Session II: Why We Must Battle

(This was the most convicting and sobering of the sessions -- the one for which I am the most thankful:)

Anxiety ought to have no place in the life of a Christian. The Christian life is not a carefree life. But we can have a steady confidence in who God is and what He has done for us.
Martin Luther said of temptation that you can't stop the birds from flying around your head but you can prevent them from building a nest there. The same is true of anxieties.
You can allow yourself to be crippled by the cares of a thousand tomorrows -- or you can fight them off.
The Number One reason to fight anxiety is because it is sin. We are commanded NOT to do it over and over again in Scripture. Nurturing anxiety is blatant disobedience -- and obedience is crucial in the Christian life. If we do what God forbids, cherish what God says to forsake, we are not following what He says. We will not progress until we see sin as sin.
Why do we excuse this sin of worry? There are commands in the Bible that, if we are honest, make us say: Surely you can't be serious? There are things we hear Jesus say that make us incredulous. Things like: Give thanks in all things; Do everything without grumbling and complaining; Rejoice and be exceedingly glad when someone speaks ill of you for the Lord's sake; Call it all joy when you fall into various trials.... The list goes on.
But we must understand, He is serious about these things. God's commands do not come with an asterisk: Honor your husband except when he is a jerk. There is no escape clause because of circumstances or background. We are to be people who say: Speak Lord for your servant is listening. I can do all things through him who gives me strength. I can obey what you tell me to do.

2. We are to fight anxiety because it is fundamental to our Christian identity. Christians are called "believers." Why? Because they believe things. Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness. The just shall live by faith. For we walk by faith and not by sight. Believers walk in accordance with what God has revealed. We are not called skeptics. We are born again by assenting to Truth. But assenting to Truth is something that we do all the days of our life. We are to be marked by a strong, confident faith. When God speaks, we believe it.
When we give over to fear and anxiety, we give over to doubt, not belief. "For we KNOW..." That is faith.. that is the heart and mind saying that whatever happens, this I know. The point is WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE, what can you believe? God will be faithful to every promise He has made. It is God's promise in Philippians 4 to give you peace of mind.

3. Anxiety is contrary to our experience. "I have not seen a righteous man forsaken." We have confidence in the refrigerator, it's always cold and we never expect that it won't be. Has not God proven his longsuffering faithfulness to me even when I disobeyed, even when I haven't asked? He who did not spare His son, will He not graciously give us all things?
We trust the refrigerator, why not God? In light of who God is and what He has done, to harbor anxiety passes all understanding.

4. Anxiety makes God out a liar and a fool. Anxiety in the heart says to others that God cannot be trusted-- that is what our lives proclaim. We are saying, "My situation has bound God's hands." If you despair and angst over the future because of a, for instance, a child's horrible upbringing, you are saying: "I guess God's hands are bound, there is no hope."
Do we believe God is sovereign? Nothing confuses, confounds Him or takes Him by surprise. Do we believe that? Let's not make God appear untrustworthy.

5. Anxiety ignores one of the basic truths of Christian experience: Our lives WILL be full of difficulty. God has promised it. You should be shocked if there are no trials, if you are having an easy time. Our culture is so easy. We expect everything in life to be instantly made better. We expect pain-free, prosperous lives of ease. Do not be anxious about things God NEVER promised you. We live in a cursed world. When we strive to labor, we find thorns.

6. Anxiety is thoroughly unproductive. Matthew 6:25 asks which of you by worrying can change anything?

If worry only leads to harm, shortens life, causes you to distrust and dishonor God, causes you to be unproductive instead of solving your woes -- and if prayerfully leaving things, trusting the sovereignty of God, believing His promises, embracing His unfathomable love for you ensures peace that passes all understanding -- why don't we always go there?
This is the struggle we have as God's people . If we are given over to the sin of anxiety, then that does pass all understanding.

Session III: How to Overcome Fear and Anxiety

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. (I Peter 5:6-7)

4 But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, 5 in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; 6 by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, 7 by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, 8 by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
(II Corinthians 6:4-10)

These are paradoxes, like that expressed by the writer of Psalm 94, who in midst of a multitude of anxieties finds that God's comforts delight his soul. When Christians are overwhelmed within them, they are led to a rock higher than themselves.
The biblical authors knew and understood that anxieties are to be resisted because they are dangerous. The can: choke the Word, distract and paralyze the Christian, and cause a believer to fail to benefit from the presence of Jesus.
You can have many things make you anxious, yet still enjoy the peace that passes all understanding. I Peter teaches that the child of God who strives to do right, to be submissive under the hand of God and not to resist can still see a variety of troubles. I Peter also tells us what we are to do as submissive men and women: Cast all our cares on Him for He cares for you.
What are we to do? Cast all our cares upon him. Picture people throwing coats over a donkey as he walks by. A burden weighs down the heart of a believer. What to do? Cast your burden upon the Lord, like a child carrying a backpack too heavy for him.

How do you do that? A great promise of God's Word is found in Philippians 4: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Determine not to be overwhelmed, not to have your imaginings run wild.

Bring your burden to the Lord in believing, thankful prayer.

It sounds simple, but how often do we do it? Many times a person will confide anxieties in this pastor and I will ask: Have you received no relief when you prayed? They will confess that they haven't prayed at all. Tell it to God. Do first things first.

Cast yourself on God's promise, on believing, thankful prayer. You are thankful because God's heart is open to you. It is in prayer that we recognize our lack of sovereignty. There are things that you can't do. We can't save all the people we want saved or adopt all the children we want to help or see how a bill will be paid or a relative healed a or child's heart won to the Lord.

Thankful prayer means that rather than take burdens on oneself, give them over to God in confident, believing, thankful prayer. Even if He does not bring about all that we desire, our circumstances don't change, our child goes astray, we can say, "Living God, you can take the burden of my anxiety, you can change me."

How do you get rid of anxieties? The same way a man fills a watermelon truck: one melon at a time. He picks up one at a time and throws it in the truck. He doesn't try to juggle two or three or seven watermelons all at one time. When you feel a burden, pick it up and throw it on the truck, give it to the Lord. Now the analogy falls apart a little because watermelons don't jump back out of the truck and into your arms. Worries do, don't they but if it does, just put it back where it belongs. If an anxiety wakes you up in the night, put it back where it belongs.

Cast it over and over again to the Lord, as much as you are conscious of the burden-- God is telling you to give it. Why? Why should we give it to the Lord? You know some reasons: God can do what we can't do; God is wise and powerful and he knows the end from the beginning, He can see the full tapestry that we can't see. But the Bible says you're to cast your care upon Him because He cares about you. His compassion and His love and His concern are the reason. When God sees his daughters in anxiety, he looks not with anger or disappointment but with loving concern.

You KNOW He cares because of the cross. He cares for His own. He is the Good Shepherd who cares for His sheep.

As you feel the burden, cast it on the shoulders of God, omnipotent, omniscient God who loves and delights in you.

Philippians 4 says the peace of God comes as we pray. It does not come as God powerfully eradicates the need. The peace that passes all understanding is not because the situation is resolved. We humans want to know peace by solving problems. If you owe $75,ooo and your aunt dies and leaves you $100,000 you have a peace that is understandable. It is not a peace that is beyond understanding. This is not what we are talking about.

The psalmist goes from struggle to praise because in the psalm there is a transition. He begins by looking at the reality of the situation and makes arguments with God, but then He realizes who God is and ends with triumph and praise. His agitation turns to peace and confidence. Remind yourself WHO God is and WHAT He has done.

Make things a matter of prayer, recognize what you are thankful for in the midst of the unresolved trouble. And the sweet comforts will come directly from God. "Your consolations cheer my soul, your comforts delight my soul." He is talking of God directly doing this. Sometimes he uses human instruments but that is not what we are talking about here. This medicine is divine. The soul in anxiety engages in prayer. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to reveal the Truth of God. The Lord who knows you and loves you and orders your days begins to sweeten your soul.

It sounds sappy, but it is the same idea as "being cuddled." Children are made happy by a cuddle. A child of God is cuddled by God. By those means, taken up in His arms, warmed, cheered, comforted.

Remember in prayer that God has revealed himself as our Father. Nothing changes that. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:
'For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.'
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us."

We are so timebound. We ask why is God bringing disappointment and hardship. He is working out a plan not seen for 20, 30 or 40 years. Trust Him for that. Hezekiah prayed and the Lord extended His life. But during that time Manasseh was born, one of the most evil of kings. But out of his line came Jesus.

In I Peter 1:6, the Lord promises that: "though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls."

You will know that kind of joy, peace delight in the Christian life. It is BOTH trials AND joy inexpressible. You have a hope that others can ask you about: a calm, confident, joyful trust. You have a flatbed full of watermelons, and none in your hands.

There are times we must fight. John MacArthur has a book called Anxiety Attacked, about warring against it, the fight of faith so we can enjoy peace. Be at war against your own feelings. Go back to the promises.

Faith is fighting a multitude of concerns when you don't know how God will provide, be honored, fit this into His plan.

The most delightful truth is all the delights that are in the cross of the Lord Jesus. The more we forget that, the more we have these troubles. We make it all about what WE should do instead of focusing on a crucified risen Savior. Delights flow from the heart of Christian faith. You need never fear facing God in judgment, a God so pure and holy, and you, so full of sin. That fear was dealt with at the cross. You can be confident that you will be received in righteousness, not because of your own righteousness but because of the cross. He died because of anxiety and unrighteous fear -- sin. He requires that you trust. All our thoughts must be rooted in a faith in Christ. It is not the deeds you do, but trusting what Christ has done that is the source of joy and gladness.

The Great Business of the Christian Life

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

Heart-work is hard work, indeed. To shuffle over religious duties with a loose and heedless spirit will cost no great pains, but to set yourself before the Lord, and tie up your loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon Him, will cost you something. To attain a facility and dexterity of language in prayer... is easy; but to get your heart broken for sin while you are confessing it and melted with free grace while you are blessing God for it, to be really ashamed and humbled through the apprehensions of God's infinite holiness, and to keep your heart in this frame not only in but after duty will surely cost you some groans and travailing pain of soul. To repress the outward acts of sin and compose the external part of your life in a laudable and comely manner is no great matter....But to kill the root of corruption within, to set and keep up a holy government over your thoughts, ... this is not easy.

It is a constant work. ... This labor and our life end together. It is with a Christian in this business as it is with seamen who have sprung a leak at sea: If they tug not constantly at the pump, the water increases upon them and will quickly sink them. It is in vain for them to say, "The work is hard and we are weary." There is no time or condition in the life of a Christian which will suffer an intermission of this work.
--John Flavel (1630-1691)

In Spirit and Truth

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers of God will worship Him in Spirit and Truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and Truth. (John 4:23-24)

On C.S. Lewis and the Zoo

Our trip to the zoo reminds me of these John Piper quotes about C.S. Lewis:

"Lewis gave me an intense sense of the "realness" of things. The preciousness of this is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun's rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things... He helped me become alive to life. He helped me see what is there in the world -- things that if we didn't have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them ignore. He made me more alive to beauty. He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes. He shook my dozing soul and threw the cold water of reality in my face, so that life and God and heaven and hell broke into my world with glory and horror."

Spending time with my friend Debby reminds me of this paragraph: "He demonstrated for me and convinced me that rigorous, precise, penetrating logic is not opposed to deep, soul-stirring feeling and vivid, lively -- even playful -- imagination. He was a "romantic rationalist." He combined things that almost everybody today assumes are mutually exclusive: rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination. ... "


It was a glorious day.