Overcoming an Anxious Mind - Part B

The cure for worry is to redirect your energy and replace your anxiety. The Bible gives us a name. It's called casting. You're familiar with the verse 1 Peter 5 verse 7, casting all your cares. Same word by the way, marimna.

Same word. The thoughts that divide the mind, casting all your care upon Him because He cares for you. God loves you enough to promise you peace and rest from your worries, and He's powerful enough to carry out that promise. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares why you can trust God to set you free from anxiety. But first, we want to let you know about an opportunity you have to visit the ancient land of the Bible. Nothing tops studying the scriptures in the real life locations where it all took place. That's why I'm eager to announce our upcoming trip to Israel in 2022. And if you register by November 30th using promo code ConnectIsrael, you'll receive $150 off the tour price.

Find out more about the tour at inspirationcruises.com slash c-a-b-q. Thanks, Skip. Now, we're in Philippians chapter 4 as we dive into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. To be consumed with worry and anxiety betrays a lack of trust in God caring for you. So Jesus says, and here's why it's unbecoming. Look at the birds of the air. They don't reap, they don't sow, gather into barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them.

Mark the language. He didn't say their heavenly Father feeds them because He's not their heavenly Father. They don't have a personal relationship with God, but He's your heavenly Father. You have a personal relationship with the Father. Your Father feeds birds with bird brains. If your Father feeds birds, then your Father's going to feed His children and take care of His children.

There's a relationship there. When my son was growing up, I never remembered him as a little boy being stressed about where the next meal was going to come from. My grandkids don't worry about where the... Am I going to eat today, Daddy? They're just like, whatever. They always eat, right?

The parent delights in caring for children. So it's unhealthy. It's unbecoming of a child of God. The third reason Jesus would give, it's unproductive. For He says, which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature? What good has worry ever done for you? All of that anxiety, how's that working out? Is it productive? It's not productive at all. Worry is like a rocking chair.

It makes a lot of movement, but you don't go anywhere. So I found this article in the Huffington Post this week, a study they cited by Dr. Joseph Gowie, who did study on this and research, and he said, 85% of the things we worry about never happen. He said, of the 15% that did happen, 79% of the people found they could handle the difficulty better than they thought they could, and or the difficulty taught them lessons worth learning. So he concluded, 97% of what you worry about is just a fearful mind punishing you with exaggerations and misconceptions. So Paul says, be anxious for nothing. We've seen the problem and the prescription. Let me move you to the third, and that is the prayer.

Now we get the solution. Be anxious for nothing, 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 minds through Christ Jesus. Forgive me, but I'm drilling down. I said, right, so look at the word but in verse six. So be anxious for nothing, but that's a word of contrast.

So he's pivoting. He's saying, don't do this, but do that, right? Now in that contrast, we find the solution to the problem. If the problem is anxiety, then the solution is replacement. It's like God's replacement therapy. Don't do this, but do that.

The cure for worry is to redirect your energy and replace your anxiety. The Bible gives us a name. It's called casting. You're familiar with the verse, 1 Peter 5, verse 7. Casting all your cares.

Same word, by the way, marimna, same word. The thoughts that divide the mind. Casting all your care upon him because he cares for you. So don't carry your cares.

Cast your cares. You know, a lot of us, we have backpacks or briefcases or some of us have duffel bags depending on how much work you go and take to and from work. But so I'll carry like books, papers, computer. It's like a backpack. Now when I come home and that's on my back. I take it in from the car. It's on my back. It's like I'm like this with my backpack. I don't wear that thing all night.

I don't like sit down at the supper table with a backpack hunched over eating my meal. I cast it as quickly as I enter the door. I get rid of it.

So casting all your cares upon him. So the thought here is to redirect your energy and replace your anxiety with what? With prayer. In everything by prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Why is it that the very first thing we should do ends up being the very last thing we even try? Prayer. It's like, you know, we just let this thing go and we wrestle with it and it gets worse and worse and then finally we go, man, there's nothing left to do but pray.

Yeah, you know, we should have thought that up two days ago when this whole thing first started. We should have immediately let that go and cast that and then kept doing that as a process along the way. Jesus said to his disciples, men ought always to pray and not to faint. Now look back at the verse and you will notice he doesn't just say, hey, pray about it.

Notice that Paul does. There's four words. There's prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests, there's four different things he notices and I want to just sort of break that apart. First of all, prayer. Prayer.

This word, prayer, is the general word the New Testament uses for prayer, prosuche, but it is often translated worship or devotion. So think of it this way. When you're tempted to worry, worship. When you're burdened, bow. Because when you do that, you are focusing now on God's greatness. Your thought gets off of the concern, the care of you, and it gets on to God and his greatness. See, often we rush to the throne room and we just start casting. Now, there's a time to cast the care upon God and tell him and cry out to him.

There's a time for that, but not at first. When you enter his throne room, you know, if you were to go like to the Queen of England, you couldn't just go to the Queen of England and just like spew all your personal garbage. In fact, when you go to the Queen of England, you can't even get to see her unless you go through like a protocol training of how to stand, what to do, what gestures to make, what side of yourself she is allowed to look at. All of that is protocol to respect this earthly ruler's authority. So you're coming to talk to the God of the universe, your Heavenly Father, but you're going to cast your cares upon him, but not right away because Jesus taught us to pray. He didn't say, and when you pray, say, give us this day our daily bread, right? He didn't say that's how you start.

He said, this is how you start. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. All that's worship.

All that is honoring him. And then, give us this day our daily bread, the casting of the cares. So prayer, worship. And here's why it's important. Worship and worry cannot co-exist in the same heart.

They are mutually exclusive. If you start worshiping, you're going to find your worries diminishing. And if you start worrying, you're going to find your worshiping diminish. So that's first, prayer, by prayer, prosuche, worship, devotion. The second word, notice that, supplication. Now this is familiar territory.

It means strong crying, begging. Oh God! It's more emotional.

See, and I like that because there's room for that. I love one woman, the one young mother, she would always have devotions in the morning, and she told her three-year-old, honey, I just need a little bit of time alone with God. This is mommy's time. I'm having my devotion. So a phone call came in. The three-year-old picked it up and said, Mommy's busy.

She's having her emotions. She meant devotions, but I like her choice of words. There's a time to engage your emotion, your heartfelt cries. That's the idea of supplication. And so Jesus, I think, intimated this when he spoke of a friend who came to see a friend at midnight and said, lend me three loaves of bread. Jesus said, his friend will not rise to give to him because he is his friend, but because of his persistence. The idea is supplication. So prayer, supplication.

But don't stop there. Notice what else it says, with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving. Don't forget to thank God. Now I know you might be going, Thank God? When I'm so stressed out and filled with anxiety and worry, what am I going to thank God for?

Well, first of all, thank God that He cares enough to give you promises like this to get you out of it. So you bring thanksgiving as part of the equation. It's easy to thank God for obvious blessings. God blesses you. Thank you, Lord. Do you get a promotion? Thank you, Lord. Do you get a big bonus this time of year?

It's Christmas time? Oh God, I love you. I trust you. Thank you.

Okay, cool. Easy. Now try that when the cupboards are bare.

It's not so easy. But it says, In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. See, it's those, and here's why you should thank God, those trials are tools God is using to mature you and I. So think and thank.

Think about what God has done for you in the past, and now thank Him for His promise for the future and His provision. In the New Testament, there were ten lepers that Jesus healed. We know the story, but think about that. Incurable diseases.

No hope ever. People with leprosy in those days died of leprosy. Very slow, painful, excruciatingly painful death. Ten men had leprosy. Jesus healed ten of them. Healed, cured, completely whole. How many came back to thank Him?

Uno. One. Ten percent. I wonder if that ratio has changed any since two thousand years ago. Probably it's about the same.

Probably about ten percent. People who are blessed and given things by God, tell them thank you, thank you, thank you. And I wonder if that leper didn't even include, Jesus, I want to thank you for healing me of this incurable disease, but I also want to thank you for the lessons I learned during the years that I had that disease, which makes the healing even more appreciated. So prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving.

And then notice this. Let your requests be made known to God. Did you hear the word requests? Paul doesn't say, let your demands be made known to God. Let your ultimatum be known to God.

Let your temper tantrum be known to God. Let your acclamate be known to God. Now you just come with an ask. You come with a request. You lay down the request.

Because God might say yes, He might say no, He might say maybe, He might say wait. Either way, I'm requesting and I'm asking. But it says, let your requests be made known to God. So you articulate what it is exactly you want from Him. None of this, oh God, bless my life.

Well, how? What specifically are you asking God to do? Let your requests be made known to God.

Which brings up a question. Why do I need to inform God? You don't.

You can't. You're not informing God of anything. God doesn't sit up there when you articulate your request and go, oh, huh, I didn't know that till now. Because He knows what you need, the Bible says, before you ask it.

So why do you inform Him? You don't inform God when you pray. You are conformed to God when you pray.

See, it's a huge difference. You're being changed and conformed. You are, in a sense, voicing your weakness and voicing your dependence. And every parent loves when a child says, Daddy, I can't do this.

Would you help me? Absolutely. You're voicing your weakness. You're voicing your dependence.

I want to help you do that. One of the great plays of all time was a play that became a movie, but it was a play called The Barrett's of Wimpole Street. Now, I said it became a movie like in the 1930s, I think, or 40s, I forget which. But it's about an aspiring poet named Elizabeth Barrett who meets the esteemed known poet Robert Browning. And a relationship develops between them. But here's the line in this play. Elizabeth says, Oh, Robert, how can you love me when you are so strong and I am so weak? And Robert says, Elizabeth, my strength needs your weakness as much as your weakness needs my strength. I love that compatibility of strength and weakness. So you're weak. He is strong. When you let your request be made known to God, you are articulating, I'm weak. You're strong. And God says, I'm strong.

You're weak. It's a perfect match. Perfect get together. So to sum it all up so far, be anxious for nothing. Be prayerful in everything.

Be thankful for anything. Now, let's close with the promise. We've seen the problem and the prescription and the prayer. Here's the promise, verse 7. And the peace of God.

I'm already just relaxing with that verse. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Did you notice the phrase, the peace of God?

Not every believer has that. Every believer, when they come to faith in Christ, has peace with God. Not necessarily the peace of God yet. You see, peace with God is when you surrender. You put up the white flag and you say, I'm done fighting you, God. I give my life to you, Jesus. And now you have peace with God to our Lord Jesus Christ, it says.

So the war is over. You and God have become one. You've surrendered your life to Christ. At that moment in time, you may not be feeling the experience of peace. That is what this verse calls the peace of God. So the first is a fact, peace with God. The second is a feeling, the peace of God. So to sum it up, I would look at it this way. Jesus as Savior brings peace with God, but Jesus as Lord brings the peace of God.

Make sense? It's like that tranquil feeling of confidence, like, ah, it's going to be okay. God is in control.

He's still the master of the universe. So the peace of God, which, look at the description, it surpasses all understanding. It transcends human intellect, human analysis.

You can try to explain it, but you can't adequately explain it. It's a peace of God that transcends your ability to explain. One of my favorite verses is Isaiah 26.

I often say it to myself in times of stress. It says, You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you. So the peace of God surpasses all understanding. It will, now picture this, guard your hearts and minds, naus, your mind that gets divided. It will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ. So picture a guard, a sentry, he's got a spear, he's got a shield, he's got the stern look on his face. He's standing at the gate. He's the garrison that is posted when the thoughts come into your mind that could divide it.

It says, What? You're not going anywhere. You're not getting in there. I'm the peace of God. I'm standing at this gate and not letting you in to disrupt this person who lives in this. The peace of God, which passes understanding, will stand garrison, or play umpire, however you want to translate it, your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. If there was one person in all of Scripture that lived these two verses, I would say it would be Daniel. You know Daniel was a prophet in the Old Testament. Daniel lived in Babylon, a foreign country, a hostile government that made it against the law for him or anyone else to pray to the one true God of heaven.

For 30 days, King Darius signed a decree that nobody could worship or pray or make requests of any God besides the Babylonian system. So it says this, Daniel chapter 6 verse 10. So Daniel went home, now listen to the language, and prayed and gave thanks before his God. Next verse, verse 11. The men found Daniel praying and making supplication to his God.

Did you hear all three of those words? Prayer, supplication, thanksgiving. Same exact words that are in our text. Prayer, supplication, thanksgiving.

And what was the result? Peace. Daniel experienced peace. You say, wait a minute, Daniel got thrown into a lion's den.

Exactly. And he didn't seem to stress, right? In fact, he got a good night's sleep. The guy who didn't get sleep is the guy who's living in the palace, the king who signed the decree. He can't sleep. He can't eat.

He's stressed out. Daniel's going to sleep with the lions, wakes up the next day. Hi, King. God bless you. Live forever.

Here I am. Now I'll say, I don't want this to sound like it's going to just be a snap and very, very easy when you leave here. It is a process, but it can be done. It can be done at a funeral. It can be done in a hospital.

It can be done at an accident. It can be done when there's a relational disagreement. Because here's what I want you to see in putting it all back together. We enter the passage in anxiety. We exit the passage in peace. And between anxiety and peace is what? Prayer. Anxiety, prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, request, and peace. That's the process.

You begin here, you end here, here's the process you should go through. So it reminds me of a guy who was always a worry wart. Everybody knew, they'd see him, he's always kind of had that down look, carried the world on his shoulders, very negative about everything, worried about absolutely everything, came to work one day singing and whistling and smiling, and everybody wondered what happened to this guy. And he said, you know, guys, I'm a worry wart. You've known that about me, right?

So I gave it some thought, and I thought it's just not worth it anymore. I need to hire somebody to worry for me. So this weekend, I found just the perfect person seems very qualified, and I'm hiring him to do all of my worrying. And he said, and I'm paying him $200,000, which might sound like a steep price, but $200,000 a year is worth it if he can take all my worries.

And they looked at him and said, are you an idiot? I mean, you don't even make a third of that. How are you going to pay him? He goes, I don't know. That's his worry. But I like the thought that your concern is his concern. It's his worry, and he's not worried. It's his concern.

So hands up, worries down. Or in the words of the hymnist, what a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear.

All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Technicolor Joy. Now we want to share about a special resource that gives you incredible insight into what's going on in the Middle East and why it matters for you. The beating heart of Bible prophecy is the land of Israel and the Middle East. Joel Rosenberg has his finger on the pulse of the world-shaking changes happening right now. And he unveils them in his new nonfiction book, Enemies and Allies. This is the first book of its kind that takes you inside the Oval Office, inside the palaces of the kings and the crown princes, the presidents and the prime ministers, in Israel and in the Arab world as we ask them, what do you think about religious freedom, about making peace with Israel, about the threat from Iran, about U.S.-Arab relations, U.S.-Israel relations? Enemies and Allies from multiple New York Times best-selling author Joel Rosenberg takes you on an unforgettable journey inside the turbulent Middle East. You'll go behind closed doors to hear from the very kings and crown princes, presidents and prime ministers who are leading the charge. Enemies and Allies includes exclusive, never-before-published quotes, insights and analysis from the author's conversations with some of the world's most controversial leaders.

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That's connectwithskipp.com slash donate. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares practical insight to help you manage your thoughts carefully and according to God's truth. My thought life is attached to the rest of my life. Whatever it is that you think on is what you will eventually do so that good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit and guess what? You're the gardener. You're the one doing the planting. Make a connection Make a connection At the foot of the crossing Cast all burdens on his word Make a connection Connection Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.