Taboo | Anxiety: Our Heavenly Father Gives Peace (Matthew 6)

Anxiety is prevalent in so many people today. Worrisome thoughts fill our minds and it leads to a bodily response. As Christians, God’s Word tells us again and again not to be anxious and not to worry. Why? Because we have a God who is in control. More than that, we get to call this God Father. Just like a loving father protects, provides, and loves his children, our Heavenly Father protects, provides, and loves us more than we could ever know.

Transcript

So what makes anxiety a “taboo” topic? In recent years, the stigma around mental illness in our American culture has lessened, even though we Americans love our rugged individualism, the thought that we can singlehandedly solve our challenges with enough ingenuity. But there’s another culture that still struggles with the concept of anxiety: The Church. I can’t help but picture the face of a young woman who looked at me, tears welling up, from across my office coffee table and said, “Pastor, you must think I have a weak faith because I’m so anxious. I often think I do too. Jesus says people who worry have little faith, but I’ve had this struggle for so very long. I don’t want to worry, but I do.” Her battle is with clinical anxiety, and she felt a tension between her faith and the mental health struggle she’s long had. This stems from a popular misconception about Christianity, that to have a deep faith means that worry and anxiety should just go away. But is that how it works? That once you become a Christian every struggle just goes away…No! But the struggle is redeemed, it’s repurposed, and through faith you have a far different perspective when it comes to worry and anxiety. It’s a perspective that needs to be heard in our time, labeled by rock legend Pete Townshend, taken from the poem by W.H Auden, the “Age of Anxiety.” Now why do you think that is the label for our modern moment?

Because anxiety never stops confronting us. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 19% of the US population is battling anxiety as we speak. It’s our nation’s number one mental health struggle. If you’re like me, the natural question has to be, why? And there are more than just thirteen reasons why, but a few do stand out. So many of us have gone through trauma whether in childhood or adulthood, events in our lives that continue to color our outlook and our ability to process. An estimated 70% of us have gone through a significant traumatic event, that includes teens. 38% of teenage girls and 26% of teenage boys are experiencing high levels of anxiety. Part of it is simply that time of life. So many changes in so many ways plus living within a society that presents them with an anxiety that Soren Kierkegaard called “the dizziness of freedom,” in other words, “you can do anything you set your mind to, pick a career and hopefully it brings you lifelong satisfaction!” Talk about a stressful expectation! Then you throw in the minefield of social media, and it’s no worry teens are stressed out! Jean Twenge in her book iGen, speaking about Generation Z, wrote, “There’s a significant correlation between heavy social media use and mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.” You gotta have the cool clothes, the best gadgets, the right friend group, it’s overwhelming! But anxiety doesn’t end in adolescence, does it? How many of us have anxiety due to our financial situation? A recent study by Bank of America found that nearly 50% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and our area of the country has the highest share of households facing such challenging circumstances. It makes sense. In South Florida, it’s not enough to make ends meet but it’s about status, the cool car, the big house, the image of success even if you’re going into massive debt to have it.

Anxiety is everywhere. It could be the anxiety that comes in various seasons of life or a lifelong battle with clinical anxiety. In either case, often our sinful nature shows itself in how we respond to ourselves and others in this struggle. Our, sadly, gut approach often has this theme: “Stop worrying and just get over it.” Except when you tell someone to stop worrying, it only will make them think about their worries, more! So what’s the biblical theme for this age of anxiety? To understand the Bible’s perspective on worry, we need to see the distinction between worry and concern. 

When Jesus says in Matthew 6, “Do not worry about your life,” he is talking about placing yourself as the answer to your life’s problems when He alone is the answer. He is not talking about “concern.” Concern is healthy. You are concerned about doing your best in school, concerned about what’s best to help strengthen your marriage. Concern is the humble attitude of the believer, knowing God is in control and asking for his wisdom. Worry is putting all the pressure on yourself and letting fear run all over your brain. Now, what is the core of worry, the center of anxiety?

Self. In our age of anxiety, we also are living in the century of self. It’s the cultural mantra, “You do you, “be your own hero,” “be the problem solver of your own life.” No wonder people are constantly restless, anxious, and fearful of the future! Our sin is showing itself right in our faces. We are placing the burden for our rest, our future, and our peace squarely on our shoulders that have no ability to carry that weight. To know true rest for our anxiety comes down to learning what St. Augustine once did when he famously wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” Such restlessness and anxiety greatly affect our bodies, affect our emotions, affect our behaviors, and affect our hopefulness. So what does Jesus have to say to our oh-so-anxious souls? We hear his answer in Matthew 6. It’s flat-out marvelous!

We run into Jesus, speaking to thousands of people, who breathed in anxiety every day. He’s talking to people living at a time when food shortages were far more common than any one of us has ever experienced. Jesus is speaking to people who know far more than we do about what it’s like to not have food for their kids, people who worried so much about having enough for their children, and look at his approach, a beautiful conversation of looking to our Heavenly Father and also how the Father’s grace influences your future forecasting and drastically changes your understanding of life’s circumstances. Jesus here is building off what he just said before. He talked about how you can only serve one master in your life. He says if you serve money or what you have, thinking that will calm your heart, you will never be at peace or know lasting relief. But to see him as your Master, your dear Lord who seeks to love you not domineer you, to know God-reliance, to run to your Father in heaven, that is anxiety’s answer.

But for us to run to our Father, it requires a closeness, a vulnerability, a trust that he loves us dearly. The concept of God as our Father for many of us is difficult because our relationships with our earthly fathers brought us so much anxiety, unrest, and fear. But look at what Jesus tells us about the character of our true Father. He is so loving he feeds every little bird. Every little bit of life he’s made matters to him. But you…you are loved at an infinitely deeper level. Jesus says, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Of course, you are! He’s your perfect Dad. Always present. Always thinking ahead for what’s best for you. Always available. Always giving you his full attention. Always listening. Always loving. Your worrying may wear down your friends, your wife, your mom, but not your heavenly Father! It’s why Jesus in a tongue and cheek way goes on to say, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Remember who holds your hourglass of life in his hands! Your Father knows what you need even more than you do, and he won’t withhold it from you. Our struggle is that we often mix desires and needs. But our Father in Heaven never gets confused by such things. We know that to be true because he satisfied our ultimate need, by sending the One who would open his hands and satisfy you forever.

Your Father wants you to know not just needs fulfilled but beauty unhindered. He wants to clothe you in such a way that surpasses not only Solomon, but the unmatched beauty of his natural creation that no human technology can replicate or surpass. But how could he clothe you in such a way? By opening his hands to send his dear Son, our brother Jesus, to open his hands on the tree of life, the cross, so righteousness would be thrown around you, and that every present moment would be captured by his grace. To gaze at the cross is to see the answer to your anxiety. It’s to see true beauty. Jesus opening his nail-marked hands so your Father’s hands would pull you in close, making you his very own child. To see the cross is to witness the end of your fear of tomorrow because you know your Father will lead you by the hand, your eyes stop at his face. He’s all you need. Then, to stare with wonder at your Jesus and mine who satisfies our thirst to be understood, to be welcomed, to be loved. It’s there that our thirsts for hope and joy are quenched, and we stare into a certain future that no anxiety can diminish. Your Father has shown he will hold nothing back in loving us exactly as we need to be loved. 

And it’s because of that love, that he will lead you through the arena of anxiety. Can you feel the tension? If my Father in Heaven loves me so, why does he lead me into such fear, stress, and uneasiness? Commentator Leon Morris says it well, “A shallow thinker might gather from the previous words about trust that the believer will have a smooth path through life. That is not what Jesus is saying. All people have trouble, believers among them. But he is making it clear that there is all the difference in the world between facing the problems we will certainly meet with firm faith in our heavenly Father and facing them with anxiety.”  Or as Martin Luther put it, “God both loves and hates our afflictions. He loves them when they provoke us to pray. He hates them when we are driven to despair by them.” It’s see the unknown with a Psalm 94:19 mentality, “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” And who was the Father’s ultimate consolation for you, remember what Simeon said when he saw the baby Jesus? He called him the “consolation of Israel.” But that leads to the next question, how does the Christ-consolation we have alter our approach to anxiety?

It opens our eyes to see the need for our family in Christ. When we face our anxiety alone, that solitude leads to melancholy. God created you for community, and the community he’s given you is incredible. How can we not think of Christian counselors, who know things like cognitive behavioral therapy and can give you the tools to process your anxiety? Think about just breathing in and out when you feel anxious, opening to the Psalms, and hearing your Father speak to you, alongside a dear Christian friend who sits with you through the tears, the panic, and the pain? Think of those Christians who enjoy having fun with you, who help you look beyond the struggle to have a glimpse of the joy that awaits. Christians helping Christians do what God in his grace has called us to do, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” We worry so much about our achievements and having enough time or the right abilities to accomplish them and being remembered. But it is the LORD who directs our path. So our prayer is not so much “God, help me do what I intend to do,” but “God, help me do what you have planned for me to do.”

God in his grace has not given you a life defined by anxiety! In fact, why worry when you have the ultimate tomorrow before you?! Think of the different life that is already yours through Jesus, who rules in your heart, who covers you in his love! Anxiety is a survival mechanism, to think that by worrying, we gain a feeling of control, or at least a say in the story. But we have a far better story that we have been placed in, the story of our Jesus who conquered fear and gave us a peace that no anxiety can rattle. Our society has become all about survival, but the Bible is about not surviving but thriving. Thriving because Jesus opened his hands, he feeds us, he has clothed us, and he never ceases to remind us of our value. We can sing to our souls, “Oh, what joy to know you are near me when my burdens grow too great to bear…Day by day…I will seek your loving will to guide me o’er the paths I struggle day by day. I will fear no evil of the morrow, I will trust in your enduring grace. Savior, help me bear life’s pain and sorrow till in glory I behold your face.” On that day, you’ll see his face which ends all anxiety forever. Look ahead, dear children of the Heavenly Father. See his face, you need not look further. Amen.