everybody so now it's no longer even a voice you're hearing now you're just hearing seeing words that are being sent back and forth it's just it's just a loss of community it's a loss of communication without healthy communication in our life i'm just telling you that anxiety will only increase which is why i'm still such a big believer in small groups we have i think well over 500 small groups in our church well over that i don't even know where we are right now but i love it that we do because i just think that people have gotten so they go to work and a lot of times they're not really interacting with people at work and then they come home and they sit in front of a television and maybe there's tension in the home or whatever and they never really have any community and that's why we work so hard at northview to try to get everybody connected in a life group because why because it lowers your tension it lowers your anxiety level not only does it help you grow spiritually but it helps you emotionally it'll help bring your your anxiety level down which leads me to number three are more aware of what others have we're more aware of what other others have friends studies show studies show us that the more time you spend on social media the higher your anxiety level will be now that might surprise you but that's true studies are showing the more time you spend on social media the higher your anxiety level will be listen guys people don't post bad things about their life do they no you don't see them post bad things they they primarily post the celebrations we don't post about an ugly divorce oh yeah this picture is when we were both meeting with our attorneys and yeah it got kind of heated right there it was pretty ugly we don't post that on facebook or twitter or whatever we don't we don't we don't post a picture and say this is was this was me pre covid and this is me now 60 pounds heavier no we we don't want to post anything like that on on on social media do we no we've posted that we post things like no i lost 30 pounds i just got engaged last week and here's some pictures of our engagement we just took the trip of a lifetime and here's some of our pictures i just got a new job and i love it and here's some of the people that i'm working with but the problem is is that when you're on the other end and when you're viewing these things and all you ever see is that everybody else's life is wonderful everybody else has all these amazing things that are going on sometimes it leaves us stressed because we feel envious or jealous of their wonderful life because we're not hearing about the bad things we're only hearing about the good things which then drives up our anxiety level i also wanted to mention to you i thought about this today there is a movie out and i rarely recommend movies to you all i rarely say that you know i love watching movies but there is a more of a documentary called social dilemma you should see it it's on netflix and i think most of you many of you already have seen it if you have not seen it write this down go see to netflix and see social dilemma and if you have teenagers watch it with your kids because what they did in this documentary is they're mainly interviewing people from these uh social media like cfos and co and that type of things and these these executives of social media are saying oh my gosh we're not sure what we've done here this is serious this is a serious problem and we don't know how to get the genie back in the bottle and so um again i didn't mean to spend that much time on it but i really do want you to see that we're also i would say more aware of tragedy today than we've ever been before i mean uh on my phone and maybe on your phone i get news alerts so whenever anything new happens i get a ping um and my phone lights up and there's a news alert and here's the problem like on tuesday is my study day and so on tuesday the staff doesn't bother me nobody knocks on my door and i'm working on a mess i don't want to be interrupted because i want to focus here's what i've had to do i kept forgetting to shut my phone off and so news pings would come on and i'd glance over it lights up i'd glance over and read that headline and i'd stop what i'm doing to go read this news article and i'm like well the staff's not bothering me but this certainly is and so now i shut my phone off on tuesdays for that very reason what i'm trying to say to you is news is like it's almost instantaneously at our fingertips i mean it's almost like like it's there when it happens i'm getting news about covet updates every day i'm getting news about the the supreme court hearings that are going on listen guys in the 1930s our grandparents wouldn't have found out about something for days maybe even weeks today we can actually be watching it live on television or on our device the speed at which we're receiving bad news is outpacing our ability to process it which is why i would encourage you to limit your news intake because it is coming at us fast it's coming at us from every single direction so i'm just saying when you take god out of a person's life when they're not connected relationally when they're comparing themselves to all the great things that they see on social media all the while trying to process more and more bad news in our world it is no wonder guys that we're stressed out it's no wonder that we're struggling with anxiety okay so what is anxiety well webster defines uh worry or anxiety and basically we're talking about the same word worry anxiety stress all very very related webster defines worry and anxiety as mental distress or agitation resulting from concern usually for something impending or anticipated walter kelly defines it this way he says worry is faith in the negative trust in the unpleasant assurance of disaster and belief in defeat worry is wasting today's time to clutter up tomorrow's opportunities with yesterday's trouble now i want you to understand that being anxious or worried is different than fear so so even though we've got stress worry and anxiety over here fear doesn't fit in that same they may be cousins they may be close but there is a difference they're not exactly the same thing for instance fear is what you might feel when you're flying on a plane and all of a sudden the pilot comes over and says uh two of our engines just went out that's fear you're feeling fear fear can be listen fear can be a good thing we want our kids to have a fear of not running out into the street because cars may be coming we want our kids to have a fear uh when they're young of sticking something into an electric socket we don't want them to do that one guy said the problem is is that we often fear the wrong things we fear spiders but not diarrhea and yet more people die from diarrhea than spiders what we need to fear is the chalupa at taco bell that's what you need to fear listen to me church fear sees the threat this is what i'm trying to explain the difference fear sees the threat while anxiety imagines what could happen while anxiety imagines what might happen you find yourself asking all kinds of of what if questions and then imagining the horrible outcome for instance maybe i don't know where your mind goes it could be in any direction what if i get sick or what if my what if my kids get sick or what if my kids teeth are crooked and we can't afford braces or or what if their crooked teeth keep them from getting married oh my gosh what if i never have grandkids see it just starts to escalate once we start going down that road of what ifs it just one tops the other and it just keeps getting worse because our imagination goes wild so where fear is temporary anxiety just lingers it just keeps a hold of us it just drags us down and it'll keep our bodies in a constant state of stress and tension and since we're never designed for that kind of a stress it creates all kinds of ongoing mental and physical health issues your chest will tighten or maybe you have a hard time breathing or maybe you have a hard time sleeping at night maybe you wake up every night between the hours of two and four o'clock and you toss in your turn i've already told you guys i've experienced it all this isn't something i've read about i've experienced it in my life and i think probably many of you if not most of you have as well it's called anxiety and it might surprise you but it actually comes from pride anxiety is actually birthed out of pride it's assuming the mantle of control instead of trusting our problems to god you know i also would say that some of you are feeling anxious right now because you've been told all of your life that something is wrong with your faith if you're experiencing anxiety some of you have grown up with the idea that because you ever felt worried because you ever felt stressed because you ever felt anxiety that something must be wrong with you you're not a good christian you must not have faith here what i'm telling you if you've experienced anxiety and i know all of you at one time or another have experienced anxiety you are normal you are human it doesn't mean you are emotionally underdeveloped it doesn't mean that you're stupid or weak or a failure everyone and i mean everyone at one time or another has struggled with stress you've struggled with worry or anxiety so what do we do about it well that's what we're gonna look at over the next four weeks now the passage i want you to see was written by the apostle paul while he was in a prison cell at rome he was in a prison cell not for cooking meth he was in a prison cell not because he was a thief he was in a prison cell for preaching the gospel of jesus christ and while he was there he wrote the letter to the philippians in fact probably i think this particular passage is probably the most highlighted scripture passage in the bible it's one that all of you i'm sure have heard before and you will hear again it's philippians chapter 4 the first part of that verse says do not be anxious about anything do not be anxious about anything now you read it may be a little different you might don't be anxious about anything i thought you just said that we're all that all of us experience anxiety at times well guys you have to understand what paul is trying to say here in the original greek language paul says don't find yourself in the pursuit of day-to-day state of anxiousness don't find yourself in the daily pursuit of anxiousness or the day-to-day experience of it in other words don't live in a constant state of anxiety yes you're going to feel stress at times you're going to feel anxious at times but do something about it because if you don't do something about it it's going to destroy you physically spiritually and mentally max locato wrote a book with the same title of the book as is this series anxious for nothing it's a great book i would highly recommend it in fact we've put together uh recommended resources for you some of you are going to say well steve you know i really was hoping for a whole lot more i wanted to go a whole lot deeper than where you're going and that's why we put this resource a recommended resources together for you and you can find it on the northview app or you can find it on our website northviewchurch.us anxious and there we've posted articles and books and podcasts and bible studies but the two books that i had them bring in because i felt most of most of you are where the rest of you are most of us aren't dealing with serious deep seated anxiety but we're just dealing with the daily anxiety and you say how do i how do i rid myself of that two books that i think are very good that will help one as i just mentioned anxious for nothing by max lucado and the other one is healing is a choice by steve arderberg our teaching pastor those are two of the best books that i've read on this particular topic and so we brought those in to all of our campuses are going to have copies this weekend if you're interested and i've read them both i love them both they're all my top uh favorite books and i would encourage you to consider that he says the presence of anxiety max locato says in his books the presence of anxiety is unavoidable but the prison of anxiety is optional the presence of anxiety is unavoidable but the prison of anxiety is optional uh guys here's what i want you to understand some anxiety is so severe you need to get professional help and there's no shame in that at all absolutely not because some of it can be caused by a chemical imbalance some of you are dealing with an anxiety that's much deeper than what anybody understands around you and it's maybe it's caused by a chemical imbalance maybe it's caused by some deep rooted emotional struggles that you've gone through in the past whatever but you it's not something that that reading the bible is going to help you with it's not something that that having a friend sit down and talk with you is going to help you with it's something that you may need medication for it's something that you may need a uh a counselor for whatever that can help you work through and walk through this and i believe with everything in my being that god works through doctors and medicines and a lot there's a lot said today when it comes to anxiety you've read it i've read it you can't pick up a news article without reading about anxiety today and there's a lot that's being talked about the physical side of anxiety the emotional side of anxiety but as i said to you last week the last couple weeks not much is being said about the spiritual side of anxiety and i think that is a problem because i think that's where you need to begin not where you need to say okay we've tried everything else what about spiritual side absolutely you need to start with the spiritual side because i think more times than not what you and i are struggling with on a daily basis is spiritual again it's birthed out of pride and so therefore start with the spiritual side just well i don't even know what to do well that's what we're going to look at over these four weeks we're going to talk about the spiritual side of anxiety and so i believe that the passage that we're going to look at we're going to break it down over four weeks these five verses kind of form a blueprint on how to move from anxiety to peace in your life each week we're going to take a section of the scripture and we're going to break it down which is why you really need to try to be here and if you can't be here at least watch it online because if you if you pull out a whole section of this you're going to miss an important chunk that you need to hear so let me start by reading the passage that we're going to be looking at over the next four weeks now remember paul's writing this from a prison cell he knows that he could be executed at any time think about that when you're worried about what you have to go through next week think about paul he's sitting in a prison cell not sure if they were going to chop off his head next week or not so needless to say i think he's a bit worried i think he's a bit anxious even though his faith was in god and his trust was in god i think if anybody had reason to be anxious paul did let's look at it rejoice in the lord always i will say it again rejoice let your gentleness be evident to all the lord is near do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to god and the peace of god which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in christ jesus finally brothers and sisters whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things now today we're just basically going to deal with the first two verses and so verse 4 rejoice in the lord always i will say it again rejoice and some of you some of you are reading that right now and you're like rejoice steve are you kidding me rejoice i am stressed out of my mind and you want me to celebrate my job is in jeopardy and you want me to rejoice i'm afraid i might have the virus and i'm supposed to say yay god guys paul's not telling us to rejoice in our problems he's telling us to rejoice in what in the lord he's telling us to rejoice in the lord let your gentleness he goes on we'll look at that in a minute let your gentleness be evident to all why because the lord is near to you what paul wants us to see is that now hear me on this what paul wants us to see is that belief proceeds behavior now this is true in about any area you want to talk about but it's certainly true when it comes to talking about anxiety belief precedes behavior guys get this if anxiety and worry are out of control in your life then go back to what you believe about god stop what you're doing if you're stressed out and worried stop what you're doing and go back to what you believe about god because what you believe about god determines how you will behave so then do you have do you believe the promises of god i mean you need to ask yourself these questions do you believe the promises of god do you really believe that god loves you and that god wants the best for you then guys refocus your attention on the promises of god's word how many parents remember you remember standing if you have kids you remember standing in that swimming pool and you're trying to get your kids to jump in for the first time and they're really nervous about it they're really anxious about it but you promise you're going to catch them and so you have your arms out and you keep saying i promise i'm going to catch you it's all right of course there's some of you parents that just threw your kids in and it's no wonder your kids struggle with anxiety but that's a whole nother that's a whole nother sermon that's a whole other message and so you start by what you start with your sweet voice it's like oh come on sweetheart it's gonna be okay daddy's going to catch you yes just come on just jump you start with your sweet boys but then they won't jump and they just keep waiting and they just keep they're nervous and they just keep stuck and and you go from your sweet voice to your darth vader voice i'm your father jump you know it's like all of a sudden you're so frustrated why are we so frustrated because we know how much we love our kids and we would never allow anything to happen to them but their behavior is saying i don't believe you you say you'll catch me but i don't believe you i don't trust you well guys when we're anxious or worried that's what our behavior is saying to god i don't trust you i'm not sure you're going to come through for me so i'm going to say it again belief precedes behavior if you believe god's word to be true in your life then you will act upon it so when you start to feel anxious just begin to celebrate what you know to be true about god that's what he means by rejoice you just start to praise him you just start to thank him for what you know to be true about him okay so guys here's what i really want you to walk away with today the next point true peace is found in these two pillars goodness and control true peace is found in these two pillars goodness and control okay so trusting listen to me trusting in god's goodness as well as trusting in his control is imperative in other words when you experience worry or anxiety in your life just step in between these two pillars now some of you are saying steve i don't even know what do you mean step in between these two pillars how do we do that you do that by refocusing on god again a self reminder that god is god that he loves me that he absolutely wants the best for me and that god is absolutely in control he's still on the throne so you see i don't need to worry god's got this friends that's why he says that's why the scripture says rejoice in the lord the lord the lord means the master the lord means the one who's in charge the one who is on the throne the one who is in control listen more times than not i feel stress or anxiety when i feel like i've lost control we go through life and we want to we want to keep control don't we but we we get we we use the phrase control freaks i'm a control freak i want to make sure that everything is going to go the way i want it to go and so when i get my anxiety level rises when i let go of control the bible says though without faith it's impossible to please god so faith says i trust god and he's in control of my life in isaiah chapter 26 it says you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you all whose thoughts are fixed on you guys paul wants us to understand that what you are anxious about is most likely where you're trusting god the least what listen uh i'm going to say that again what you're most worried about what you're most anxious about is probably the area of your life that you're trusting god the least so when i stand when i stand here between goodness when i stand here between goodness and control i'm going to experience peace why because i know that god's in control of my life i've surrendered my life to him and i know that he is a good god that loves me and has my back but what happens when i step outside of these pillars what happens when i come over here and i say oh my gosh i know that i've given god control of my life but i don't i don't know if he really loves me and so therefore my anxiety level starts to rise or if i step outside this way and i say oh my gosh i know god's good i know that he loves me i know that he has a purpose and plan for my life but i don't know if he's got control of this or not and so if i question that god's got control of this or not then my anxiety level starts to rise again and that's why it's imperative that i stand between all the time when i find anxiety rising if i want it to come back down i have to step in between god's goodness and god's control in my life i don't have to worry because i know that god listen i don't have to worry because i know that god promised that he's going to work all things together for good in romans it says and we know we don't wonder we don't hope we know that in all things god works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose and then we go to the second verse i want us to look at we look at verse four verse five let your gentleness be evident to all because the lord is near let your gentleness be evident to all because the lord is near guys the word gentleness the word means tolerance the word gentleness literally means tolerance it's in other words it's being tolerant to the slight deviations in my life being tolerant to the slight deviations in my daily life in other words when life doesn't exactly go the way i thought it would go in the world how it would go today i trust god okay so in other words today i i've got a plan i've got things that i'm going to do today but all along the way today every once in a while things don't go the way i expected all once a while this trouble comes up a phone call comes in little little deviations from my plan go astray but because i know that god is near because i know that god's in control of my life i show my confidence and my trust in him the lord's near to me and so as long as i keep trusting that and keep refocusing on that my anxiety doesn't my anxiety level doesn't rise because of all of these uh little troubles along the way so the question is are you standing between these two pillars because that's where you'll find peace or are you standing out here somewhere so when you feel anxious that's what i want you to do guys first celebrate god's goodness and rejoice because he is absolutely in control so i will let my gentleness or in other words my tolerance to be known because god is near and if god is always near then we will be anxious for nothing so the so the thing that i want you to walk away with today and each as i said each week we're going to build on this as we work our way through this particular passage but i just want you to see this week as you go through struggles that you say i'm going to refocus on god because he's near because he loves me because he has my back and because i can trust him and i'm going to and i'm and i realize that because i know that god's in control i'm not trying to run my own life i'm not trying to make sure that everything happens the way i want it to happen i've surrendered my life to god and i know he's in complete control of my life as well as the fact i know that he loves me and i know that god has a purpose and a plan for my life and i trust that and i believe that and so because of his goodness and because of his control i know that i don't have to worry i don't have to experience stress i can experience the peace that passes all human comprehension you

Channel: Northview Church

Views: 2,553

Rating: 4.8620691 out of 5

Keywords: Northview Church, Northview, Steve Poe, Carmel, Fishers, Westfield, Lafayette, Indy North, Indianapolis

Id: nvYE0YoAqc0

Length: 40min 15sec (2415 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020