A Biblical Remedy For Anxious Minds

We open Philippians 4 to face anxious minds with a clear path: rejoice in the Lord, choose whom we trust, think on what is true, and pray with real urgency. Along the way, we tell honest stories, confront church conflict, and anchor peace in the character of God.

• rejoicing in who God is and what He has done
• deciding daily to trust God over self and mammon
• training attention on what is true, just, and pure
• naming anxiety as a torn mind and closing the gaps
• guarding peace from bad theology and constant outrage
• learning supplication and thanksgiving that bring real peace
• restoring unity by sharing one mind in Christ
• placing future hope in resurrection and renewed bodies

Transcript

Framing Anxiety Through Philippians

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If you have your Bibles today, would you join me in the book of Philippians, chapter number four? I can tell you, like the Apostle Paul, I have not already attained. In fact, I don't know that I'm any better of a Christian than you are. But my heart's cry is that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformable unto his death, if by any means that I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, and you can do it today too. Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Is that your desire this morning? Do you desire to have him? Let me ask you this. Have you had enough of the world to realize that ain't gonna do it? Philippians chapter 4 this morning. Begin in verse 1. John Wesley's mother, he's one of the fathers of one of the great revivals of our nation. He grew up one of 12 children in a small two-bedroom house. His mother of 12 children in a small two-bedroom house was as any mother would be of twelve children in a small two-bedroom house. She would vie for some moment of quiet, but rarely could get it. And so she would sit in the kitchen and she would take her apron and pull it up over her head. And that was mom's quiet time, and everyone knew leave

Stories Of Quiet Time And Centering

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mom alone, she's having her quiet time. I hope you have your quiet time, but I hope you don't have to use an apron to get it. I heard about another lady who told her three-year-old that mommy's going to have her devotions. And this helps mommy's mind to get right. And so I have to have my devotions. So you sit here and draw, and mommy's gonna have her devotions. Someone knocked at the door, and the child went to the door, and they said, Is your mother or your father home? He said, My mother's home, but she's in the bedroom having her emotions. That's not wrong. Can I tell you your mind and your heart and your emotions cannot get right unless you align them with the Word of God. This is what centers us, this is what calms us, this is what brings us home to a stable place. He is known as this. He is the God of all comfort, and he's the God of all peace. But you can't have either of those comfort or peace outside of God and his word. I want to talk to you today about a remedy or a cure for an anxious mind. None of you are stressed, are you? None of you are. I said, No, I think I'm okay with the pills. She said, Are you are you sad? Are you blue? I said, No. No, she said, Do you feel sometimes that? And by the time she was done, I thought, maybe I am depressed. Give me one of them too, I guess. I don't know. We all have anxious minds. We all have burdens and stresses that weigh us down. It's part of our anatomy. The goal, church, is for us as the children to turn our hearts and our thoughts. The Bible says, take your thoughts captive. Or they'll run you if you don't run them. The thought, the idea is to, as children, give ourselves into the care of our Father so that we can worry less and give more cares so that he can worry more. Okay. Philippians chapter 4.

Be Anxious For Nothing Explained

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A remedy for an anxious mind. The Bible says this, therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that a beautiful greeting? I beseech Iodius and Sentici that they be of the same mind. I want you to focus on the word mind there. It's going to come back up in a moment. That they be of the same mind in the Lord. And I entreat thee also, true yoke fellows. Help those women which are labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also and with other of my fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men, the Lord is at hand. Here's a verse I want to direct your attention to. Ready? Be careful for nothing. If you have a New King James or an ESV, you'll see that it that word there is translated anxious. Be anxious for nothing. Be careful for nothing. The King James word of being careful is very appropriate, though. It is those who are full of cares. Let me ask you rhetorically: have you come this morning to God's house full of cares? You have. Don't lie to your preacher. By the way, you're supposed to. This is where we bring our cares. What does 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 17 say? Go. Oh, you knew it. Some of you, that's very good. Peter says, casting all our cares upon him, why? Because he cares for us. You should bring your cares and be full of cares and come to church and be anxious and come to church. And when you woke up this morning and you looked outside and you said, You've got to be kidding me. I wasn't there, but I know what you said. Get your heart right with the Lord here. That's the day you need to get up and go to church. And when you get up and yell at your wife and kick the dog, that's not the time to say, I'm not going. You need to get yourself to church. Also, wait, quit yelling at your wife, quit kicking the dog. When you come to church, we'll tell you those things. All of our minds are full of cares, and we are full of what we call anxieties. Do you know that is a that is a Greek word? Look there in the beginning of chapter, uh, in the beginning of verse number six. Be careful. I'm gonna give you a Greek word and I'm going to mispronounce it. And when I do, don't tell me about it. It is the word anesthesia. It's a compound word. I do know that much. And it means two things. It means this. Are you ready? This is gonna be the whole message today. It means to tear or rend, like just the mind. It is a mind that is torn, a mind that is split, a mind that is focusing on too many things at once. That's what anxiety is. Do you have that? You have many cares and many concerns? This is why the

Double-Mindedness And Information Overload

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book of James tells us, the brother of our Lord in chapter 1, in verse 6, 7, and 8, he says this to his fellow believers. And I want to read that to you because I wanted to read actually verse number 6 as well, but I didn't have that down here. James 1. The Bible says in verse 5, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. That means your mind doesn't know what to do, and that's all of us. So ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and abradeth not, and it shall be given him. Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. And what does verse 8 say? A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. You see, our remedy for anxiety is going to be to focus our thoughts on the Lord and not focus so much on everything else. Can I tell you something right now? This is a wonderful blessing and a terrible curse. And I have to explain all of those to you, but I don't think you and I were meant to know about every tragedy that ever happens on the face of the planet. In Siberia, there was an earthquake, there was a shooting in Uganda, the in Syria, in Lebanon, and in Uzbekistan, and all of these things. They matter, yes, I don't think we're supposed to know all about all of them. I don't think your mind can handle it. This is why we have to trust God for these things. Would you turn in your Bible to Matthew 6? I want to read you a passage of scripture. Matthew 6, this is the problem. The problem is we have many cares and many anxieties. Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, and he says this, and it's a lengthy passage. I want to read it to you, but I want you to see it. Matthew 6, verse 24. The problem is our anxieties, that we have many cares. Beginning in verse 24. Note the context. No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. That means you're going to have to make up your mind where your feet are going to stand. Are you going to provide for all of your needs, or are we going to trust God to provide for all of our needs? Okay, so that's the context in verse 24, verse 25. You'll see why we must trust God for these things. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor

Jesus On Worry In Matthew 6

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yet for your body what you shall put on, it is not the life. Is not life more than meat and the body more than rainment? Behold, the fowls of the air, they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly father feedeth them, are you not much better than they? Your heavenly He didn't say their Heavenly Father. It's your heavenly father. Does he care for the birds and the animals? Yes, he does. Let me ask you this. In all of your anxiety, in all of your care, can we just be resolute this morning that God cares for you? In fact, can I even go so far to get you to agree with me? He cares for you more than you care for you. He is better taking care of you than you are taking care of you. It'll bless you. Go on and read all the way down through verse 34. There's 10 more verses there of how the lilies of the valley and the grass of the field and God's in charge of all of it. We have a problem. We have great anxieties and great troubles, and our minds are torn in a thousand directions. That's why John Wesley's mother put her apron up over her head. To get re-centered and to be re-minded and to regroup. So that's the problem, and you have the problem. Number two, here's the plan. Ready? Look in verse number four of our text. The problem is the stress and the anxiety that causes the strife and the division. Number two, the plan is to rejoice in the Lord always. Three things he's gonna prescribe here in this. He's going to say, rejoice in the Lord, decide who you're going to trust, and think on helpful things. You've got to think on the right things, church. We've got to, I mean, literally take our thoughts captive to the word of God, and we've got to put ourselves under the preaching and the teaching of God's word and the singing and the playing of worship music. And we've got to make time in our day, or else it will not happen. The problem is our anxieties are causing us to be people that God did not intend us to be. Did you notice the people there in verse number two? There was a church there in Philippi, and there were these two ladies, and they were arguing and fighting. And their name was Euodius and Centiki. And wouldn't it be great to have your name in the Bible? Unless it's Paul going, get your act together. That's not good. Ladies, Paul wrote you a letter. You're going to want to sit down. And for whatever reason, they were struggling and they were fighting with one another. And he implores the other church members. Now, these are good Christian women. They served God with Paul. They are yoke fellows. They are, how does he say in verse 3? Yoke fellows help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with my other fellow laborers whose names are in the book of life. So they're good Christian people. You can be a good Christian person. And if you if you don't center yourself around Christ, you can start getting picky and accusatory and judgmental, where all you can see is other people's faults and none of your own faults. You see, that's what happened here. And he says the other church has got to come around. You gotta say, you've got to get, what does he say? Help them to be of the, what is it at the end of verse 2? Help them to be of the same. Why? Because their minds were not together, they were torn. A torn mind creates anxiety. That's what it is. The problem is this, the plan is this. What he says there in verse four is to worship, is to worship. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, he says it again. I say there's time to rejoice. And I want to suggest to you we should rejoice in two things. One, in who God is, and two, in what he has done. You can go so far as to say, if you want to be really a person of faith and outdo me here, you could say, we could also rejoice in what he's going to do. Amen. In what he's yet to do, in the prayers

Church Conflict And Torn Minds

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we're praying. And you see, what he has done is he's blessed us. Look in the previous chapter in number three, look in verse 20, and you can see what Paul's referring to. That's why he starts off this chapter with a therefore. Therefore, rejoice. Why? Because chapter 3 and verse 20, he says, For our conversation is in heaven, our life is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile bodies, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto him. Praise the Lord. Can you not praise God that there is coming a day, where are my arthritic people at? Anybody got gout? Anybody, anybody nearsighted, far-sighted? I was trying to sneak out of Sunday school this morning while someone was dismissing in prayer, and I'm the teacher sneaking out of Sunday school, but I'm trying to get from there to here, and people heard me because all of my knees and ankles wouldn't quit cracking. I'm like a box of walking rice crispy treats. One day, church, we'll have new glorious bodies, and we'll say, like what we sang this morning with the great Moses, ah, fly away, and we'll leave all of this misery behind and and cancer and strife and ugliness of politics and snow that's too early in November and all of the things. Can we rejoice that God, who He is, He is the one who redeems us and saves us? Praise Him for His immutable attributes. He is kind and He is good, and you don't deserve it. He's a merciful, He's better than you. Right. I've told you before about the husband who had been unfaithful to his wife, and there he is dying on his deathbed, and he wants to confess and say, Honey, I'm so sorry for what I've done. And she said, It's okay. And he goes, No, I have to confess it, I gotta say it. I've been unfaithful to you, I've been untrue. She goes, It's okay, you don't gotta say it. He goes, he goes, I gotta tell you. I love you and I've betrayed you. She goes, It's okay. I know. He goes, You do? She said, That's why I poisoned you. It's a bad joke. Now, I just want to say this. You laughed, one, because you're people of justice and you're like, he needs to get it. Yes, God's nicer than you are. He forgives cheaters and sinners. Amen. Can we not rejoice in who God is that he's better than us? We have a sense of justice and righteousness, and you can show me news headlines and I'll tell you what I think ought to happen. I'm probably wrong. God is kind and he

The Plan: Rejoice, Trust, Think Right

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is just and he is merciful. Not only for who he is, but what he has done for us. That's why I started the service this morning by saying it is good, Psalm 92, 1 and 2. My wife showed me those scriptures yesterday, and she said, Isn't this good? It is good for us to come and sing praises as unto the Lord for who he is and what he's done. If you go to the Old Testament, you'll see He's the God who frees his people out of bondage and leads them out of Egypt and parts the Red Sea and provides manna and quail from heaven and healing and blessing. He's the one who is these things but also does these things. And can I just say a hypothesis for you? A hypothesis I learned in high school is an if-then statement. And if we will focus on who God is and what he's done, then our anxieties will be lessened. Get our minds from tearing to focusing on who God is. That's the plan. We see it there in verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord. Let your moderation be known unto all men. Why? The Lord is coming. The Lord is at hand. Let me give you just this in closing. We've got the problem. The problem is that we are anxious. The plan is that we can turn our hearts to the Lord. We can focus ourselves on Him. We can, verse 5, decide who to trust. Let your moderation be known to all men. Eudeas and Centiki should say, even if we are coming to an impasse and these ladies are not getting along, they should still be able to say, We trust in the Lord. I'm wrong, you're wrong, however it is, we love God and God is good and we've got to learn to get along. And you know what that would do? That would be there'd be some healing there, and there would be less anxiety. How many of you just love a good conflict? Just love an argument when people are screaming, yelling in the house. I love that, right? The holidays are ruined. We've got to come and focus our eyes back on Jesus. And some of y'all need to go apologize for what you said. That'll help. That'll help. By the way, everybody knows it. The kids can feel it, even the dogs can feel it. Everybody, they're all intuitive. When anxiety is present in the house or in the church, it's palpable. You can feel it, can't you? The plan is to rejoice in the Lord, decide who to trust, and to think on helpful things. And you can see those there in verse 8. He says, Finally, brethren. And when he says finally, this time he almost means it. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. We've got to turn our minds toward healthy and helpful things. That's why coming to church here is really good. We're mostly focused on the right things. Now we I have heard people come in, they talk about everything except church, and that's wrong. We've got to discipline ourselves. We we're not coming here and talk about the ballgame and everything else in the world. We come to focus on God and what He's said and what His Word is. That helps us, right? And then here's the prayer. The prayer is in verse six. The problem, the plan, and the prayer. Be careful for nothing, verse six. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And the promise here is in verse 7, and the peace of God. Notice that?

Hope In Christ’s Coming And New Bodies

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This is the this is when you do this, then this happens. When you think on these things, then the peace will come. When we focus ourselves, when we pray, when we approach God, when we are casting our cares upon him, for he cares for us, then the peace of God comes. Do you think sometimes we sabotage ourselves? We sabotage our own peace? I told you last week in chapter three, Paul warns them, guard your peace. These Judaizers, these people that are religious hypocrites, man, they're pointing fingers and this, you gotta be circumcised, you gotta do this stuff. You're not good a Christian, you need to whip yourself and sleep on a stone floor and starve yourself. And he goes, if you're not careful, these bad theological idiots will ruin your peace. But I'm telling you, it's not usually them, it's me. What's the old song say? How often we forfeit the peace of God because we fail to take it to Him in prayer. Look there again in verse 6. This is in closing. He talks about supplication and thanksgiving. Supplication, church, is when you pray to God in a fervent, and a real, and a desirous, in an intentional way. Have you prayed? Let me quote another old song, How Long Has It Been? You ever prayed all night? I'll tell you, I that's that's rare. We had a day of prayer here this past Tuesday. So many of you came and you signed in and you came here and prayed, and I'm telling you, that was not overlooked by the Heavenly Father. Supplication is a it's a Psalm 51. David has sinned with Bathsheba and murdered Uriah and covered it up, and he's sinned against God and the whole kingdom, and he pleads for the forgiveness of God in Psalm 51. That's a supplication. It's Hannah in 1 Samuel 1. Oh, Hannah, she wanted a baby so bad, and she was married to a guy who had another wife. Don't do that. The other wife could have children and despised her and made fun of her. You can't have children, you're barren. It was awful. Hannah goes to the temple and she's praying there, and and she's praying in such a way that Eli thought she was drunk. That's good praying. And that's real praying. She was just babbling. She was just she was so intent, and God was listening. Supplication is like when Daniel fasted and confessed his sins in Daniel chapter 9, and you know what happened after that. Daniel and the supplication is Jesus Christ in John 17 as he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane. And Matthew records that he wept and he sweat great drops of blood, that his capillaries burst beneath his skin and through his sweat pours. He he as he cried out to the Father, Father, if there's any way to let this cup pass, nevertheless, not my will. Thy will be done. That's praying. If you will pray, and

Guarding Peace From Bad Theology

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I'm talking about prayer, imploring God, then your anxiety will lessen. Now listen, don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying you don't need medication. I'm not, I'm not a doctor, I'm not saying those things. I'm saying when you do these things, verse 7 says, And the peace of God that passes all understanding, I believe it with all my heart. I've experienced it all my life. He concludes down there in verse 9, and those things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me, do them. And the God of peace shall be with you. I don't know about you, church, but I've got problems, I've got anxieties. But I've I've also found in Philippians chapter 4 a plan. And I don't know about you, but I'm gonna work the plan. I'm gonna rejoice in the Lord. I'm gonna decide. I'm gonna run my remind myself tomorrow. I'm gonna remind myself tomorrow. Who are we gonna trust today, John? Who are we gonna trust? The Lord. Okay, that's good. I have to remind myself every day. And I'm gonna think on right things. You gotta do something good for yourself, church. You can't subject yourself to all the brutality of this world and go, I don't know why I can't sleep. I gotta take something to sleep, I gotta take something to get up. I don't, I don't think that's what God's will for your life is. And I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna pray. That's all I know to do, church. That's my plan. And I want to share it with you. Would you stand for prayer today? Father, we live in an anxious world, but we serve a mighty God. Lord, help us to be reminded today and realigned and recommitted, Lord, that you are the one who cares for us and that we should cast our cares at your feet. And Father, whatever we're praying for, we don't know how you're gonna answer, but Father, I want to just say it out loud before the whole church to hear, even if you don't, God, you're still good. If the cancer won't go into remission, God, I want to declare you're still good. If I don't get my way, you're still good. If the burden doesn't lessen, God, you're still good. If I have to be alone, God, you're still good. Even if half of what the enemy says is true,

The Prayer Of Supplication And Peace

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you're still good, Lord. Father, help us to put our trust and our faith in you. And would you take our rended minds, our torn minds, our anxieties and our cares? Lord, would you bear our burdens because you care for us? In Jesus' name.