If you’ve ever been trying to go to sleep at night, and you should be able to go to sleep, one of those days where you woke up early, maybe you worked out, you hadn’t gotten great sleep in a few days, and so you lay down and all day long your body wanted to go to sleep. Like you’re at work in the afternoon and you’re yawning and you eyes are getting tired. And so you finally get in bed and you close your eyes and instead of going to sleep, your mind starts to think about things. It starts to think about things that you said wrong or did wrong or looked wrong that day. It starts to think about issues or problems that you’re about to face this week or next week, or issues or problems that exist just in the world at large. Or sometimes your brain will start to think about problems that you had when you were in sixth grade in elementary school, and you can’t do anything about it that moment to fix that thing, but that’s what your brain does.

That’s called anxiety. And we have these moments where, where we start to freak out. Actually, I had a moment this morning, so, so I, this morning I go into, I wake up pretty early on Sunday mornings, and my wife is in the bedroom and I’m, I’m trying to let her stay asleep. And so I, I try and be as quiet as possible, and I don’t even try and turn on big lights like I, because it goes underneath the door. And so I’ve just got the small lights on and I go to put my contacts in and my, my contact case is open and there’s nothing in there. And, and I just figure, well, sometimes I accidentally sleep in my contacts, which you’re not supposed to do, but, but mine are kind of made to be able to do that. And so I was like, I guess I got ’em in and it’s small enough and dark enough of a room that I can’t tell until I get downstairs and I am headed out the door.

And once I get out the door and it’s a little more bright and there’s a little more distance, I realize I can’t see. And so then in my mind, I’m like, when did I take out my contacts last night? And I, I don’t know, I I couldn’t tell you right now. They’re not in the case, and maybe I woke up in the middle of the night. Maybe I throw ’em out. But those are those moments where you think, okay, I’m a little crazy. Anxiety. It’s a real thing that is just beneath the surface that exists. Anxiety is everywhere. Anxiety is in the air that we breathe. Philosophers would say that we are in, they call the age of anxiety. And, and here’s some stats that would back that up. Nearly one in three adults in America will struggle with an anxiety disorder in their lifetime.

And that’s only the clinical cases. And that’s not just normal anxiety, that that’s a mentally diagnosed clinical anxiety disorder. Separate from that, the World Health Organization they have said that the largest mental health crisis in the world is due to anxiety. If you wanna take it one step further, one step worse than that is the amount of anxiety in young people in teens, especially anyone raised, born after the year 1995 for that demographic, anxiety is nearly double. The definition of anxiety would be this, that psychologists describe anxiety as a state of hypervigilance, where your nervous system is stuck in overdrive, scanning for threats inside the brain. The amygdala fires like a smoke alarm. The prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for logic and perspective, often shuts down. That’s why anxiety feels overwhelming and irrational at the same time. You know, you shouldn’t worry, but your body is already in panic mode.

La last week we talked about fear. This idea of what is fear in our brain? How does it work? And anxiety is that your brain, the amygdala is firing off as if there’s a real fear, there’s a danger for your life right in front of you, except there’s no real danger. The the fire alarm is going off, but there is no fire. Now. Now imagine living in a state of constant panic that you have a fire alarm in your house that is just going off nonstop. There’s no fire. You know, there’s not a fire, and yet that thing does not stop, and you’re just like, eh, I guess I’ll just live with it. How obnoxious would that be? It’s interesting. Humans are unique in the fact that we experience anxiety. Now, Robert, Robert Sadowski, a Stanford neuroscientist, he wrote, we are the only species that activates the stress response for purely psychological reasons.

He goes on to describe a zebra that if a zebra is being chased by a lion, it panics. Now it’s running for its life. It is scared. But the moment that that lion goes away, it doesn’t panic anymore. That part of the brain is like, whew, we’re good. We’re fine. Animals don’t face anxiety, but you and I, there’s a part of us the way that God created us and wired us, that we experience the fear that a lion is chasing us, even though there is no lion. We’re in a sermon series called Name Your Shark. It’s based off of a book by a guy named Lawrence Gonzales called Deep Survival. And in Deep Survival, he looks at these different real life stories of people that survived, even though it looked like by, by any kind of a outsider. They’d look at the, the expectations of survival, and they’d say, well, there’s no chance this person makes it.

And yet, somehow they survive miraculous in some instances. And so he, he tries to study ’em, and he says, what is it about these individuals that cause them to beat the odds and to survive? He writes in the book, this, he, he says survival often depends more on mental and emotional resilience than on physical strength. Recognizing the reality of the situation, maintaining hope and making deliberate informed decisions are essential traits of survivors. He tells a story. One of the most fascinating stories to me of Debbie scaling. Debbie Scaling was in a life raft that the yacht that she was sailing on, it crashes. Five people get into a life raft. That life raft is surround by sharks. They’re all fearful that they’re going to die Of the five people that end up in the life raft, only two of them, Debbie, being one, survive.

And one of the things the book points out is that Debbie used this interesting thing called effect labeling. When we name our fear, she named the sharks. She, she looked at these sharks circling around, and she gave them all distinct names. It was a way that she could take control over something that she really had no control over. Today, I want us to name a shark. I want us to name the shark of anxiety. The anxiety is real. The Jesus talks about anxiety, that Paul talks about anxiety. The, the Bible does not ignore anxiety. In fact, the Bible gives us some practical steps of what does it look like for us to fight anxiety? And now, I, I know here’s, here’s the temptation. Anxiety is a real thing that, that for some of you in this room, you, you’re saying, well, hey, you’re kind of joking about anxiety, but it is not a joke to me.

Like I, I live with this, this crippling fear that exists inside my brain all of the time. And I don’t want you to think that I’m just gonna say, Hey, here’s what you gotta do is don’t worry. Be happy. Let’s pray and send you on out. Because if you are struggling with anxiety, real anxiety, and I said something like that, you would want to punch me in the face and rightfully so. But here’s what I’d say. If we really start to peel back the layers of scripture, there is a path forward. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re gonna walk out today with no more anxiety, but it means that there is a lifestyle that is prescribed in scripture that can help us to fight that fear in a real and tangible way. If you’ve got a Bible, turn with me to Matthew chapter six.

Matthew chapter six. We’re gonna start in verse 25. It’s Jesus teaching. He’s teaching on the Sermon on the mountain. And here’s what’s interesting, sermon on the mountain. It, it’s the longest sermon that we have that Jesus gives in scripture, that he unpacks a lot of deep things. We would say most people would say it’s the most important message that we hear Jesus give. It’s the, the underlying fundamental of what Jesus’ teaching is. And if you think of all the things, okay, what are the most important things that Jesus could teach on? Maybe you’d pick this subject or that subject. And yet one of the key teachings of Jesus is on anxiety. Three times in this passage, he will use the phrase, do not be anxious. If you’re someone who underlines their circles, I would encourage you underline that phrase. He says it three times for a reason.

Matthew chapter six, starting in verse 25. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you’ll eat or what you drink, nor about your body. What you’ll put on is not life more than food in the body, more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toiled nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so cloth the grass of the field, which today’s alive and tomorrow’s thrown into the oven, will he not more clothe you?

Ou of little faith, therefore, do not be anxious. That’s our second time saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear For the Gentiles? Seek all these things in your heavenly father’s nose that you need them. Verse 33, that famous important line coming on the context of anxiety. He says, but instead of all this anxiety, instead of all this worry, he says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you Now. Now, pause for a second because I, I think there’s two things that are really important to pick up on. Number one is Jesus tells us, do not be anxious. Now that that seems pretty simple to point that out, but, but if Jesus tells us, do not be anxious, it means that it is possible to not be anxious.

Like Jesus is not gonna tell us something if it’s impossible. Scripture is not here saying, Hey, hey, do not be under seven feet tall. And then you’re like, well, dang it, that stinks for me. Never gonna happen like he is giving us a path because it is possible. And then in the context of anxiety, he says, our first step is to seek the kingdom of God and all the things that we worry about. Those things will be added if we do that first thing. Then verse 34, he says, therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow. For tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. People, modern translations, people will say something to the effect of worry is tomorrow’s problem stealing today’s joy or worry is tomorrow’s problem stealing today’s peace? But the concept of that comes from the teachings of Jesus, the Jesus trying to get us to understand that peace isn’t found in controlling every single aspect of our life.

Instead, it is found in surrendering to him. Now, that word anxiety, here’s one of the challenges when you, when you start pouring through scripture, is anxiety. There’s an English translation, how we think of that word then in the New Testament, it’s primarily written in Greek, and there’s a Greek understanding of that word. And in the Old Testament, we see that word anxiety, but it’s written in Hebrew and there is a Hebrew understanding of that word. I I think for us to understand what Jesus is talking about, seeing the context of all of scripture helps us to, to get a further understanding of how we can combat it. And the Hebrew, in the Old Testament, the primary Hebrew word that we see get translated for anxiety is this funny word. Og a OG gets translated as to be anxious or fearful or concerned, but it’s a word picture as often Hebrew is.

And the word picture is someone who is weighed down or burdened. It’s this idea that anxiety is a weight that we carry around with us. That’s why when Jesus in the New Testament talks about removing our burdens come to me any who are heavy burden, and he, he gives us this promise that he removes that burdens from us, that that’s this picture word picture in Hebrew of anxiety burdened down. That’s why in Jeremiah chapter 17, verse eight, it says that the one who trusts in the Lord does not. Day it says, does not have this, this heavy burden is not anxious. That’s what it’s talking about. Even when even when there’s something bad going on, it says the Lord does not, OG is not anxious in the year of drought. So it’s this idea that you’ve got this, this person, and they’re a farmer.

And their biggest worry a few thousand years ago primarily was gonna be about food. How do I have enough food for today? How do I enough, enough food for tomorrow? How do I make sure that my family does not starve? And now imagine there’s a drought, and naturally when you are a drought, you’re gonna be fearful about, am I gonna have enough food Six months from now? The drought is going to have huge rippling effects into what the harvest is going to become. But the author of Jeremiah, he says, instead of being anxious, being worried that the one who has trust in the Lord does not carry that burden, he is not anxious, even though the circumstances, you would say, well, okay, there’s a reason to be anxious, but if we trust in God, it says that we won’t be anxious Then in the New Testament, and the word that gets translated most often for anxious as me, moneo, which means to be pulled in different directions more literally this is a Greek word that means that your mind is divided mental division.

So Paul will use this word in Philippians chapter four, six, when he says, do not be anxious about anything. Do not be mentally divided about anything. And then this is the same word that Jesus has said multiple times throughout this passage where he is using it to say, do not be mentally divided in our life, the the mental division, what, what that’s pointing to. When we wrap these words together and try and get this full picture, that the mental division points to an inner conflict, that inside my heart, inside your heart, that there is this battle that is being waged. And, and the battle is between choosing two things. On the one side, it’s trusting God’s care. And on the other side, it’s fearing the circumstances that I currently face and that I can fear, I can trust, and my mind is divided between these, these two things.

And I’m not sure which direction to go. I, I would argue, although anxiety has clearly existed in the Old Testament, the New Testament for all of human history, there has been anxiety. And, and yet I would argue that anxiety and the, and the studies would back this up, is more prevalent today than it ever has been before. I think if we started ticking around, well, why, what’s causing that to happen? I think most of us would come to a, a similar conclusion about what’s happened with technology in the last, I don’t know, 30 years. I saw some shocking news this week. And the shocking news was that America online, a OL, is shutting down. And that wasn’t the shocking news. The shocking news was that they are still around.

Not only that 175,000 people still have dial up internet. That noise that you hear in the background is the noise of my childhood. And I was trying to describe last night, I played this for my son and I was trying to describe what happened with dial up internet. And can I just be honest? I have no clue what happened with dial up internet. Your, your computer literally made a phone call to someone, whatever that means. And I don’t even know where it’s going. I don’t know who’s on the other side of the line. And then there’s that weird garbled noise in the middle, whatever that is. And then somehow your computer would now have internet access, but not the way that my children think the internet works where it’s instant. Like we weren’t watching Netflix back in the day. It took 15 minutes to get a single picture line by line, by line by line my my son. And if, if you’ve got kids that, that are asking you for some kind of new technology, they’re like, Hey, all my friends have have a cell phone, or all my friends have a smartphone, or all my friends have, here’s the good news. That’s what I told my kid last night, said, 175,000 families still have dial up <laugh>.

You are doing all right. Like they, they’re Amish compared to us, all right? Like you are, you are very advanced technologically where we are right now. But, but here’s the challenge of technology that’s very real, that the technology went so fast. I mean, growing up we had like seven channels on an antenna. And now, I mean, to try and describe that to my kids, just like not even in the world of comprehension, the internet came out and smartphones came out and social media came out. And so our world and our brains have radically changed. Now, if you were just to take a step back and evaluate your own life and answer the question honestly, has all this technology in the last 30 years has it added anxiety or removed anxiety? I would guess that we would all say, well, it’s added a great deal of anxiety.

But there’s a fascinating book. It’s also a terrifying book called The Anxious Generation. And the author talks about anyone born after the year 1995. He describes that as the anxious generation, and he describes why that generation is the anxious generation. He specifically talks about girls growing up with social media and cell phones and, and the internet. And here’s what he writes. Girls in virtual networks are subjected to hundreds of times more social comparison than girls had experienced. For all of human evolution, they’re exposed to more cruelty and bullying because social media platforms incentivize and facilitate relational aggression, their openness and willingness to share emotions with other girls, espouses them to depression and other disorders. The twisted incentive structures of social media reward the most extreme presentations of symptoms. So we’re, we’re living in a culture that that anxiety was already an issue, but now it just feels more like an epidemic.

And then we talk about, okay, how do we find peace? How do we find joy in that? Where is God in that? I don’t want you to hear this idea that, well, hey, the way that we find peace and joy is by not having any problems in life. That’s not what scripture teaches. Scripture’s teaching, that there is a way to have problems and have issues, and yet still have peace and joy and not have that anxiety. Craig Rochelle, the Pastor of Life Church, he writes it like this. He says, peace isn’t found in the absence of problems. Peace is found in the presence of God. If you’ve got a Bible, turn, turn, flip a little bit over to the rights of Paul in Philippians, Paul, in Philippians chapter four, starting in verse six, writes this, 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. And here’s what he does. He starts to get really practical with us. If we can parse it and look at it, he gives us practical steps of how we combat anxiety. Again, he uses this phrase, do not be anxious. And then he says about anything. And then he’s gonna compare and contrast that to what’s available to us. He’s saying that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. He’s offering us something that is contrary to what is so prevalent in the culture all around us.

Ultimately, it comes down to the war between trust and self-control, trust and wanting to control everything, be controlling of all the different areas of my life. One of the fun things about living in Denver that’s flying into DIA because especially in the summertime, you just don’t know what’s gonna happen in DIA and if, if you’ve flown into it a lot, you kind of get used to it. But occasionally you’re sitting next to someone on an airplane and they’ve never flown into DIA before. And one time, this, this is probably three years ago, I’m flying by myself from Texas. I’m flying in here, actually, it was four years ago. And as I’m flying in, I I, I noticed right off the bat, I’m sitting next to a guy on the airplane. He was a cowboy, like true cliche Texan, big guy, athletic guy, had the cowboy hat on.

And he strikes up a conversation and he just kind of jittery. And he’s like, Hey, I gotta be honest with you, I’ve never flown before, ever in my entire life. This is my first time. And he said, I’m, I’m kind of freaking out. And so I I try to calm him down and say, Hey, man, I’ve flown a lot. You know, it’s, it’s gonna be great. Don’t worry about it at all. And so, so we start flying every little thing like, like a tiny bit of turbulence. He’s like grabbing the, grabbing the seats. He’s like, is that normal? Is that supposed to happen? Does this happen every single time? Like, Hey, it’s, that’s normal, man. That always happens. Don’t worry about it. And then we’re, he’s, he’s kind of starting to relax. He’s kind of starting to chill out, and then we get to DIA and the, the pilot comes over the intercom and he says, well, it’s summertime in Denver, and this can be one of the rockiest landings, and so we’re gonna face a little bit of turbulence, and I would just go ahead and encourage you, buckle on down.

It’s gonna be a, a bumpy one. And then he hangs up. Now this cowboy next to me, I mean, he thinks that the pilot just said, we’re all about to die <laugh>. And he’s like, he’s, I visibly see the sweat that is coming down his face. We haven’t even hit the turbulence yet. And he’s sweating. He’s like, what does that mean? This is normal. Is this happening? I’m like, Hey, it’s, it’s Denver. It’s just wind. And hey, don’t worry about not that big of a deal. We start to hit a pretty rocky lane. I mean, lots of turbulence. Whole thing starts shaking. He literally grabs my hand and I was just like, you know what? Okay. And I mean, he was squeezing the blood out of my arm. I’ve never had my arm squeeze that tight and my entire life, but he looked like he was about to die.

So I was like, I’m just, okay. No problem. I’ll hold your hand. We finally land. And I mean, it’s like he wanted to get on the ground and kiss the ground. He was that excited. You, you see, if you’ve never experienced turbulence before, turbulence makes us feel unsafe. Like, oh my goodness, what’s happening? But it’s interesting in our congregation, there’s a lot of pilots, nature of living in Denver. If you have a conversation with a pilot and you say, does turbulence make you feel unsafe? Do you know what their answer is? No, because pilots face turbulence all the time. It, it’s just a regular part of flying. They’ve done it over and over and over again. And so they’ve got trust in their abilities. They’ve got trust in the plane, they’ve got trust in the instruments. But, but here’s the, the challenge for those of us that don’t have that same trust, that oftentimes we confuse uncomfortable with being unsafe, and we’re uncomfortable because we’re not used to something.

And as a result of being uncomfortable about something, we just naturally presume, oh, no, I’m unsafe. I am going to die. And that’s what happens with anxiety. Anxiety is us feeling unsafe all the time when most of the time it’s just that something is making us uncomfortable. So what are some practical steps here would be homework assignment number one is at some point this week, sit down with a blank piece of paper, or you could do it on a whiteboard and write down two different categories. One category is these are the things that I can control. And here’s the good news. There’s a lot of things in your life and my life that I get control of, that you get control of. You can control your patterns and your habits and your routines. You control a lot when it comes to you, the words that you speak and your actions and the people that you hang around.

There are a lot of things in your life, in my life that God has given us the ability to control. But here’s the problem. There’s also this other category, which is a really big category, and that category are the things that I cannot control. And here’s the challenge. Where anxiety comes from primarily is me trying to take control of things that I have no control of. And then my mind starts to spiral outta control, thinking about what if, what if this, and what if that? What if this, what if that? Like small things, the what ifs drive us crazy. If someone comes up to you today and says, Hey, I got something really urgent that I need to talk to about, let’s talk on Wednesday from now until Wednesday. Your mind is just a mess. You’re like, what’s gonna happen? Well, like, it is this terrible thing.

What if, what if they’re telling me they’ve been a serial carol killer this whole time? Like, your mind just goes to crazy places because you don’t, no, A doctor says, Hey, we need to run some more tests. And instantly you start freaking out because you say, what does that mean? Well, what could happen as a result of that? And I think one of the things that we do not have control over that we think we have control over that gives us so much anxiety and stress is other people’s opinions. And we can affect other people’s opinions, how you, how you talk to them, how you treat them, how you interact with them, but you cannot control other people’s opinions. There’s a famous story in our family where it was this a season of life. I was in elementary school and my, my older sister, she was in junior high and she had scoliosis in her back, had to have surgery where they straightened her back out.

Whole thing. So there’s a lot of doctor’s appointments that we’re going back and forth to. And at, at one point, I don’t know whether we were on our way to the, the doctor or on our way from the doctor, but we’re in an elevator and it’s, it’s, I’m in there. My little sister’s in there, my older sister’s in there. And my, my mom and my dad, they’re cutting in the corner of the elevator and they’re whispering to each other. They’re having a conversation, obviously they’re having a conversation about something medically with my older sister. And then I, I don’t even know, remember what I was doing? I was looking at myself in the mirror, maybe pressing buttons. I I wasn’t supposed to breast. And my sister, my younger sister, she’s just sitting off in the corner and she’s just kinda like this. And then hours go by, I mean, four or five hours later.

And my younger sister goes up to my mom and she says, what were you guys saying about me? And my mom’s like, what, what are you talking about? And my sister, she said, you were talking about my shoes, weren’t you? You were talking about my shoes. And my mom’s like, I have no clue what is going on right now. And, and my young sister says, remember when we were in the elevator and you and dad, you were over there in the corner. You were talking to each other. You, you were talking about me, weren’t you? And you, you were talking about my shoes, because apparently she was very insecure that her shoes did not match her outfit that day. And, and my mom was like, sweetie, I promise I didn’t even notice the shoes. Like I, I have no clue what you were talking about.

We were talking about the doctor’s appointment that we were a part of. But here’s what happens in our mind is oftentimes we get anxiety thinking about other people’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, and yet we have zero control over those things whatsoever. Like not zero, zero. And, and so if we’re not careful, our life can be ruled by anxiety. And here’s the thing about anxiety. Anxiety kills sleep, but anxiety also kills relationships. Anxiety can kill your day. Anxiety can kill you living in the present moment, in the fullness of what the now is because you’re so worried about tomorrow. So let’s talk about three steps, three very practical steps that all come from the two passages of scripture that we just read. Practical. Step number one is this, get honest with God. Don’t pray prayers that are just fake prayers. It’s great to pray before meals. That’s a wonderful habit to have.

But oftentimes those tend to be kind of quick, superficial prayers. And oftentimes we can have that in other areas of our life as well. We just kind of pray, okay? Quick things. Instead of that get really real, pray the real stuff to God. Prayer’s like, God, I’m scared that I’m going to lose my job. God, I’m terrified that my kid is going to walk away from faith. God, I can’t sleep at night because I’m scared of being alone. That is what Paul is talking about in Philippians chapter four. When he says, present your requests to God. Name your anxieties. Write ’em down and start praying them specifically by name to God in gut-wrenching, honest ways. Say, God, this is an issue of God. Number two is to be grateful. Paul didn’t just say pray. He said, pray with thanksgiving. Why? Because gratitude is the anxiety killer.

Gratitude reminds you or reminds me that the same God who showed up before is still on the throne today. And you know what? Science backs it up. Psychologists say that people who keep gratitude journals have lower anxiety, which is, it’s kind of crazy that, that Paul was right 2000 years before Harvard figured it out. If you struggle with anxiety, a very practical, tangible thing that you could do that Paul describes is to pray with thanksgiving. Start writing down things that you are thankful for. Because when we start focusing on the areas of our life that we have gratitude, then we can say, God thank you for these things. It helps us to realize that life is pretty good. And now I wanna pause for a moment. ’cause I recognize some of you in the room are like, well, hey, you don’t understand what I’m dealing with.

You don’t understand the challenges that, that I’ve got right now. We have people in the room right now that, that you have terminal cancer or you have a loved one that has terminal cancer. And I want you to know that next week we’re gonna specifically unpack this idea of what happens when it feels like it’s broken. Now, what do I do with my fears when those fears are coming true? What does the path forward look like? That even in those mo moments when the world is falling apart, a practical step for us is to be grateful. You don’t have to be grateful for the bad thing that’s happening that you can say, despite this bad thing, I can be grateful for all of these other good things. Number three is to get connected. That you, me, we need people. We’ve gotta stop isolating, join a group, text a friend, pray with somebody, because sometimes we need another person’s faith when ours is running on fumes.

If you ever live with someone that’s just an anxious personality, like they’re anxious all the time, like you’re in the car ride with them, and they’re just like this nonstop. There’s so much going on in their life, you’re having breakfast or coffee with them, and it’s just the world is falling apart. Like there are people that just have anxious presences to them all the time. There’s a book that was written by a guy named Mark Sayers. During COVID, a COVID, a time when everybody was anxious about everything nonstop. And from a Christian perspective, he wrote about what does it look like to be a non-anxious presence? He writes this, A non-anxious presence is the spirit enabled ability to remain calm, rooted in God’s sovereignty and attentive to others in the midst of stress or uncertainty. It is not the absence of concern, but the refusal to let fear or chaos govern one’s heart, words or actions.

It rests in God’s peace, speaks with clarity and leads with compassion, even when circumstances are unstable. Like what would it look like if, if you, me, we became people that were non-anxious presence, that, that when we entered into a room, the anxiety level didn’t go up. Instead, it actually did the opposite. What would it look like if we became a church that we lived in such a way that was non-anxious, that other people would look at us and say, how, how are you not worried? How are you not stressed? How are you not anxious? And we could say, well, it’s because in living a life empowered by the Holy Spirit, it’s not that I don’t see the same difficulties, and, and it’s not that I’m not even myself experiencing those same difficulties. It’s in the midst of those things. I have a trust that my God is bigger than whatever issue I’m facing in this moment.

It’s interesting, when my kids were young, I would take ’em and I’d throw ’em up in the air, and sometimes my wife would freak out a little bit, but I, I’d throw ’em up like higher and higher. And when they’re real young, I mean, you gotta wait until they got net control. But once they got net control, I mean, you, you can chunk ’em up there. And here’s the crazy thing about my kids is, is my kids like they go flying up in the air. And now you’d think like if you walked up to me, you’d, you’d have to be pretty big. But if you walked up to me in the lobby and you chunked me in the air like I’m freaking out, all right? That is a personal space that is not okay. But my kids, when I would chunk them up in the air, they did not freak out.

Instead, do you know what they did? They giggled, they laughed. Like I’d throw ’em up in the air and they just, they’d throw, they’d come up to me, say again, again, throw me up in the air again. Like, I’d throw ’em up in the edge and my arms hurt. And I’m like, I can’t do it anymore. But what does it ultimately boil down to is trust. Like they knew that I wasn’t going to drop them. I, I even used to say that phrase oftentimes, Hey, have I ever dropped you before? Now, some of you might have dropped your kid on accident, so you, you can’t say that, but for me it was, Hey, I I’ve never dropped you before. I want you to trust me. It is going to be okay. And it was because of that trust that even though the circumstances were crazy, they could somehow giggle.

And I think what what Jesus wants in a relationship with us is it’s not saying that all the bad things go away when we never face pain or sorrow or difficulty. It means that even in the midst of all those things, when we’ve been thrown up in the air and we are looking around and we’re saying, this is nuts, and I am uncomfortable, the Jesus saying, Hey, I got you. If you just trust, I got you. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much, God, that you don’t want us to be anxious. And I, I recognize that we can’t just listen to a sermon and pray a prayer and walk out of here and all of our anxiety would be cured.

But you do want us to live lives full of peace. And so you have given us a prescriptive plan that, that if we would cast our anxieties before you name them, that if we would practice gratitude in our prayer to you, if we would surround ourselves with people that can walk that same path, or there is a path that reduces the anxiety that we struggle with. I know it’s not just some, some magic bumper sticker. I walk out and it’s gone. And I realize there are people struggling deeply, God. But I pray that today there can be hope, a hope that comes from you. Let us let go of control and lean into trust. It’s our prayer. In the name of Jesus, amen.