Jesus Uncensored: Jesus and Anxiety.

INTRO> Always at the end of each year I enjoy reading news article or magician articles that give a summary of the past year and highlight main stories. I ran across one article that’s headlines captivated me, it was from Apple News and the title said, “2017: A Year in Anxiety: Between threats of nuclear war and a perfect storm of natural disasters, 2017 has seen a lot of heart pounding news and Xanax prescriptions.” The article goes on to state that even though we live in age with so much technology and information, that technology and information are actually making us more anxious. “Psychologist and researchers now have a new word called: Ecoanxiety, even the weather is making us anxious.” – article, apple news.

CONTEXT> We are back into the sermon on the mount this week and Jesus is just as relevant as ever. He tackles the issue of anxiety. This section is closing attached to the previous verses about money, hence the word “therefore” These verses also stand on their own when you take into account the Kingdom mindset that Jesus is speaking about in the sermon on the mount and contrasting it with “Gentiles”

Side Note* I don’t want to rush where angles fear to tread, meaning I think that the church has done a poor job as a whole when it comes to mental disorders. So please here me, in no way am I saying today that you can’t have a chemical imbalance or a mental disorder and that you just need to “pray more” Human beings are mind, body and soul. There is a tension here because Jesus tells us 3 times as a command to “not be anxious or worry.”

APP> We will look at What anxiety is, When anxiety enters and How anxiety exits.

1. What anxiety is. v25

• • • • “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious…” Jesus makes himself pretty plain here. Each time he uses a particular word for “anxious or worry” its the greek word μεριμνάω or merimnáō which means “to care for or be divided over”

APP> Now we are created in the image of God, yes? God has actually wired our bodies to feel and sense anxiety and it can be good it’s not good when it never stops. *ILL> Charles Mayo, cofounder of the Mayo Clinic stated in a medical journal “worry and anxiety affects the circulatory system, heart, glands, and entire nervous system. I have never knew anyone who died of overwork, but I knew of many who died of worry.”

• • • I think the key comes from the very last verse, I think Jesus defines anxiety for us there, “Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is it’s own trouble.”

APP> Anxiety is the fear of loosing control of the uncontrollable Anxiety takes a future possibility and makes it a present reality, that’s what Jesus is getting at here. Jesus ins’t saying, “Don’t care about anything he is saying “Don’t try to control everything.”

2) When anxiety enters.v26-33

• • • I think Jesus gives us two primary sources as to where this can come from.

1. Wrong perspectives. “Look at the birds.. Consider the lilies..” In both of these verse’s Jesus uses a very strong word that get’s missed. It’s the greek word emblepō “which means to look at with the mind” … oh man! *ILL> Do you remember the books by Sir Author Connan Doyle, “Sherlock Holmes”? There is a scene in his book when he is frustrated with his partner Watson, “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room? “Frequently” Watson says. “How often?” “Well some hundreds of times.” “Then how many are there?” “How many? I don’t know? “Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know there there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.” APP> You see we think anxiety comes from when our brain can’t turn off from too much thinking, Jesus says that anxiety comes from not thinking enough about the right things! “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Isiah 26:3
2. Wrong priorities. “Seek first the kingdom of God…” Jesus tells us that when worry and anxiety enter in It’s because we are seeking and pursuing things that aren’t stable, they collapse. APP> Anxiety enters your world when you are at the center of your world. *ILL> My first Bible, note card, Matthew 6:33. Genesis 3:4-5

3) How anxiety exits.

• • • There is a constant thread through out this whole passage, it’s a big doctrine in the Bible that we call “The Sovereignty of God.”
    • “From him and through him and to him are all things” Romans 11:36
    • The Sovereignty of God is the biblical teaching that all things are under God’s rule and control, and that nothing happens without His direction or permission.
    • “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

APP> “I know” always beats “What if”.

What do we know?

1. God provides. v26-28
2. God knows v32
3. God cares v32

Big Idea> The anchor of God’s sovereignty is the answer to your anxiety.

Close> Horatio G. Spafford was a successful lawyer and businessman in Chicago with a lovely family — a wife, Anna, and five children. much of their business was lost in the great Chicago fire.

On Nov. 21, 1873, the French ocean liner, Ville du Havre was crossing the Atlantic from the U.S. to Europe with 313 passengers on board. Among the passengers were Mrs. Spafford and their four daughters. Although Mr. Spafford had planned to go with his family, he found it necessary to stay in Chicago to help solve an unexpected business problem. He told his wife he would join her and their children in Europe a few days later. His plan was to take another ship.

About four days into the crossing of the Atlantic, the Ville du Harve collided with a powerful, iron-hulled Scottish ship, the Loch Earn. Suddenly, all of those on board were in grave danger. Anna hurriedly brought her four children to the deck. She knelt there with Annie, Margaret Lee, Bessie and Tanetta and prayed that God would spare them if that could be His will, or to make them willing to endure whatever awaited them. Within approximately 12 minutes, the Ville du Harve slipped beneath the dark waters of the Atlantic, carrying with it 226 of the passengers including the four Spafford children.

A sailor, rowing a small boat over the spot where the ship went down, spotted a woman floating on a piece of the wreckage. It was Anna, still alive. He pulled her into the boat and they were picked up by another large vessel which, nine days later, landed them in Cardiff, Wales. From there she wired her husband a message which began, “Saved alone, what shall I do?” Mr. Spafford later framed the telegram and placed it in his office.

Another of the ship’s survivors, Pastor Weiss, later recalled Anna saying, “God gave me four daughters. Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will understand why.”

Mr. Spafford booked passage on the next available ship and left to join his grieving wife. With the ship about four days out, the captain called Spafford to his cabin and told him they were over the place where his children went down.

*read lyrics to “It is Well”