All Our Anxieties - Part 2

♪♪ In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Next on In Touch, All Our Anxieties, Part Two. When anxious moments just grab you, and you have no warning that it's coming, how do you respond to that? You feel worried, you feel somehow fearful, there's some bit of uncertainty about something you've heard or some situation you find yourself in. How do you handle anxiety? Well, the truth is that most people don't handle it very well. In fact, most people, instead of handling it properly, usually use some means of dealing with it that makes their anxiety even worse. For example, sometimes they will deny. Well, I'm not anxious at all, I'm just, just forget it. When deep down inside, they're very anxious. Sometimes they will just stuff it. They admit the fact that, yes, I am, but I'm just going to grit and bear it and move on. Oftentimes, they will look for someone to blame, and that's their avenue of escape. If I can find somebody to blame, maybe I won't feel quite so badly. But sometimes and oftentimes, people, they become anxious, they look for something that they can take that will quieten, they would say, their nerves or whatever it might be, and so what do they do? They'll either go to the doctor or they'll find something over the counter that they can take to sort of, as they would say, quieten them down

or settle them down. And before long, because their anxiety does not go away, it may settle slightly, they have to take a little bit more. And before long, they are absolutely hooked on some form of drug, and their means of escaping anxiety has simply increased their anxiety. Now, what do they do? God's way of dealing with anxiety is not in the bottle. It's not by blame. It's not by stuffing and denying it and suppressing it. It's not any of that. Anything that you and I face in life, our Heavenly Father, who already knows about it, who is the great physician, and who's the one who instructs us in the ways of dealing with every aspect of life, He's given us the ways of dealing with anxiety. So I want you to turn, if you will, to Philippians, because the Apostle Paul certainly knew something about anxiety, and he certainly knew something about how to deal with it, or we would never have made the statement he makes in this fourth chapter of Philippians. And I want us to begin with the fifth verse, and we'll read through the eleventh verse of the fourth chapter. And Paul says, Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near.

Be anxious for nothing. Now, don't be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And he says, and when you do, and the peace of God, which is the very opposite of anxiety, and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things, the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Practice these things, and the God of peace shall be with you. But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am. And then the rest of this chapter, Paul talks about the Philippian church and how they had to revive their concern for him and how they had begun to support him again in his ministry. And these two verses here that all of us know so well,

in the 13th verse, he says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. In the 19th verse, when he says, My God shall supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. This fourth chapter of Philippians is a wonderful chapter. And the apostle Paul says in this 11th verse, Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I'm in. Now, it would be one thing for some people to say that, but who is this man who's saying, I've learned to be content? What he's saying is, you know what? I'm no longer anxious. He did not say simply, I am content. He said, I have learned to be content, which says this, that the apostle Paul was not always contented. And so when somebody says, well, let's look at this whole issue of contentment with the apostle Paul, and he says, don't be anxious about anything. Was the apostle Paul ever anxious? Yes, he was. He said, I have learned to be content in whatever state that I'm in. For example, in the seventh chapter of Romans, when Paul talks later on in Galatians 2,

in verse 20, when he talks about, he's no longer I that live, but now it's Christ living on the inside. side of me. Did he always know that? No, he didn't. Because if you read the seventh chapter of Romans, he sounds like most people. What I want to do, I find myself. I just don't have the strength to do it. What I don't want to do, I find myself doing in spite of myself. And then he comes to that 20th verse of Galatians 2 and he talks about having been crucified with Christ and that's no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. The Apostle Paul was just like all the rest of us. When God saved him, he saved a tremendous jewel in the rough. Lots of rough edges on him. As he began to listen to the Lord speak to his heart and to teach him, he too had to learn the same way we have to learn and that is through difficulty and hardship and trial and failure. So when somebody says, was the Apostle Paul ever anxious? When he says to us, don't be anxious. Remembering now that he's writing this from a Roman prison cell and he says, don't be anxious. In fact, most of this letter is concerned about the continuous reminders of being joyful and rejoicing the Lord, rejoicing the Lord. And again he says, I rejoice and here he is in prison. Well, one thing for certain, he learned something about anxiety. He learned something about contentment and something about peace or he would never have said what he said, nor could he have been saying this out of a prison. So what is it the Apostle Paul knew? Well, I think the Apostle Paul learned some things from the Lord Jesus Christ, though he certainly did not walk with him, but more than likely he listened to those who did. And he learned some things, not so much from Jesus as much probably as from his own trials and difficulties. So somebody says, well, I want great faith. You want great faith? Get ready to get thrown in the fire. Because that's where you learn, that's how we, you and I, learn to trust him. You see, the only way we can face difficulty and hardship and trial and difficulty without being anxious is to have been thrown into enough difficulty and enough hardship in life that we begin to learn by experience. You know what? He's going to see me through this.

He's going to take me through this. He is not going to let me down. He is going to deliver me no matter what. Well, listen to what he says in this passage. He says now, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Now you say, well, now you mean to tell me that you're telling me that all I have to do is pray in order to get rid of my anxiety? No, that's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying this, the Apostle Paul said, prayer is a vital part of dealing with anxiety. But listen to what he said, and this is the key. He said, don't be anxious about anything, but he says, in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. So you see, it's not a matter of saying, Lord, you know what I'm dealing with here, and God, I want you to deliver me out of this, and God, I want you to change this circumstance. That is not the way to pray to overcome anxiety. Here's what Paul said. He said, when we're anxious, this is where we deal with it. We bring it to the Father. We bring it to God. Don't be anxious. Bring it to God. He says, and bring it with supplication. And what does that mean? It is a very clear, honest confession. God, I need you in this circumstance of my life. I need to understand what's going on. I need your help. It is a prayer of neediness. It's saying to Him, I need you at this time. Likewise, he says, with thanksgiving. Now, you see, oftentimes what happens is we tell God what we want Him to do. We cry out to Him and explain to Him what, how we want Him to change things or however He wants to change it. And what happens is we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't apply the basis of our faith. And so, here's what he says. He says, now, when you bring it to God, he says, bring that, bring that, bring that anxiety to Him with supplication, acknowledging your need. But he says, also do it with thanksgiving. Now, the thanksgiving is the key because here's what it says. If I can bring it to Him with thanksgiving, I'm thanking Him for what? I'm, I am coming to you, Father, grateful that I have the privilege to come to you. I'm coming to you thanking you for the fact that I know that you're concerned about me and that you love me. I'm coming to you knowing that you have the power to change or deliver me and see me through this. I'm coming to you knowing that you

will because you've promised to do it. You see, it isn't just a matter of saying, oh God, I'm in trouble, help me. It is a matter of coming to Him, listen, coming to Him on the basis of what you and I know about Him. Listen, this is why so much praying is so useless because it isn't based on anything. It's based on a feeling and it's based on some need. Paul says we come to Him, we lay it before Him with what? With supplication and thanksgiving. Thank you. God because you said and you can sometimes if you get in that kind of position you can just if you don't remember these verses you Could turn to believe to a Hebrews chapter 4 and you can just say Lord. I'm coming in Here's what you said You said in Phil in Hebrews 4 15 that you are a hot you are our high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses You've been tempted and tried just like we have and therefore we can come to you and you said we have the privilege to draw Near to you with confidence a throne of grace knowing that we can find help in the time of need I'm coming to you father. The I don't know how to handle this. I don't know how to respond to this I'm coming to you with Thanksgiving. I know that you do Listen, what is the first thing you do when anxiety hits you turn to the father? You listen, here's what happens when it hits us if we're not careful We focus on the thing that causes the anxiety wrong wrong move He says don't be anxious about anything and everything But he says but by prayer and and and crying out to him in your neediness with Thanksgiving You're coming to him. Listen, what he's saying is you you pray to him with confidence? No, it's if I'm thanking him I'm thanking him because I'm confident that he cares that he has the power not on that But that he will deal with this. He will deliver me. He will provide whatever I need and This is why listen This is why you cannot separate in meditation the prayer and the reading of the Scriptures Because what is it that gives our prayer? What is it gives our prayer our prayer real force and and stick to it? What what is it makes it work? What makes it work is we know what God said we know who God is We know what his nature is and he said come unto me all you that labor in the heavy laden He says and I'll give you rest. I know that he's there. I know that he's reliably there. He wants to hear

He does love us unconditionally. He is there every single time He says you can come to the throne of grace where you can find help in time of need I must know who he is and I must know what he's promised And so when he says lay it before him, he says we don't have to be anxious But in everything by prayer with supplication Thanksgiving, he says let your requests be made known to God Bring it to him and He says here's what'll happen. He says God's response is this He will give you such peace that you will not be able to explain or understand It'll be so awesome and overwhelming that it will guard listen It will guard your what does he say your mind what the way you think guard your heart Against that anxiety and so therefore when anxiety hits us, we don't have to linger in it We don't have to have a pity party. We don't have to give up. We don't have to throw a fit We don't have to get mad at God or anybody else. We can deal with it The way to deal with it is immediately bring it to God father When anxiety hits father why because he's the one who knows how to deal with it. I Can remember sometimes that in the past? When I've been in the hospital with somebody this is this one occasion I'll ever forget is a long time ago and It's another church and this lady that I'd known a long time her husband was being operated on and and and she was talking about trusting the Lord and wanted us to pray and so forth and so we did and She began to pray and the longer she prayed the louder. She got louder. She got the more frantic she became She absolutely was frantically Praying and crying out to God and I remember kneeling beside of the chair there and thinking Now this is not a prayer of faith This is a prayer of desperation. This is a prayer. This woman is consumed with fear Because her focus was on her husband not on God now, I'm not saying I'm not being critical I'm just saying that's what was happening. The Apostle Paul says Don't be anxious, but in everything with prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving he says Bring your petition to the Father now. Listen, here's the key

It's not just it's not just a matter of me talking to him It is a matter of me talking to him and focusing on him if I focus on the cause My prayer is not going to get anywhere. He says let your requests be made known to him and the peace of God that You cannot understand will surround you guard your minds and hearts. Why? Because we have we have carried to the Father a hurt our anxiety our Feeling of insecurity and uncertainty that whatever's causing this painful as it may be But our focus is on him now. Listen to what he says. Watch this. We'll come back to this He says now the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your heart minds. Listen, this will guard your hearts and minds, how? In Christ Jesus. That is because of our relationship to him. Here's what he says. He says, when you and I bring it before him, now this is the promise of God. He says, I'm gonna guard your mind and heart so it will not be overcome by this anxiety. How's he gonna do that? Well, I've got to focus on him. And listen, evidence of my focus on him and evidence that's where it is, is I'm gonna thank him. I'm coming to you with thanksgiving because I know that you know how to deal with this. You've promised to deal with it. You will deal with it, you will deliver me, you will see me through it. The first thought when anxiety hits, Father, Father, Father, Father of Jesus, whatever you want to say. Now, listen to how he follows this up. Look in verse 8.

He says, now finally, brethren, whatever is true and whatever is honorable and whatever is right and whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and whatever is good repute, if there's any excellence and of anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. There's a lot more in the Christian life to our mind and our thinking than we realize. If I'm going to face any kind of anxiety, I must control what I'm thinking. And the truth is you can control what you're thinking. Now, sometimes it may be difficult, but he says, listen, we're to bring everything to him, focusing upon him. And then he follows this, though he's not talking about exactly the same thing, he follows it with saying, now let your mind dwell on these things. If I want, listen, if I want to deal with anxiety no matter how intense it is in my life, I've got, listen, I've got to focus my mind on the right thing. What is it? That my God is a God who loves me unconditionally. My God is omnipotent. My God is here, the nearness of the Father. I think about people who are lost and people who face anxious, difficult situations in their life and their idea of God is that he's up in heaven somewhere. Listen, there's a long ways from here out yonder, out yonder somewhere. But he said, listen, that when you and I trusted him as our Savior, he came to live on the inside of us. What is the Christian life?

The Christian life, listen, is the expression of Jesus through these human bodies of ours. The reason you and I don't have to deal with anxiety and give up and have a pity party and go into depression is because we have someone on the inside of us who understands every single circumstance and is there to do what? To wrap his loving arms around us and to give us a peace we cannot understand simply because that is what he promised to do and we're his children. Now, but if you read the Bible once in a while, you don't understand who God is and you just have a very hazy idea about what God's all about, really. You know what? You can pray and pray and pray. You know what anxiety does? It just increases, increases, increases because your focus is not gonna be on the Father. The focus has to be on him. So what does he say? He says, now think on these things. Then look in verse 9. The things that you've learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace shall be with you. Practice these things. And the Apostle Paul certainly must have given many testimonies, for example, of how God had worked in his life. Oftentimes I'm certain how he had failed. We bring them to him in simple faith and he says, for example, Peter said, cast all of your anxieties upon him.

He cares for you. But you know what? If you don't know any Scriptures to pull up, if you don't know any very, you see, the thing about it is when anxiety hits, the best thing to do is to turn to him immediately. And then if you can say, Father, here's what you said, then what you have done, you have put a tremendous foundation under that simple prayer. God, here's what you said. You keep your promises. That's why I cannot say enough to you. Listen, I'll listen to you. You stay out of the Word of God for a week, let anxiety hit you. I guarantee you it'll take you down further than if you'd have been in the Word that same day because you cannot separate those two. And this is why so many people want to say, well, I've been a Christian. I've been saved a long time. I don't know why these things treat me the way I do. Why do I get into this? I'll tell you why. Because, my friend, the Word of God is more important in our daily diet than anything else physically we put in these bodies. To face the stress and the tension and the strife and the difficulty and the hardship and the uncertainty and the anxieties that come our way, what do we do? We have to bring them straight to him. Father, here's what you said.

I'm trusting you. I'm bringing this to you. So when the Apostle Paul says, don't be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And here's what he'll do. He says, the peace of God will so surround you, fill you, overflow you, cover you, undergird you, that you know what, he says, he will guard your mind and heart and keep you from being anxious. Now, how do we find out whether we've learned that or not? We get in situations and circumstances where suddenly we're going to feel anxious if we don't know what to do. Now, I could give you lots of illustrations, and so I want to give you another one about something that happened to me when I was out photographing on the Oregon coast. I'm out there photographing, and I'm going down the Oregon coast, and I decided how far down I was going. And I got down to the very last part I wanted to photograph, a lighthouse down there. And so I'd gotten all my equipment out, and I walked way up this hill and got up there. And when I got up there, they had this big cherry picker sitting right up in front of it. They'd been painting it, and so I couldn't do it. So I walked back down, and I stopped on the path and did a little photographing. So I came on back down, and I thought, well, I'll just stay here till the evening comes, and I'll just photograph

the sunset. And so I did. So the beaches are so beautiful and so wide, so when the tide's out, you can walk a pretty good ways out there. So I did and stood out there and just waited for everything to get right and the sun to get right. And so after I had taken the pictures, I came back and took all my gear off and laid it down. And so I reached in the pocket, and there was no key. So I looked under the car. I thought, maybe I dropped it. No, I didn't. I thought, well, I was up on the path, and maybe as some folks came by and they happened to recognize me, we got to talking, and I was bending over and shooting and so forth. And so I thought, maybe I dropped it up there. Said, no, I didn't drop it. Lord, Father, You're in charge. That's what I said, God, You're in charge. You're in charge, Lord. So I walked around the car and reminded Him again and again, He's in charge. I said, God, You're in charge. So it's dusk now and it's almost getting dark, and looking around, everybody's gone. And then I see this sign that says, High Crime Area. Well, I said, Lord, You're really in charge. You're in charge. So I always made sure my car was locked because I would only take

a portion of the equipment and leave the rest of it. And so I walked around the car, and finally I walked over to the car, and looked in, and there in the ignition was this key, the only key I had. I said, Lord, I don't know what's going on, but I know that You're God. And I know that You're in charge, and I know that You're in control of this situation. Now, here I am, Lord. There's nobody else around here to help me. In fact, I don't even know exactly where I am. I think I do. I wouldn't know what to do at this point because I'd come off the highway a pretty good ways down to the beach there. And so I just kept walking and reminding myself, Lord, You're in charge. Well, for some reason I walked over and I pulled the latch on the back door and it opened. I always made sure every door was locked before I walked away and left that car. And you know, I could have had a fit. I could have said, God, why would You let me get down here and have all this happen to me? But you know what? Everything in me said, God's in charge. He's in control. You know what I didn't do? I didn't focus on the lost key. I focused on what? God is in control of this situation and this circumstance.

Well, to extend my story, a couple of days later I was down another part of Oregon and I was going to photograph Mount Hood. And so that morning I got up real early and got down there when the sun was just touching the top of it and moving down the mountain. And so I figured out how to get down there where I wanted to photograph. And so I photographed for a while and then I moved on down and got a little closer. And so I'd driven a pretty good ways. And finally I saw this sign that said, Lost the Lake. And I thought, well, if it's close to the mountain, there'll be a reflection in the lake. So, man, I headed down that way and got down there and drove a pretty good ways. Finally found that and photographed it some on my way down there. And finally got down there and did my photograph and got in the car and turned the ignition and I noticed the gas gauge was sitting on past yellow on the bottom. I totally forgot all about looking at the gas gauge. Well, I had come a long way since I'd seen any service station. And so I said, God, you're in charge. You're in charge. And so I thought, well, Lord. In fact, I had to find my way back because I wasn't paying attention to how I got down there. I was just trying to find a way.

And so it was sitting below the yellow mark. And I knew, because having a borrowed car, I didn't have any idea. You know, sometimes you say, well, I can go five miles or 10 miles or whatever when it gets on empty. I didn't know how long it had been on empty. That was part of the problem. So I just thought, well, Lord, you're gonna have to show me what to do. And about that time, this fella drives up in his truck and gets out and he goes down this little hill and he's doing something down there with the telephone lines, I guess. I said, sir, could you tell me what is the closest place I can get gas? Go up here to the corner, take a left turn, one mile and you'll get it. So sure enough, I went up and took a left turn. That was one mile away. Now you say, why are you telling us these stories? I'll tell you why. Because the Heavenly Father is interested in everything we're interested in. He not only takes care of us when we're sick and we're facing great difficulties and hardships and things that we think are such insurmountable things, but you know what? He's so loving and so kind and so interested. He takes care of every single thing in our life

if we'll let Him do it. And when I think about how often He will do something in my own life that somebody else would think, well, that's silly or that's not important. You know what? At the moment, each one of those things is very important to me. Each one of them was a little bit of a crisis if I had allowed it to be. And I'm not saying that I can't get anxious about something, but it was real interesting to me what my own response was. Father, I know You're in charge. I did not allow myself to focus on whether the fact that I didn't have a car or the key was locked up in the car or this thing is out of gas. Now what do I do? But Father, You're in charge. You're in control. You know what I believe? I believe that God loves to work out difficult things in your life and my life. Now listen, and He takes great delight in doing it if we will realize that He's the one who's doing it. If we will depend upon Him, trust in Him, not do the way the world does, and that is, oh, what's going to happen next? Oh, you get all anxious and full of this kind of stuff. No. You see, the reason we don't have to do that

is because walking beside each one of us every moment of our life is our Father. In the presence of the Holy Spirit, the truth is He's walking inside of us. But let's just say, He says He's the paracletos, the one who walks by our side. Now, if Jesus Christ stepped up beside you in human form when you were facing some real difficulty, what would you do? You'd say, I'm not going to worry about this one. He can handle this. Right? Know what you'd say? He can handle it. Well, let me ask you a question then. What's the problem? The problem is not that He's not there to handle it. The problem is we don't have our focus on the Father. And all of a sudden, when we get blindsided by some anxiety, what do we see? We see ourselves alone, by ourselves, having to face this. Listen, if you can just remember, standing by your side is the omnipotent Son of God. Therefore, let me ask you, what should ruffle us? What should throw us off base? What should get us depressed and anxious and fearful if standing by our side is a loving Lord who has promised to see us through every single circumstance of life? Why did Paul say, don't be anxious about anything,

but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which you will never be able to fully understand, will garrison you about, surround you, and protect your mind and your heart from feeling anxiety.