Guarded by Peace | ON EDGE | Kyle Idleman

don't be anxious about anything anything is it really that simple I'm on edge all the time I know the king of all kings I'm friends with the creator of all mankind but I still can't calm my anxious mind it's Universal and to every single person that applies I try to face it down to look at dead in the eye sometimes I run but it always seems close by I'm anxious about my anxiety I do my best to deny to pretend that everything is fine don't worry about me I'm just a little shy no one can know the anxiety dial of my life is turned up high it'll be another sleepless night I lay in bed staring at my phone I don't want to turn it off because here's what I know anxiety grows in the dark anxiety grows in the dark when you're all alone the weight is heavy it's too much for me to bear then I hear God's Word whisper in my ear cast it all on me cast it all on me because I really do care to the boy look it down with his dark circles under his eyes he acts like he doesn't care but he wishes someone with at least try to the girl crippled by past betrayal she's become a slave to the weighing scale to the man who finds numbness at the bottom of his bottle his tortured eyes show the fear he hides the pain he continues to swallow to the woman who stares at a wall while she sits at a shelter she married a predator the man she thought would protect her if faith that conquers fear is what you lack then cry out for help as you fall on your knees for the Lord does not slumber nor does he sleep and at the very sight of him every fear will flee anxiety maybe part of humanity but God has seen my vulnerability he is undefeated unchanging and unchallengeable he is for you so that makes you untouchable untouchable don't be anxious about anything cast it all on him I mean everything everything [Music] let's pray God I thank you that we can come in here today with whatever weight we've been carrying and we can transfer it to you God that we can cast our anxiety on you because you care for us you really do care and if we could believe that if we could get our arms around that so much of the anxiety that we feel would melt away Lord we live in a world that is increasingly on edge seems lots of anxiety and stress and just feelings of being overwhelmed would you help us God to experience your peace before we leave here today would you help us got to realize that you give it to us supernaturally it's something that can't fully be explained or understood but it meets us in the storm and calms us I pray that you would let us know that and Jesus name we pray amen I don't know if you do your reading on a Kindle or maybe iBooks but there's this feature that allows you to highlight certain sentences that you want to remember you want to recall in the book later so you can click on a button and it'll just put on a page all the different sections of the book you've highlighted it's a great tool what you may not know is that they keep track of that they keep track of how many people highlight what parts of what books and so you can actually see what book has been highlighted more than any other book and it's interesting that the one section that's been highlighted almost two to one more than any other book comes from The Hunger Games novel part 2 here's the sentence that highlighted more than any other because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with it sometimes things happen in life and you're not equipped to deal with it I imagine people reading the book deciding to highlight that sentence so it's a student who feels overwhelmed with school it's a young lady who's trying to process a breakup it's a young man who knows he can't go back next semester it's a wife whose husband has had an affair and she's trying to just get lost in the pages of a novel and they come across this sentence and without even thinking they highlight it sometimes things happen and you're not equipped to deal with it I was reading in the book worry less live more by Robert Morgan about the most highlighted passage of Scripture in the Bible you might think it's like John 3:16 or the 23rd psalm but the most highlighted passage of Scripture is the passage we're studying today Philippians chapter 4 verse 6 and 7 here's what it says don't be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition and with Thanksgiving present your requests to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus then the interesting is put those two pieces of information together for a moment at the most highlighted section of any book is a passage that says sometimes things happen in life that you're not equipped to deal with and the most highlighted passage of Scripture is don't be anxious about those things when things happen in your life and you're not equipped to deal with them don't be anxious but in everything through prayer and petition and with Thanksgiving make your requests known to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and so this is God's Word for a very real and relevant challenge that a lot of us have this feeling on edge and overwhelmed because there are things that are happening and we don't know what to do and we don't quite know how to deal with those things that phrase a peace that passes understanding in some ways that's a challenging phrase for a communicator because what it's really saying is there's a peace that can't be communicated there's a a peace that comes from God that can't be understood and if it can't be understood cognitively then the person who's trying to explain it has a tough job ahead of them right and yet this is a peace of God that I've seen I've experienced it on some level and as a pastor I've witnessed other people when they have felt it in their storm some of you would testify to this that there's a peace of God that you didn't quite know about until you found yourself in a storm that you didn't think before going through it that you could get through it but in the middle of it God's peace met you and it's not that life was just perfect and that no challenges or worries it's not that you didn't have moments of panic or despair but you found a supernatural peace that sustained you and it was more than you would have had on your own so on Thursday of this past week I'm talking to a mom and dad who lost their 18 year old daughter on Wednesday hi I'm listen to them and this young lady was beautiful and she was smart and kind and sweet and she had just been accepted into the genetics program at Clemson she had a bright future she loved Jesus and she loved people and I'm just listening to mom and dad talk and I'm wiping tears off of my cheeks as I'm on the phone because I got an 18 year old girl I don't know what I'd do without her I can't imagine what it would be like to lose her and so I'm just I just can't quite wrap my arms around what they're going through and you have to promise I claim on their behalf and the promise I believe is what's found here in Philippians 4 that there is a peace that passes understanding and it will meet you in your darkest place it will sustain you and it can't be drummed up just from digging down deep looking on the inside it's from God it's from God it's supernatural and so Paul and Philippians 4 talks to us about how we find this kind of peace in the midst of anxiety I want to talk to you for a few minutes about just some of the anxiety we deal with but I I've tried to separate these categories over the last couple of weeks because it seems dangerous right like you come to church to hear about anxiety and the preacher gives you all the reasons you have to be anxious to have a good afternoon see you next week I don't want to do that like I know I don't want that to be the spirit of this so we talked about some last week we talked about we'll talk about some this week I've tried to keep these categories general rather than specific again for the same reason so one category of anxiety would be what I would call the unknown the unknown so much of anxiety revolves around the what-if question what is going to happen tomorrow well what does the future hold and they can be big questions right like what if there's another terrorist attack what if the economy collapses what if I never find someone to spend my life with what if we can't get pregnant what if our marriage doesn't make it what what if I can't get a job the list just kind of goes on it's the what-if question Jesus addresses that and the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 6 and he says don't worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself each day has enough trouble of its own and so a lot of our anxiety comes from what if it's under this category of tomorrow there's nothing that's happened yet that we just can't help but think about the possibility of it happening so another category that I would throw out there would be the unlikely things that are unlikely to happen but they start to consume our thoughts we live in a world you know better or worse we've got this 24-hour news cycle constantly aware of what's happening around the world I don't know if your phone works like mine but I don't know if you've got your anxiety feature turned on where that just gives you the news in a real time like here's everything bad that's happening right now and it pops up and tells you have a good day just want you to be aware of what could possibly go wrong for you later today and so it's just constant updates of things that are going wrong for other people around the world and and the reason it's newsworthy is because it's unlikely like if it were to be likely like if it was a normal human experience they wouldn't report it but we're surrounded by this information and it creates anxiety Ecclesiastes 118 addresses this it says for a much wisdom is much grief and he that increases in knowledge increases in sorrow if there's a sense in which the more information we have the more data we have access to the more we're aware of what we have to be anxious about no matter how unlikely it might be in fact some of the new stories aren't even real stories right it's like the whole category now is the fake news if you saw on the news this week Facebook is in you know some trouble for not properly regulating fake news things that are just obviously fake I started looking at some of the fake news headlines from Facebook over 2017 they're stories that were clicked on millions of times people read it they thought it was a new story so like this one Charles Manson to be released on parole in Johnson City Tennessee that's interesting unless you live in Johnson City Tennessee and then you start to get pretty anxious like everyone starts to look at him it looks that guy looks a little Charles Manson II it did you feel this anxiety another fake news story weapon-toting clowns go on murderous rampage you remember hearing some of these news stories and people were anxious about clowns for a while then there's a follow-up fake news story for that one Congress passes law authorizing citizens to legally shoot and kill suspicious clowns so I don't know how you feel but like for me like if anytime I see a clown that's not in a circus that's suspicious like if there's if there's somebody full-on clown costume in here I mean I'm sorry like it just it just feels that seems suspicious to me and and so you start getting anxiety over clowns one of my favorite fake news stories would be this 1.2 million people read this news story elderly woman accused of training her 65 cats to steal from the neighbors and now you like you see a stray cat on your property and you just you just wonder right like the remote controls missing and it just you can't help but think that maybe your neighbor lady with all the cats has been up to something you didn't misplace it but you just have this anxiety over things that aren't even aren't even real we're surrounded by that kind of information one other category that I would throw out there would be the uncontrollable things that are outside of our control an expert in the field of anxiety of handling stress dr. Edward Halliwell has this equation for anxieties as equation or anxiety takes place when there is a heightened sense of vulnerability and a diminished sense of power so when you find yourself in places where you feel vulnerable but you don't really have much power to do anything about your vulnerability then that creates anxiety you're vulnerable but you're not in a position to control things so for me when I read that equation that definition my mind immediately went to one of the things I'm doing these days is teaching my youngest daughter my 16 year old how to derive to me this is the definition the heightened sense of vulnerability and the diminished sense of power right like I'm sitting in the passenger seat and I don't want to sit in the passenger seat I don't want her to drive I want to drive and so she's doing good for the most part she sometimes so gets her her directions confused meaning like you say right and she goes left which is problematic at times and and so I I will sit in the passenger seat and my voice goes up three octaves I'm like knuckle in it and I'm slamming on imaginary brakes that aren't on the passenger side of the car and it's because I don't have control I don't have control I want to be in control I'm not I feel vulnerable I'm buckled up but I feel vulnerable and and I can't do a lot about it in that moment that's anxiety and so for many of us this describes how relations and relationships work describes how we feel about a job situation it describes the kind of the position we're in as we look to the future we feel like we're just we're going for a ride and we're we're vulnerable we're exposed and and there's not a lot that we can do about it you've probably heard of the the prayer of serenity it's been around for quite a while it's oftentimes used to help people in recovery it goes like this god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom the wisdom to know the difference but but this is where oftentimes anxiety or peace gets determined do I know the difference between the things I need to accept and the things that need to be addressed so I feel anxious maybe about some finances and there's some things about my finances that I can control but there are some things I can't and maybe you feel anxious about your health and there's some things can control about your health but there's some things you can't or maybe you're struggling with anxiety in a relationship because there's some things you want to control but you can't and you think if this person would respond this way if this person would react this way then I would have peace in my life and you're trying to control how they respond and how they react and and the more you control the less they the less they do it and the less they move in your direction you want to control the way someone feels about you and you think well if he felt this way about me if she felt this way about me that I wouldn't have anxiety so you try to control their feelings and the more you try to control their feelings the less they feel the way you want them to and the less they feel the way you want them to the more you try to control how they feel and it just the anxiety starts to blow up right and there's just so many things that we don't have control over the prayer of serenity goes on to say living one day at a time enjoying one moment at a time accepting hardships as the pathway to peace and taking as he did as Jesus did the sinful world as it is not as I would have it trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next so god help me with this help me to accept some things the way they are not as I would have them to be God helped me to be reasonably happy in this life but to know that supreme happiness come in the next but it's that's hard for us so we're anxious how do we deal with that what do we do Paul's gonna give us some things that we can put into practice but I want to touch on here is that for many of us you know increasingly so in our world we we look less to a scriptural solution for some of these things then maybe what was done in the past and so last week I gave some disclaimers you know talking about how sometimes anxiety not often but sometimes it's it's physiological it requires some professional help it's some medicinal help but too often times we look to those sources and and we don't look to what what God has said and and God becomes kind of this last resort well if nothing else works maybe I'll maybe I'll I'll look to God I was reading in an article in the Atlantic magazine called surviving anxiety by Scott Stossel he talks about just living with a lot of anxiety he says here's what I've tried as a way to deal with it and he gives a list individual psychotherapy family therapy group therapy cognitive therapy cognitive behavioral therapy rational emotive behavior therapy acceptance and commitment therapy hypnosis meditation role-playing exposure therapy massage therapy self-help workbooks acupuncture yoga stoic philosophy and audio tapes I ordered off late-night TV infomercials he goes on to give medications that he's on or has been on in the past and I can't pronounce about half of them so I won't try but there's like a Thorazine desipramine gnar dil buspar prozac Zoloft paxil well wellbutrin exit except fix I don't know I don't good luck with the sign language on this I don't I don't I don't know cymbalta inderal a seer accent rack st. John's wort xanax valium ativan and again a bunch of others also beer wine gin bourbon vodka scotch and there's that list and then he concludes the article with and here's what's worked nothing nothing and so I think oftentimes we we turn to God as a last resort and what I believe is that no matter where you're at on this anxiety spectrum that there's a deeper level of peace that you can experience that comes from God that's supernatural so expulse says in Philippians 4 first to to pray about everything verse 6 he says but in everything by prayer and petition and with Thanksgiving present your requests to God he specifically gives us two kinds of Prayer here he talks about Thanksgiving and prayers of petition or supplication so here's why that's important is for for many of us who've tried to cast our anxiety on God we have found ourselves in this position where we're praying about our anxiety we're making a list God hears all the things I have to be anxious about and somewhere in the middle of the prayer you realize I'm more anxious now than before I started right why is that because it's not just telling God about your anxiety there's a certain way to pray here it's praying with Thanksgiving and gratitude one of the things anxiety does as anxiety blinds us to blessings it keeps us from having a perspective of gratitude and it puts this disproportionate emphasis on things in our life that we wish were different and so it blinds us from blessings now other people might look at our lives and say why are you so stressed out why are you so anxious and irritable and overwhelmed you've got so many things in your life to be thankful for but you don't see them because anxiety blinds you to blessings and puts the emphasis on what you wish was different and so Paul says pray then with Thanksgiving where you're paying attention to the blessings of what you have to be thankful for and he models this for us Philippians he's not writing this text from a balcony of an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean he's writing this in a prison chained to a guard waiting to find out if he's going to be executed and that's where he's writing this from right so it it's learning to be thankful learning to be grateful even when you wish there were a lot of things that could change and then Paul also talks about praying prayers of petition this is where we asked God for help we ask God to intervene so the idea here is that at some point at some point we stop telling God about our anxiety and at some point we start telling our anxiety about God that's the idea so David does this very well in the Psalms you read through the Psalms you'll see this shift where he begins a psalm by talking about the agency has to be anxious and he has these enemies that are chasing him and his life is in danger and here's everything that's wrong but then he shifts and he stops telling God about his anxiety and he starts telling his anxiety about God he starts putting the emphasis on who God is and God's faithfulness and God's redeeming work and that he could have confidence in God's plan and so that's the that's the challenge it's not just to pray about everything but to pray in a way that that relieves anxiety one of the prayers that we should pray is to say God what do you want me to do about this alright like sometimes anxiety or worry it's like this flashing light on the dashboard of your life that says this area needs some attention and and so you say God what do you want me to do I've been casting my financial anxiety on you but what do you what do I need to do and so maybe God would challenge you to to put together a budget to pay careful attention over here to make some changes in certain area of your life or maybe that's true in your marriage say god I just there's a lot going on right now in my marriage that there's this anxiety and God might say well have have you have you been praying with your spouse I know you're focused on some things that you that your spouse needs to do differently but but what about you what about you your life what do you need to do differently and so it's not just God here's my anxiety it's God what do you want me to do differently or even as we talk about anxiety you know we have a class that we're gonna have at all of our campuses one night this week where we'll have professional licensed counselors come in and just talk about how we can deal with anxiety in a healthy way there's information about that in your bulletin on the website but the idea is that we want to pray about these things but sometimes the prayer we need to pray is God what what do I need to give attention to so Paul says pray about everything and then he assures them that in verse 19 that God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches that God will God will take care of what needs to be taken care of and so we learned then to turn to him first and foremost so I want to be careful here right I know that there are some people who need in dealing with their anxiety they need some professional help and therapy and they need some kind of additional help but first and foremost my challenge would be that you turn to God that you look to him for peace and comfort that is he's not a last resort and so as you turn and pray to God then God might open up some of these other doors that that need to be address and other things that need attention but you turn to God first in his book high-society Joseph Califano who at the time was the chairman of the National Center on addiction and substance abuse at Columbia University here's what he says he says chemistry is chasing Christianity as the nation's largest religion indeed millions of Americans who in times of personal crisis and emotional and mental anguish once turned to priests ministers and rabbis for keys to the heavenly kingdom now go to physicians and psychiatrists who hold the keys to the kingdom of pharmaceutical relief or to drug dealers and liquor stores as chemicals and alcohol replaced the confessional as a source of Solace and forgiveness he already saying there that our first turn increasingly is not to God it's to as he says it's to to chemistry now we have to be careful not to pit these things against each other which is sometimes what happens that's that's not the idea here the idea is that we turn to God first and foremost one of the things I've learned is that you know many people kind of reveal how they deal with their anxiety by what they have to do to get to sleep at night and so someone is struggling with anxiety and they they stare at a screen until they can't keep their eyes open any long and then at the last moment they turned it off and set it on the nightstand and they fall asleep just this deep distraction that's how they deal with it for for other people it's you know taking a couple of drinks it popping a couple of pills it's going shopping online at Amazon it's logging on to a pornographic website it's turning to something or someone other than than God as a way to deal with the anxiety you feel so Paul says first you turn to God and you pray about everything and then he challenges you verse 8 to think about good things here's what he says finally brothers whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things Paul says look if you're struggling with anxiety if you're having a hard time finding peace then filter your thoughts through this list and just ask yourself does this describe what I'm thinking about do I think about things that are lovely and pure and praiseworthy and excellent and you filter your thoughts through that list and you find out that oftentimes you know your thinking is determining your feelings and if you took psychology 101 then you remember learning about cognitive psychology that how we think you know determines almost everything in our lives that we sometimes dismiss some of that language in church because you know the self-help movement and the power of positive talk some of that stuff has become very humanistic right we've put the emphasis on rescuing and saving ourselves but the Bible goes to great lengths to talk about how what we think about matters that as a man thinks in his heart so is see the Bible says be transformed by the renewing of your minds and so Paul says when you're thinking make sure you're thinking about these things now for some of you that's hard because like the neural pathways in your brain are pretty well established and you kind of put everything down the neural pathway of criticism and and negativity and doom and gloom and that's just what you do and so you set that you set that highway down you open up a new pathway new neural pathway called Thanksgiving and praise and excellence and and you give your thought your mind your minds to those things so you for many of us we're guilty of living our lives according to fake news right but it's not necessarily on the headlines on Facebook it's it's the headlines and our heads it's these news stories that aren't real but we just continually feed ourselves and so if in your mind the headline is life isn't supposed to be this hard and you kind of wake up with that feeling and you go to bed with that feeling thinking what it shouldn't be this difficult it's not supposed to be this way why is this happening to me this isn't fair if that's the headline in your head then anxiety is is gonna be overwhelming if you think you know I would be content if he would do something if she would do something I I wouldn't feel anxious if if somebody else would change something about themselves if that's the headline in your head you're gonna feel overwhelmed with anxiety if you go to maybe a party or to a gathering and the friends it doesn't talk to you for some reason and you walk away and the headline in your head is why didn't she talk to me there must be something wrong there must be something wrong wrong because she didn't talk to me and that's the headline you choose then you're gonna feel pretty anxious about that relationship when that may not be the case at all right so what we tell ourselves has a big impact so Paul says look think about what's lovely and Noble and right and admirable excellent and praiseworthy and then lastly in verse 9 Paul tells us to live for God in all things and he connects the Peace of God to living God's Way here's what he says whatever you've learned and received or heard from me or seen in me he says put that into practice and the peace of God will be with you so he connects the peace of God to the way we live he put these things that we're talking about into practice you live according to God's ways and you'll experience deeper levels of God's peace that there's a connection there you don't just get to live however you want to live and then expect to experience peace that comes from God it's not how it works so God says you put others first I put that into practice and I don't live with the tents relationships I don't live with the anxiety of am I getting what I deserve or what if somebody gets in line ahead of me and God says to not covet and I put that into practice I don't live with anxiety then of jealousy or comparisons God says that sex is reserved for marriage and I live that out of my life and I don't then live with the anxiety of emotional insecurity there's a deeper peace that comes from a deeper intimacy God says to be generous I put that into practice and I'm content I'm not anxious over how much I have or don't have by giving I've taken money's power away and anxiety goes with it and God says to practice self-discipline when I do that I'm more likely to have habits that fight off anxiety I'm more likely to you know not be anxious about things like paying bills on time or or health recert and health related issues God says to regularly meet with his people I put that into practice and I'm surrounded then by other people who bear my burdens with me people who encouraged me along the way when I feel overwhelmed God says to forgive and I put that into practice and then I live without the bitterness and the anxiety that comes along with anger and of being wronged I don't feel anxious to even the score that I got to make somebody else feel the way they've made me feel God says to worship Him and I put that into practice and anxiety melts away as I remember who God is I put God in His right place in my research I was intrigued by something I read from the American Heart Association they're talking about how to live with reduced stress and here's one of the suggestions I meant examine your values and live by them the more your actions reflect your beliefs the better you'll feel and so I think for some of us this is really significant that we say we believe in the God who was in control and a God who cares but we've not aligned our life around that belief and it's created a lot of anxiety and we say we believe certain things that the Bible teaches but we haven't aligned our life around those teachings and that dichotomy has created a lot of anxiety and so that's one of the challenge for challenges for us in the next few minutes is to take a look at what what do I believe what about my belief system needs to be addressed and then once I address that how do i align my life with what I've said I believe about God and God's Word as a church how I would love nothing more than for us as a community to be known as a community of peace and joy and the midst of sometimes difficulty in overwhelming challenges and circumstances but that doesn't come because we drum it up that comes from God it's a peace that passes understanding and I believe God wants you to experience that today after I pray we're gonna take a few minutes we're gonna sing two or three songs we're gonna worship together I'd like to ask you in those next few minutes as we worship to engage some of what we talked about to actively cast some of your anxiety on God to experience the freedom that he wants you to have to leave some things here before you leave some of the weight you brought in you're not gonna take it out with you for others of you you know if you need to make a decision then you can come down front and you can meet me down there talk a little bit more but I just wanted this time of worship to be a time that becomes freeing for us as we remember who God is and we let him sit in the driver's seat we release control let's pray god I thank you that you can do for us what we can't do for ourselves and even now God I know that you know we can be in a hurry we want to leave and we're kinda stressed out about you know the parking lot and driving and where we're gonna eat and lord would you just let us kind of take a deep breath here and put our attention on what really matters that we could focus our hearts and our minds on you and your greatness Lord that you would give us that right perspective god I pray for my brothers and sisters who've walked in here today carrying weight that is too that they you don't want them to bear I pray God that they would release some things to you that they would transfer it over to you and that they would experience a deep and supernatural peace that comes from you alone so God what you filled this place with your peace in the next few minutes it's in Jesus name we pray amen

Channel: Southeast Christian Church

Views: 15,230

Keywords: Southeast Christian Church, Dave Stone, Kyle Idleman, creative church, sermon series, worship, Jesus, God, Louisville, Kentucky, on edge, guarded by peace

Id: -57Yzg4GVCA

Length: 35min 45sec (2145 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 16 2018