And we are continuing a series that we started last week entitled Steady. Finding stability in a chaotic world.
Now, if you're like me, like we started school this past week here at Union Grove. And if you go to Union Grove, you know the stress of a new school year. If you are in for Scythe County, you started as well this past week. And for some of you, Davidson County, it doesn't start. The public schools here in town don't start for another week or so.
And but here's what I know: we always start a new school year, and we're zoned in, we're zeroed in, we feel like we have it together. We make decisions like, I'm going to stay on top of my assignments, I'm going to stay on top of my kids' assignments, we're going to stay on top of schedules and all these different things. And we get back to it. And here's what happens: before too long, we feel like we are just caving to the chaos around us. We feel like the schedule gets overwhelming.
We're exhausted. And we're wondering that stability. that we started with, how do we find it? in the middle of the year.
Well, in this series, we are looking at some different things that Scripture tells us that if you build your life upon these things. That you can remain stable regardless of the chaos that is happening around you.
So last week, week one of our series, we looked at the importance of building disciplines in our life. Building spiritual disciplines in your life. And if you do that, it will prevent you from drifting into chaos. And so today we are going to talk about building up peace, the God of peace, and the peace of God. When you build that up and you trust in peace, It will prevent you from drifting into worry.
So, today we're going to talk about peace over. Over worry.
So let's talk for a moment about worry. How many of you, let's be honest, don't lie in here, okay? But how many of you would say You are a warrior. Slip up your hand.
Okay. Hands going up. You can keep them up for long enough. Let everybody take a good look at you. All right.
For just a moment. We worry, don't we? And we worry about a lot of things. We worry about Bills Right. You worry about your kids?
Maybe their decisions Their schedules Their assignments, their friends. Their feature. We worry about our own personal careers, right? We worry about retirement. We worry about temptations.
We worry about fitting in at school. We worry about making the team passing the test. We worry about all sorts of things. I mean, the list goes on, and I'm sure that there were several that you're worried about that you're kind of looking at, and you're thinking, hey, he didn't mention this, but this is a worry that I have. Here's what I want you to know: many of you raised your hand, and we can all agree that all of us struggle with it.
But even if you didn't raise your hand, you still probably worry about some things in life. We all naturally worry about different things in life, and it leads us to anxiety. I mean, think about the thing that wakes you up at 2 o'clock in the morning. You know what I'm talking about? I don't worry about enough to wake me up at 2 o'clock in the morning.
But I know people that wake up in the middle of the night, they're like, man, I couldn't sleep. I was worried about something. I'm like, man, nothing worries me that bad. I can sleep no matter what. But some of you probably have something in your life that in the middle of the night you wake up and all of a sudden it's that thing.
It is the thing that sets you apart, that you're just sitting there and you can't go back to sleep and you're worried sick about whatever it is. It could be a diagnosis. It could be about your marriage. It could be about anything that we're talking about or anything that we didn't mention today. We all struggle with worry and worry can lead to anxiety.
Right. And here's what I'll tell you, some statistics about anxiety. Of adults struggle with some type of anxiety disorder. 18% of those 18 and older struggle with some type of anxiety disorder. You might be in that 18%.
When you drop down to those under the age of 18. specifically thinking through teenagers. Thirty-nine percent. of teenagers struggle with some type of anxiety disorder. 39%.
And we live in a world where we naturally worry about things and it leads to anxiety, which can eventually, if it's unchecked, it can lead to depression and it can lead to these struggles that many people in a room this size, you're probably, there's some of you that are in these statistics even this morning. and you can relate to those. And here's what I've learned about worry before we get to the text. I've learned a few things about worry, and those that are older in here can probably testify. I've learned a couple things.
I've learned that much of what I worry about. Never happens. You ever notice that? Worry about something and the phone call doesn't come. I'm worried about the email that might show up in my inbox tomorrow morning.
Never came. I'm worried about the conversation. I'm worried about whatever it is. Much of what I worry about never happens. But also, I've learned this.
Much of what I worry about is out of my control. A lot of the things that I'm worried about about tomorrow. It's completely out of my control anyway, so what is my worry going to contribute to it anyway? And then ultimately, here's what I've learned about the things that I do worry about that actually happen. I learned that that God has always given me the grace.
To handle whatever it is that I worried about the day before. And many of those things, I mean, you can testify, you can look in your rearview mirror and you can see God's hand at play throughout the whole situation. And whatever you worried about, you're like, man, it wasn't that bad because God gave me the grace to handle it. You see, when we think about worry, it's all about the future and what we don't know because we worry about the unknown. And here's what I want you to know: as we look at worry through the lens of Scripture here today, the ultimate answer.
To worry is not for you to get control of tomorrow, for you to get the handle on tomorrow. It's not for you to figure out and build your life so that you can control what happens tomorrow. The ultimate answer to your worry is trusting the God who is in control of tomorrow. Do you understand that? It has nothing to do with you sitting here today saying, okay, I'm going to get a hold of my worries for tomorrow.
I'm going to get a hold of all the things that give me stress and anxiety about tomorrow or next week, and I'm going to get a better handle on it. No, what it is, is when you want to have an answer for your worry, it's trusting the one who already has a handle on it. who already has it in the grip of his So here in Philippians 4, Paul is writing. And he mentions this idea of worry.
Now, a couple of things about this letter in Philippians 4. Paul is writing, and he's writing to a church in Philippi. And if you follow, in fact, if you attend our midweek Bible study on Wednesday nights, we just look at some of the start of the church at Philippi. And Paul references it in his letter to 1 Thessalonians, to the church at Thessalonica. Here's how the church at Philippi started.
It started with a lot of conflict there in the community because of the gospel coming there to Philippi. And because Paul showed up and he began sharing the gospel, the good news, with some people who were really far from God, one of those was a demon-possessed girl. And Paul casts the demon out, and this girl gets saved. And all the people, the leaders and the masters there in Philippi, they get really mad about it. They get really mad about it because many of them were benefiting financially from this girl's sorcery.
And so now that she had this demon cast out of her, they think, man, we're going to lose some of our financial income and different things.
So they're all upset. And so what they do is they take Paul and they beat him. Literally beat him. They flogged him, which is a, you know, this whip that they would use with like glass in the back, and they beat him, and then they eventually threw him into prison. You say, why?
All because he was trusting Jesus. He was preaching the message of Jesus, and he was preaching the good news of the gospel. Here's what I'll say, because it needs to be said, whatever. We don't understand persecution like that. You might think you're persecuted here and in America with different things about your faith.
We don't understand the half of it.
So Paul gets thrown into prison. And from a prison cell He writes this letter to the church at Philippi. And he writes about a lot of things with one theme in mind. The theme of the entire book, all four chapters, is the theme of joy. And he's writing about this idea of joy.
Now, it's interesting to me is because don't you think that the one who understood joy and the one that can write about joy is the free man? Right? It's the one that isn't in a prison cell. It's the one that is out on the streets living a free life. Life is good.
You would think, hey, that person would understand joy. But instead, this is completely flipped on its head that the guy from the prison cell is the one challenging the church, the free men and women, challenging them on what joy. really looks like. In fact, in chapter 4, in verse 4, he says, Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice.
And then he goes on in verse 5, Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. And then in verse 6, which is where we're going to get to, is this. He begins to talk about anxiety. He begins to talk about the things that worry us.
And here's what he says: Be careful for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. That phrase, be careful for nothing, literally can be translated, be anxious about nothing.
Now, let's just be honest. We're all human beings. The church at Philippi, no different than you, no different than me. They struggled with worry. They struggled with anxiety.
Now, their anxiety was a little bit different because for them, many of it was life or death.
Well, I wake up tomorrow, and because somebody knocked, and somebody knocked on my door saying, Hey, did you visit the church at Philippi in this person's home? And when I say yes, am I going to lose my life? They were struggling with anxiety. They were struggling with all these things, just like you and I. And here's what I'll tell you: Paul says, be anxious for nothing.
I don't think that this was a reprimand. I don't think he's just saying, hey, guys, knock it off. Like, wouldn't you hate that when your spouse says, Hey, I'm worried about something? What if the husband just said, Well, knock it off? Would that go well or not go well?
It would not go well. I'll just tell you. If you're not married in here, don't do that, okay? But here's what I'll tell you: it doesn't work that way. Don't knock it off.
I don't think that's the idea here. What he's saying here is, I don't think it's a reprimand. What he's saying is, I'm about to give you a help. I'm about to give you a remedy. I'm about to give you.
Freedom. From your worries. I'm about to give you the pathway to victory from your worries. And so he says, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true. Whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of a good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Verse 9. Those things, everything he just listed, which ye have both learned and received.
So Paul had been modeling them. You've seen it here and heard and seen in me do. And the God of peace shall be. But be with you. Here, Paul, he's talking about the remedy or the freedom for the worries and anxiety that we struggle with.
He gives us some really good things here. He says, Number one, if you take notes, He says that the first way that you find freedom from your anxiety is you have to pray about everything. You have to pray about everything. He mentions that in verse 6. He says, be anxious for nothing.
But in everything prey. And when you think about this, prayer here in verse 6, the Greek word, actually, it's very basic and it's very broad. The Greek word has an idea of just communicating with God.
So when he says, take your anxiety, what you must do is bring the things that you worry about to God. What he's saying is this: pour your heart out to the Lord. Whatever it is that you struggle with, whatever it is that brings you anxiety, whatever wakes you up at 2 in the morning, what you need to do is take those things and you release them over to the Lord. You bring them to Him, you communicate with Him. And then he says not only the word prayer, he says and supplication.
Supplication has the idea of your request. It's your petitions. It's the things that you need, and you bring those things to the Lord. And he says, once you do that and you release your prayers, you release your petitions over to him, your anxiety begins to diminish. Your worry begins to go down.
Uh think about it this way. I have two kids. I have a daughter, and she's 15. And my daughter, you know, I'm just going to call it like it is. My daughter's 15.
My son's 12. You guys will understand this. My daughter is really responsible. My 12-year-old is not. Can I say that?
Okay, don't tell Cameron I said this, even though I joked with him in the first service when he was sitting in here. Here's what I'll tell you: my 12-year-old. When he goes to bed at night on a school night, you know, getting up the next morning is pretty important. And We never have to like go into my daughter's room and Wake her up. She uses her own alarm.
She takes care of it. She's good, or whatever. But here's what I will tell you: if we don't go into my son's room and wake him up every single day, he would never go to school, ever.
Okay. So what we have to do, we are his alarm clock. He'd sleep right through school if we didn't go in there and be like, all right, Cameron, wake up.
Well, we're a 2026 family, so it's more like, Alexa, drop into Cameron's room is really what it looks like. And here's what I'll tell you. We wake him up. We wake him up every day. And here's what I want you to know: every night, When I tell them goodnight and I give them a hug, here's what I'll tell you is this.
He doesn't go to bed. Stressed. About dad waking him up the next morning. He doesn't go to bed and think, man. You know, don't lay there and just be like, I really hope mom and dad don't forget tomorrow.
I really hope that they just remember to wake me up. You know, he doesn't go to bed with anxiety or with stress. No, he goes to bed fine and falls asleep like that, completely at peace, knowing that he has to get up the next morning at a certain time to make it to school at time. But he goes to bed in peace. Why is that?
It's because he trusts us. to wake him up. And the response to that trust is peace. No care. He's good.
He doesn't have to stress a bit in the world because what he did was he took that bit of, well, he never really stressed about it to begin with, but he took it and he gave it to Abby and gave it to myself. And now he doesn't have to worry about it, he doesn't have to live with the strength. That's the idea here.
So that's what happens when you take your care and you give it to the Lord and you let him deal with it and you cast your care onto him because he cares for you. What you get in return is peace. You get to live. In freedom. And you get to live with peace.
So he says the remedy, the freedom for your anxiety and for your stress and for your worry, you got to start praying about something. Listen, I'll tell you this: look at your prayer life. Examine your prayer life. Evaluate your prayer life. If you're like, man, I don't ever pray until a meal, or I don't ever pray until I come to church on Sunday or.
That's the only time I pray. I bet you worry about things then. You show me somebody with a real deep, genuine prayer life, and I'll show you somebody that probably lives at peace and doesn't live. in anxiety and worry all the time. That's what he's saying.
And so to pray about everything, but number two, we need to thank God for everything. Verse six, he says, prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Don't miss the with thanksgiving. Paul is connecting the peace of God with gratitude. You see, worry and anxiety, here's what that does: it focuses on what could go wrong.
Gratitude remembers what God has already done.
So when you worry about something. You're focusing on everything that could go wrong. What am I going to say? What if she doesn't say this to me back? What if I don't get the promotion?
What happens if I don't get the job? What happens if I don't make the team? What happens? And we're stressed about the unknown and we're worrying about all the things that could go wrong. And what Paul is saying is this: if you want to live free from anxiety, you need to thank God for everything because when you have a heart of gratitude, it looks back at everything God has done.
And it realizes, man, he's been trustworthy all this time before. Why am I doubting the things that I don't know about tomorrow? Anybody that's been saved in here for a really long time, you know what I'm talking about. I can ask anybody in here. I can ask Lomax to come up here, and Lomax could look back at all these moments of how God is faithful, and God is trustworthy, and God has proven himself time and time again.
And what that does is that gives you fuel. For you to trust him with tomorrow. with whatever you have to deal with tomorrow. That's what Thanksgiving is. And so we must be people that are filled with gratitude.
You see, gratitude reminds us that God has been faithful before, so He's going to be faithful today. Gratitude reminds us that God has always been with us, right? And so he's going to be with us today. Gratitude reminds us that God has been trustworthy in the past, so why are we doubting whether He's going to be trustworthy for us tomorrow?
So, you must pray about everything. You got to thank God for everything. But then, number three, you need to rest in the peace of God.
So he says in verse 7, And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Notice the word and that starts verse 7. Listen, this is a huge conjunction. Here's why. Because The peace of God that is found in verse 7 is preceded by the practice of prayer that is found in verse 6.
Don't miss that. Paul says that in verse six Hey, don't be anxious about stuff. Here's how you don't have to worry about things. Pray about everything. Bring your supplication to him.
Be people filled with gratitude. And guess what? If you do that and you take everything to him, what you get to do in return is like my son when he goes to bed every night. You get a rest in the peace of God. You get to rest in that peace.
You don't have to stress about things. You get to enjoy the peace, but it is preceded by the practice of prayer. In other words, there is no peace without prayer. But when you pray, there's peace. Notice that the promise of prayer from verse six is not deliverance.
It's not not deliverance, it's peace. You see, when you pray, it does not guarantee the absence of problems, but it says that you will have peace in the midst of your problems. It doesn't guarantee that there's not going to be trouble in your life. But you're going to be able to have peace when trouble comes into your life. That's stability.
That's the stable life that we're all looking for. By the way, don't miss the connection from verse 7 to verse 9. He says in verse 7, and the peace of God. Which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And then in verse 9, he said, Those things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me, do, and the God of peace shall be with you.
Let me say this: you cannot have the peace of God if you do not know the God of peace. You cannot have the peace of God unless you know the God of peace. It's been said this way: worry and anxiety do not change tomorrow, it just steals your peace for today. And that's what worry does. It stills the peace that God wants you to live in today and rest in today when you're worried about tomorrow.
So he says, hey, here's the you want freedom from your anxiety, you want freedom from worry, worrying about everything? Hey, pray about everything. Thank him for everything. Rest in the peace of God. Number four.
Filter Well it goes into your mind. In verse 8. He has a list. He says Think on things that are true, think on things that are honest, things that are just, things that are pure, things that are lovely, things that are of a good report. And anything that is virtuous, and things that are praiseworthy.
He says, think about those things. Here's what that literally means. Think on truth. That's God's word. Think on things that are honest, that are things with high morality.
Think on right things or just things. That's things that are holy, things that are upright. Think think on things that are pure. That is morally pure, things that are sacred, think lovely thoughts. That's thinking on things and meditating upon things that are beautiful and pleasant.
Think on things that are of a good report, that is things that are admirable. And then things that are praiseworthy. And here, the word think, when he says think on all of these things. He really, it can be translated, meditate. And here's what I'll tell you.
The word meditate, because of our culture, there's a. Mystical feeling with it, right? And it's kind of silly what you see, you know, this idea of meditation and stuff, and you know, dwell on whatever they want you to think about or whatever. But really, this idea is a scriptural principle to meditate upon certain things. From cover to cover of your Bible, you can see things where God is challenging us, or the writers of the Bible that were inspired by the Holy Spirit, they're challenging you to think on things.
That's why in Psalms, you see a word like Selah. What it is, is it's saying, hey, stop and think. Stop and think on these things. Those are the things that should consume our thoughts, that should consume our mind. That's why we tell you to read your Bible every day.
Not just because we, hey, we have nothing else better to do. We believe that if you fill your mind with things that are true and fill your mind with things that are, you know, praiseworthy and things that are just and all this, that it will help you and free you from some of the anxiety and worry in your life. That's what he's saying. Filter what goes into your mind. Listen, don't miss this.
You cannot always control what enters your mind. You can't always control what enters your mind. I mean, you see something real quick, and boom, you look on social media, boom, it puts something in your head. You see something on the news, you hear something. You cannot always control what enters your mind, but listen to me.
You can choose. what you allow to stay there. There's a difference. You can't control something that pops into your mind, but you can choose to control what you sit and dwell and meditate and think upon. That's your choice.
You see, I wrote it down this way. Worry. Grows in your life, or anxiety grows in your life. When we continually rehearse. and dwell on the things that bring us fear.
The things that we're nervous about. The Fitting In at School The Finding Friends. The Uh you know the jobs the Career, the moves, the kids' decisions, the kids' futures. college decisions. Relationship decisions.
Marriage, dating, whatever it is. All of those things that we listen, worry grows in our heart and anxiety grows when we continually rehearse and dwell on our fears. But listen to me. Peace grows. When we continually rehearse God's truth in our mind.
You see, when you dwell. On all of your worry, all of your fear, and you dwell on those things and you meditate upon those things and you think about them and you lay in your bed and that's all you think about. Then listen, you're going to be filled with anxiety and filled with worry. But what God is wanting for you is He's wanting for you to cast those things to Him through prayer, to thank Him and praise Him through thanksgiving, to rest in the peace that He has freely offered you, the peace that He wants for you. and to filter what you l allow your mind to dwell on.
And by the way, it needs to be said, not everything that you consume in media is good for you. You got to understand that. Not everything you see on the internet is good for your mind. or good for your spiritual life. And so, what he's saying is, filter those things in.
And so, when we look at this, listen, the goal of this and this series, it's not to build a life where nothing ever goes wrong. I want you to understand there's going to be chaos in your life, there's going to be things you worry about. But what Paul is saying is this: the goal is for us. To build a life and to become the kind of people who aren't easily shaken when things go crazy.
So when we think about worry, here's what the ultimate answer to worry is. It's not to get control of tomorrow. It's trusting God. Who is in control? of our tomorrow.
It's casting everything to him. It's releasing your worries and your cares over to him. Because here's what I'll tell you: you were never designed. to carry the load of all of your worries. Do you understand that?
You were never designed or created to carry the worries of life, the things that. Give you anxiety. Let me illustrate it to you. This way. Can I get Jordan Walsh to come here?
Jordan's gonna help me with something. I briefly told him about this. He has no idea what he's doing today. You guys pray for him. I know he's nervous, but I'm going to ask Jordan to come up here on stage with me.
He's going to help me illustrate this because I really want you to understand what this looks like.
Now, here's what I will tell you: I had the privilege of coaching Jordan Walsh in basketball, and this kid's strong.
Okay, he's a strong kid. That's why I asked him, okay. And so, no offense to Josiah or any of his brothers. All right. So, but here's what I'll tell you: Jordan's super strong.
I can tell you that. And here's what I will tell you: yes, he's strong, and he's going to be able probably to do what I'm going to ask him to do today. But here's what I want you to know: in your life, we all kind of feel like we're pretty strong, we can handle. things by ourselves. How many of you would say you feel like you can handle everything by yourself?
Come on, be honest with me. I do. I do. I have a philosophy in my life. A lot of times that I have to really pray about: I'm like, listen, if it's going to be done right, It's got to be done by me.
All right. That's just how I live my life. And so I feel like I can handle it. I feel like I'm pretty emotionally stable and all this kind of stuff. I don't really get things that aren't.
And so I feel like I'm good. But here's what I want you to know: we all are built with something inside of us that we think we can do this alone. We think we can carry the weight. of our stress and our anxiety. Barself.
And so what we do. is is this, is we take The stresses of our life, okay?
So, whatever it is that brings you stress. And so, just say for Jordan, it's graves.
Okay. And Jordan, he's carrying this, and here's what I will tell you. When there's only one thing that you're stressed about. He's he's doing pretty good. He's not struggling.
He's doing really good. But here's what I will tell you: when you try to hold something that you're stressed with. And you try to walk with it and things like that. When you start piling on other things, it becomes harder.
So we throw bills on here. No, I don't know how many bills Jordan has. I know James wishes he has more, right? But here's what I'll tell you: you throw your stresses on there, and then what happens is.
Now he's carrying too. He's doing pretty good, but let's throw health.
Some of you are stressed about your health. You're anxious about maybe a doctor's appointment or about your future or about a diagnosis and these things. And they're real problems. And God's not saying that we don't have real problems that come in our life. But what he's telling us is that we were not designed or created to carry it ourselves.
To carry it.
So you throw health on there, you throw your marriage, and maybe you have issues in your marriage and you stress about it and you're wondering, like, is she going to leave me or is he going to leave me? And you have these issues and you have this and you throw this on and you're trying to carry it with yourself. How about shame?
Something that happened in your past that you're carrying and you're allowing what happened in your past to affect your future. Or how about these, you know, kids' choices? We stress about our kids and we stress about them making the right friends and then making the right choices or remembering what we studied. And we go and they go to work and we, or they go to school, and we stress about these things. And so we throw that on there.
And how about retirement? For some of you, you're kind of, that's what keeps you awake at night is your 401k and everything. everything that you have in retirement. And what you do is you're carrying it and you put that on there. And then you keep going and you get to loneliness.
And how you're stressed over just being lonely, and the fear of being lonely and being left alone. How about this? Temptation. You keep falling into a sin, so you come into a church service and you're like, Man, I'm going to go out of here and I'm going to do everything in my own strength, and I'm going to go out of here and I'm going to carry the weight of my temptation. You were not designed to bear it.
So we go here and we're keeping going. And here's what I will tell you. Jordan could admit to this. That holding just one care Little bit easy. But many of you, here's the problem.
You've come in today? And you're carrying a stack of books in your life. A stack of cares. A stack of worries. and a stack of your anxieties.
And you're putting them, and what's happened in your life, you're wondering, why can't I get freedom from this? Why can't I, you know, sleep at night? Why can't I have freedom from my worry? Here's why. is because you were never designed to carry this.
You were never designed or created to carry all the weight that this world has to offer. You were never designed. And here's what's really interesting about this: Jordan's carrying all of these books, okay? And here's what I will tell you, all these anxieties, all these cares. How in the world can Jordan, if he's walking into church every week carrying that?
How can he worship like that? Can Jordan ever lift a hand in praise to God like this? Down. Can Jordan ever serve? But he doesn't have any free, he doesn't have any free arms, free weight, free anything, because what he's doing is caring.
And that's exactly my point.
Some of you are there. You've walked in and you are anxious about a stack of things in your life, and you're stressed about a lot of things that you can't control. And what Philippians chapter 4 is doing is saying this: you were not designed for this.
So what he's saying is cast. Your care. upon him. Pray, take all of your petitions to him, and then here's what happens. As you begin.
Two. Build the freedom. Right? Now, Jordan wishes I could do them all at one time, but I can't, like the Lord, right? And so we're doing bit by bit.
And so here's what happens: is now Jordan, his arms are like, oh, this is way better. Right? And in your spiritual life, this is way better because now, when you release all your cares, all your anxieties, all your worries over to the Lord, what happens is now He's free. He's free. He's standing there and he's probably like, thank goodness this illustration is over.
And so, but the point is: these things they get us and they weigh us down. They weigh you down, and many of you are right there like that. And here's what I want you to know: when you cast those things over to the Lord. That is where ultimate freedom in Jesus Christ is found. That's where peace is found.
And listen, every one of you came today, and here's what you're seeking. Here's what you want. We all desire it. We want the peace of God. We want peace.
We want to wake up every day in peace. Like, like my son, like I mentioned it earlier, we want to go to bed in peace, not worried about cares, not worried about worries, not worried about things that bring us anxiety. And here's what I want you to know: the only way you can experience that. It's by giving up. and releasing all of your stack of anxieties.
over to the one because you were not created to bear it. He is. And what he says is, Come unto me. All ye that are weary, cast your cares upon me. And he can take everything in your life.
So that you in response. Get the peace of God. Can you bow your heads with me? Thank you, Jordan. How many of you, let's just be honest, we had...
A great first service, a great response. There was a lot of honesty in the room. Nobody's looking around, heads are bowed, hearts lifted in prayer. I want to tell you, you can fool a lot of people. You cannot fool the Lord.
How many of you would say, Pastor, and I want you to be completely honest. young person, teenager, college student. Young adult. Adult, grandparent, wherever. Worry and anxiety, it's not isolated to a certain group of people or a certain demographic.
If you're in here today, I want you to be honest before me and before the Lord. You say, Pastor, There's some things, there's some stack of anxieties that I'm carrying. I walked in today and I feel just like Jordan was that everything in me is keeping my head above water. I'm stressed out of my mind. I'm anxious about stuff.
I'm worried, sick about different things in my life. It stresses me out. It might even affect your health and different things. And you are stressed about it, and you're carrying a load of books. How many of you would slip up your hand?
Yes, I see that. Thank you for your honesty. I know it takes a lot to be courageous. I get it. We're all we all struggle with this Here's what I want to invite you to do.
Let's all stand. Everybody standing at this time.
