Best of: Christ Over Anxiety

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The book is called Moving Beyond Anxiety, 12 Practical Strategies to Renew Your Mind. Pastor David, it is great to have you with us here on the program. Thanks for popping in.

Well, thank you, Stu. It's great being with you, and thanks for the invitation. Honored to be on your show. Well, it's an honor to have you. We've had you on before to talk about a lot of things. Talk about your books, about the leadership of Dean Smith, just so many things. You were on the Carolina Blue, man. You were playing for the Tar Heels, dominating the boards.

Great story there. It's all coming full circle because everyone's been watching this last dance television series on ESPN that kind of showcases the Bulls' final season, Michael Jordan, and they're flashing back to Dean Smith. You've heard a lot of words from Dean Smith in your day, haven't you, Pastor David?

I have. I was recruited by Coach Smith in the late 1960s, and I was on that 1969 Final Four team. I was also on the 1971 NIT Championship team, which when the NIT was still very prestigious as a tournament. So I had the privilege of being a scholarship athlete playing for him, and when he's talking about Michael and some of the things he taught Michael, I couldn't help but smile and go, those are exactly the same things he taught his players 10 years earlier.

Wow. I couldn't help but think about you, and it's kind of neat how God's used that platform for you to point people to Jesus, which really, it's just a cool thing. Here you could be bragging about, well, I played for Carolina, I prayed for Dean Smith, I was recruited, and I suited up there, but God's used this as a real way to point people to Christ.

Someone may pick up an awesome David Chadwick book about the leadership style of Dean Smith and find themselves encountering the Savior in that book and in your preaching, sir. Tell us how that's been a passion of yours. Well, you know, sports is a gift to us who are able to play it, and I had nothing to say, Stu, about being six feet eight inches tall. That was totally God's deal, and I had nothing to say over whether I had any athletic ability, that was God's say. So I got it, and I was able to be recruited, I played at Carolina under Dean Smith, I had a decent career, and that opened doors for me to be able to speak to people who love athletics, love Coach Smith, and I've always tried to point people to Jesus because every gift that I have, the fact that I'm six feet eight, the fact that I have an athletic gift, it's all a gift from God. And when I came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior and that He died for my sins and gave me the gift of eternal life, that just gave me even more impetus to want to use anything and everything that He gave me to point people to my Savior.

So that's what I tried to do. I realize it's all a gift from Him, especially the gift of salvation, the gift of eternal life, so I just want to point to the one who's the giver of the gift. Yeah, that's tremendous.

What a blessing. And you have done such in your writing and your preaching. We love having your program on Truth Network Stations and other stations that carry this program all across the country are no doubt familiar with Pastor David Chadwick.

If you're not, get to know him. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, all the places. Moments of hope. What a great ministry. And this book, so grateful, Pastor, for your taking the time to put a book together. And I guess you didn't really know this craziness we're in right now that the world is really in with this COVID-19 would even be front and center when you wrote a book that addresses that issue front and center, moving beyond anxiety.

What timing in God's providence, amen? Yeah, I had no idea a year and a half ago when I was talking with my publisher, and they said, Well, what's a book that you think will really touch people? And I said, Well, you know, the major cause of negative emotions in people today is anxiety.

The second major cause for suicide among teenagers is anxiety. You know, I put together my graduate counseling degree. You know, after I graduated from Carolina, I played for three years in the European Professional League. Then I came back and went to the University of Florida and was with John Lotz, whom many of your listeners might know, was the assistant coach when I played there, but also the brother of Danny Lotz, who's married to Ann Graham Lotz. And John was the head coach at Florida, and he invited me to come be the graduate assistant there. And so I earned a graduate degree in counseling before God called me in the ministry. So when I was talking with my publishers, I said, You know, I've got a graduate degree in counseling psychology.

I've got a theology and Bible degree from seminary. Why don't I melt those two together and write a book on anxiety? And again, Stu, like you noted, it was a year and a half ago. Well, here we are when the book's coming out.

It was April the 21st launch date. We're right in the middle of this COVID crisis. You've just got to believe it was God's providence that he wanted the book to come out now.

Unbelievable. We could have called it The Quarantine Pastor instead, you know, with the title there. And the word quarantine means 40. So let's stay for 40 days in this wilderness and let's move on to the Promised Land.

No, that is awesome. And this idea of anxiety, and you've got these 12 strategies. I'd love to go through them, and I'd love for people, just the idea, Pastor, this idea that is it possible to worry, be anxious, fret, and have faith at the same time? Yeah, that's a great question.

I don't know how you do it. How do you have faith and anxiety going on in your heart at the same time? Interestingly, the word anxiety in the Greek, marinna, means double-minded.

It means your mind is fixed on two different things at the same time. And you know, get this illustration in your mind, you can't have one foot on the dock and one foot in the canoe. At some point, you've got to make a decision to be either in the canoe or on the dock. If you try to live in that position, you're going to eventually fall in the water. If you try to live in faith and anxiety, you're going to eventually fall in the water.

You've got to make a decision which one you're going to stay in. And this book is all about focusing your mind on the things that are above, that you are what you think. As Paul said in Romans 12, to be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And if you focus on God and faith and the fact that you are His child, He's sovereignly in control, you trust Him in everything. And I gave 12 disciplines in the book on how you can focus your mind on things that are above, focus your mind on faith. You can be free from anxiety, but you've got to practice these disciplines. You've got to do, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10-5, take every thought captive before it ever enters your mind. Take that negative, anxious thought, fear it, take it captive, usher it out, and replace it with a faith-filled thought, and that's how you overcome anxiety. How is the presence of Jesus, or like Hebrews 12 says, focusing our eyes on Jesus, how is Jesus bringing him into the situation?

How does that expunge the anxiety? Going back to our compatibility, where we really do try to say, well, I serve the Lord, I'm a Christian, and then everything else out of our mouth and coming into our eyes and ears is a bunch of bad stuff and negative stuff and vitriol and gossip and anger and fretting and worrying. But Christ, he has a better way. It seems like this whole book, you're making these 12 punctuation marks pointing to Jesus of all people.

Exactly, Stu. And if you invite Jesus into your heart, what you're doing is inviting him to control every area of your life. Imagine your heart is a house with many different rooms, and you're saying to Jesus, you've got access to every single room.

I'm not locking anyone up with all of my garbage and storage in there. You can have it, you can clean it out. And what you're doing then is asking Jesus to take over your mind. And then as Paul said, you want to have the mind of Christ. As you have the mind of Christ in Romans 8 29, he starts conforming you to the image of Jesus. And what happens every day is you live so close and so intimately with Jesus, he's not only conforming your mind but your entire life to the way he wants you to live. And when you draw close to Jesus, and he is the intimate companion and fully in control of everything, fear and anxiety must flee.

They're incompatible to the one who lives within you, who owns everything. You're not your own, you were bought with a price, you were purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ. He owns you, he's in control of everything, and your job is simply to yield to him every day that total, complete control and say, I'm not going to be anxious for anything. Lord, as you said, Matthew 6 25. As Paul said, Philippians 4 6, I'm not going to be anxious for anything because you're in control of everything.

You live in me, you have every access to every room, I'm therefore letting you control my life, I'm giving up leadership. Amen. That, my friend, is the voice of David Chadwick, a mighty man of God, a pastor, also a father, and also a husband and an author of the book Moving Beyond Anxiety. He's also a baller too, that's one of my favorite parts about him.

This guy could seriously put the serious buckets up, I think he still can, but he's very modest about it. Twelve practical strategies to renew your mind. We'll come back and we'll ask Pastor David, his favorite verses as he lays out in the book, on anxiety. Verses you can memorize and you can meditate on to focus on Jesus, to build your faith and not your fear. Pastor David, hang on with us, we'll be right back and take a quick second here and come right back with Pastor David Chadwick, and you'll want to stay tuned also to what are these twelve practical strategies. Can you be anxious and worry and fret and have faith in Jesus at the same time and be spiritual? Our guest today calls that sin. I guess he agrees with Jesus, who said, do not worry. But seek ye first the kingdom.

In Matthew 6, his name is Pastor David Chadwick. Longtime friend, man of God, he's written this book Moving Beyond Anxiety. Twelve practical strategies to renew your mind. He had no idea that when he wrote this book and it all came together that it would hit right in the middle of maybe, arguably, one of the most anxious times in contemporary American history where suicide rates are up. Suicide hotlines, by the way, I just found out California are ringing off the hook.

They don't have enough counselors to take those calls. Domestic violence is up and there's a whole lot of fear-mongering out there. You can't even turn on the news without a negative story trying to scare you.

You've got all these masks, you've got all these political agendas, you've got all this hate and hacking going on. I couldn't think of a better time to crack this book and read it and share it with my family, David Chadwick, Moving Beyond Anxiety. Thank you for this gift, my friend. Well, thank you, Stu, and if I could correct one quick thing you said. I'm not sure worry is a sin. Worry is an emotion. Here's what I believe, that you think something and that causes your feelings to feel and then according to how your feelings make you feel, then you behave as you behave.

So if you want to change your feelings, you've got to change how you think. So if anxiety isn't really a sin but an emotion, it is, though, connected to how you think. So what's the sin? The sin's unbelief. The sin's the disconnection from God as your merciful and overseeing sovereign Savior, and as you aren't believing in Him, that's producing the negative feeling of anxiety. So what we need to get at is the sin of unbelief and build our faith, which is where Jesus wants us to be, and that will allow our feelings to fall in line, and then we will behave in accordance with how Jesus wants us to behave, to seek first His kingdom.

Okay, so that's very helpful. So practically speaking, Pastor Davin, you are one of those practical pastors in America. You're teaching the Word of God so faithfully, you have been for so many years. You've actually been a pastor to many pastors who looked at you and you have mentored and shepherded. My question then is this.

Break it down for me. I'm confronted with an opportunity. I'm confronted with what would be a concern. There's nothing wrong with being concerned.

I mean, we put a seat belt on. There's nothing wrong with...but then again, if I obsess with who's going to run into me and I'm gripped with fear, at some point in that decision-making process, I've given into the flesh as opposed to being led by the Spirit. How would you break down that process, and how would you take us very practically, biblically, toward faith and not toward fear and toward, you know, exercising worry or being anxious? As the Bible says, don't be anxious about anything. Well, Stu, my mama used to say all the time, you can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. We can't keep those negative thoughts from coming to us. They are surrounding us every single day. They come to us via social media, via television, via friends conversations, you know, all around us, those negative thoughts are coming into our mind.

But we can keep them from building a nest in our hair. We can keep them from becoming a part of our lives, from entering into our minds and setting up a tent and living there. So we go to God's Word and we say, all right, if we are what we think, that's what Paul meant when he said in Romans 12, to be transformed by the renewal of your mind. How you think is what causes you to feel, then what causes you to behave. If we want to stop the feeling of anxiety, we've got to control the thoughts that enter our minds. 2 Corinthians 10, 5, Paul said, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. He says in Colossians 3, 2, set your mind, your mind, how you think on things that are above. So we can control what we watch on that screen all day long.

We can control what we watch on television. We can control whether we let that thought of worry or anxiety come and take up a nesting place in our mind. We get rid of those things and then the truth comes, we replace them with thoughts of faith, with words from the Word of God. We continue to have prayers of thanksgiving that continually flood our mind. So we usher out an anxious thought, we replace it with a thankful thought. For all that we've been given by God, all the blessings he's given us, and you know, Stu, if we all sat down and started listing the blessings we have from God, we would fill up sheet after sheet after sheet. I mean, think even about the next beat of our heart, the next gulp of air in our lungs.

Think about the colors that God allows us to see in his world. Think about the music he allows us to listen to. Think about friends and family.

I mean, you start making that list and there's so many things for which we can be thankful. Replace that anxious thought with a thankful thought. We are what we think. That's what the Proverbs says in Proverbs 23, 7, according to the New King James Version, as he thinks in his heart, so is he. You know, Job wrote in Job 3, 25, the thing that I fear comes upon me and what I dread befalls me.

You are what you think. Control your thoughts, you'll control your emotions. Replace those negative, anxious thoughts with faith-filled, God-centered thoughts and you'll start to see anxiety flee. Wow, and like a well-erudite ballplayer who played for Dean Smith, you give us 12 strategies, 12 pridal strategies. How would you summarize those 12 strategies, Pastor, real quick, as we kind of wind up our time together on this awesome book?

This is such an encouraging thing that you've written this book, Moving Beyond Anxiety. The 12 strategies, how would you summarize those real quick for our listeners out there? And I want everyone to get this book and read it, share it with your small group, share it with your pastor, share it with your family.

Pastor, hit us on these 12 real quick, will you? Every strategy is rooted in God's Word, and every strategy is supposed to increase faith. So, one of the strategies is to pray, but not just pray, but pray with faith.

Another strategy is cast your cares upon Him because He cares for you. So, literally, it is a casting of all of your worries and anxieties on Jesus because you know how much He cares for you. Simply look at the cross and you know that. Another one's considered creation. Look at your creation all around you.

Well, if God cares for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, how much more you the crown of His creation. I encourage people to spend time remembering how God has been faithful in the past through the spiritual discipline of remembrance. When you remember how God's been faithful in the past, He'll be faithful with you right now. Let's do another one is practice the spiritual discipline of singing, but singing songs of faith. Not only do you memorize God's Word that way, but it drives out fear and replaces it with God's Word. And I also encourage in another chapter for people to remember their bodies. That a part of spiritual discipline is making sure you eat well, you drink lots of water, you sleep well, that when your body's healthy, it gives a healthier mind.

Those are a few of the disciplines of the 12. The bottom line is have faith, and you increase your faith as you practice these disciplines. Wow, that's Pastor David Chatter. Moving Beyond Anxiety. Pastor, what's the best website, folks, to dial into you to learn more about the book, learn more about your ministry?

Well, thank you, Stu. They can get the book via Amazon.com or thrift stores, any way online that they normally order books. It's available. They can also go to momentsofhopechurch.org, which is our church website. It's there listed along with all of our other ministries and my messages. And of course, we have the privilege of being on the Truth Network, and I try to give these truths on a daily, regular basis to people as well. They can follow me on Twitter, dash David Chadwick, and I every day give prayers that I try to allow people to have peace in their hearts and anxiety-free living.

So those are some of the ways that I try to help people as best as I can. And one little thing you can do is share this podcast. Once this broadcast goes, we will make it a podcast. And guess what?

Pastor David has a couple go-to verses on anxiety in his own personal life. We're going to stay tuned, and we're going to do some bonus coverage just for our podcast viewers. So everyone, download Truth Talk Weekend, and our podcast. You can hear the rest of this bonus coverage. Get this book. This is the Truth Network.