Feeding Sheep S1E8 “Sermon on the Mount: Anxiety & the Antidote”

We are continuing steady in Season 1 titled “Back to the Basics.” Episode 8, Anxiety & the Antidote, will teach us that Christ’s plan for us is to live in peace and not torment.

Worry does not add anything to our lives, it merely subtracts. It takes the life out of living. The peace from our minds will vanish if we do not guard our thoughts and be diligent to live a life of gratitude, prayer, faith, and unrelenting trust in the Lord as our provider.

Jesus mentions the birds and the lilies. He affirms the value of humanity is worth much more than the animals or the flowers. You have inherent value as an image bearer of the Most High God. You have always been worth it to the Lord. Nothing you can do will make you less worth it—or more worth it. You are just worth it friend!

The birds trust that every morning they wake up there will be a worm or a bug to eat, a branch to land on when they’re tired, and a waterhole somewhere to drink from. They trust because 100% of their days it has been that way, so it must be true. 

The lilies are planted and buried in soil, if you will, and must trust in an unseen outside force to bring the water, the sun, and the nutrients necessary for it to thrive. No hands to water itself, no source of its own. But yet it trusts and grows in a steady, solid pace, into what it must become.

The Lord is asking us to be like this. The world/the lost/the Gentiles/etc seek after things to fill them up. The more they possess, the more full they will be, only to realize that no amount of money, possessions, success or lovers will ever keep you satisfied if you don’t have a relationship with Jesus. 

He is the source of fulfillment. Everything means nothing if He’s not in it. The believer also seeks—-all people were made to seek—but sons and daughters seek His kingdom, His righteousness and depend on Him to supply all of their needs. He never promised us our wants, but He did say we would have what we needed. Yet, He is still so kind, that He will give us some of our wants, when they do not go against His will or plans for our lives. He shows up in the smallest ways that make the biggest impact on us.

One way to combat anxiety is to take control of your thought life through prayer and gratitude. We went to Phillipians 4:6-8 for a list of what we can choose to think on instead of what fills us with worry, anxiety or fear. Listeners are encouraged to write these scriptures down and put them somewhere you can see them, so that this discipline may be adopted into your life.

I hope you enjoy this episode and will continue to follow along with us as we endeavor to walk this path together, and sit at the table of the Lord and feast together!

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or comments that you may have. We will do our best to answer in a timely manner either in writing or on another future episode! But we do want to hear from you and be able to interact with you. 

May God bless you! Can’t wait to see where we grow from here. It’s an honor to be able to speak into your lives, and I don’t take it for granted!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back to this week's episode of Loving Jesus Feeding Sheep Podcast. We are still in season one back to the basics. And today's episode is episode number eight. And we will be continuing with our series on the Sermon on the Mount. And we will be talking about anxiety today. And we'll be going from Matthew chapter six, beginning in verse 25 through verse 34. So I'm going to go ahead and read that for you really quick, and then we're going to dive in and see what the Lord has for us today. I hope this day finds you well and that you're ready to be encouraged and ministered to. Amen. Here we go. So verse 25 says, For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow, they do not toil, nor do they spin, but yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all of his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more clothe you? You of little faith. Do not worry then, saying, What will we eat, or what will we drink, or what will we wear for clothing? For the Gentiles eagerly seek all of these things, for your heavenly Father knows what you need, and that you need all of these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. So Jesus is giving us the cure for anxiety. And back in those days, it may not have seemed like there was much to be anxious for. There was a what we would think would be a slower pace and uh easy going. And um, but there's nothing new under the sun. For all of time, people have worried. For all time, people have had fears and intimidations and anxieties and worries. Um, but I believe in the time that we are in, uh, anxiety is exacerbated by the fast pace of the world around us. Everywhere it's about hustle, hustle, hustle, do, do, do. Um, because if you don't, you're gonna be replaced. Or if you um if you're not quick enough, if you're not up to date with technology, you're gonna be phased out, you're gonna be irrelevant, you're gonna be no longer useful. Um and so there's a lot of pressure in the world that we live in, um pressure because of the things that we want. We want what we want when we want it. We have created things to make life so much easier, to make physical manual labor so much less harder. Um we have um faced a worldwide global pandemic in 2020 that caused a lot of us to be isolated, heavily dependent on technology. Um, and so going out into the world in general with the fear of the sickness and you know the thought that you could just breathe the wrong air or get in contact with a completely healthy looking person and then wind up in the hospital dying, uh it takes a toll, takes a toll on your mental health. And um, a lot of people don't want to talk about mental health in the kingdom. It's very taboo. Um, but it is okay to have Jesus and for him to be the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and for you to have a therapist and to get counseling and to go through your trauma and to not let the things that you have been through keep you stuck in those places. Um, there are very, very great uh counselors. If the Lord is our wonderful counselor, would he not also give the gift of counseling uh to people around us and give them tools to help us in our human condition, not just our physical bodies do we have doctors for? But there are doctors for mental health. It is okay to have Jesus and the therapist. It's okay to be to not be okay. It's okay to not be okay, it's okay to admit that, it's okay to seek for help. Yes, we go to the Lord for everything first, period. Before I go to the doctor for my physical body, I go to the Lord in prayer. I seek Him first, I seek His help, I seek His counsel, I seek His word, I seek His wisdom, I seek His peace, I seek His hand, I seek His heart, I seek His face first. But I also, it is not a lack of faith to follow up with a doctor, whether it is for your physical body, whether it is for your mental health, if you have to have medicine, you are not faithless, you are not an unbeliever, you are not a terrible Christian. Sometimes we go through things. We have to have a little help to get from one place to the next. If my dependence is on a doctor, if my dependence is on medication, and my dependence does not first rely and reside in the Lord Almighty, then yes, it is out of alignment. I depend upon the Lord and He can supernaturally heal me at any moment with one word that proceeds from his mouth. Everything that is in chaos inside of me, whether it is physically or mentally, emotionally, all of it with one word proceeding from his mouth, I can be supernaturally healed. But I also will depend on the Lord because he is ultimately my healer and healing is my portion as a daughter of the Most High God. If you are a son, it is your portion as a son or a daughter of Christ to have healing, whether that healing comes supernaturally through his hands or whether that healing flows through the conduits of doctors, nurses, medications, and things. At the end of the day, as long as my hope and my trust is not in my physician or my medication over Jesus, then everything is still falling into alignment. If Jesus is first and everything else comes after that, we're okay. We're not out of order, we're not bad believers. So I want to throw that out there. A lot of people may not agree with me, and that is your prerogative. Uh, but the more I grow, the more I learn about the Lord. Uh Luke was a disciple. He was a physician. Jesus had doctors around him, even though he's the great physician, even though he is the ultimate healer. He still said, Come and follow me. He recognized Luke. He recognized his position and he said, I still want you to be a believer. I still want you to follow me. I still want to teach you the ways of my kingdom and what you can't do with your medicine through my power, through my authority. The chains of sickness will not have dominion over our mortal bodies or our eternal lives. Amen. So I just we're just gonna throw that out there. Okay, and so Jesus is saying, for this reason, I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you'll eat or what you'll drink or for your body and what you'll put on it, because life is more than food and the body is more than clothing. He's telling us once again, I want you to see the big picture. If you have to wear the same outfit every day, praise God that you're able to wash it. If they see you in the same outfit at church twice a month, you know, if you don't have a new dress to wear every Sunday, if you don't have a new outfit to go places, it's okay. This world pushes so much stuff on us. Social media is detrimental to our mental health. We think that we have to have the most up-to-date things or we're gonna be less than. Our value is tied to what we have or what we produce. But the Lord is telling us look at the birds of the air. They do not sow, neither do they reap, nor do they gather into barns, but your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? He is He is constantly reaffirming our value that we were made in the image of God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and he said, Let us make man, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit in the beginning, making man kind in his image, giving us characteristics of himself, um, putting his reflection into us so that we may be image bearers of the Most High God. We have value, inherent value. You were born with value. Nothing that you do, say, have, or don't have is going to take away or add to your value. You are valuable, you are worthy, you are worth something to God, whether people want to recognize your value or not, you matter and you are important. He said, Who of you by being worried can add a single hour to your life? He's saying worry does nothing. Worry and anxiety, if not overcome properly, will cause your body, your physical body, to go into distress. There are sicknesses that manifest in people's bodies because anxiety is out of control within them. Scripture tells us, he says, above all, I wish that you would prosper and be in good health, even as your soul prospers, even as your mind prospers, as as a man thinks, so he is. That's also scripture. As your mind goes, so your body is going to go. If you think it, if you stay there in that chaotic place, everything about you is going to be in chaos. Eventually, your body is going to default into chaos and it's going to be out of control. And the Lord, that is not his plan for you. That's not his promise for you. Going back to Matthew chapter 5, to the Beatitudes, His plan for you is that you walk in blessing. Anxiety is not a blessing. And it adds nothing. I can look over my life over the last 38 years and the time that I have spent worrying, because to stand or to sit before you today and to say, I've never worried about anything, I've I've never fretted, I've never been, I've never had that knot in my stomach, I've never would be a complete and total lie. But over the last 38 years, I can look back and I can say that all of that time that I spent worrying about all of these worst-case scenarios, all of these things that were going to happen allegedly, none of them were ever as bad as what I anticipated. And none of that worrying did anything for my situation. It didn't make it better, it didn't make me better. It just made me in turmoil until whatever was going to happen finally happened. And so the Lord is saying, there's no sense in worrying because it's not going to add anything. Worry will subtract. Worry will take away the life from your life. Worry will take away the joy. Worry will combat the peace that is our portion. He said, So why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that not even Solomon, the wisest king that ever lived, not even him in all of his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith? And I believe that he's talking to us about the birds and about the flowers, because the birds, they don't plant. They don't plant trees, they don't harvest, they don't have barns that they can gather. They just fly. They just rest in their nest, they fly around, and they trust that when they wake up in the morning, there's gonna be a worm somewhere, there's gonna be a bug somewhere because every day that they've woken up so far, there's always been a bug. There's always been a worm, there's always been food, there's always been a place to land whenever their wings got tired. There's always been a shelter. And if you look back over your life, there was always a way has always been made. Even if you were hungry for a period, you weren't hungry forever. There was always a way made. And we trust that the God who takes care of the birds says we are more valuable than the birds. Our our life and our world system, we have it so backwards. And don't come for me in the comments section, but I'm telling you, we have put this crazy amount of emphasis on our animals and we treat them like they are humans. And I don't mean any disrespect to anyone, and I love animals, I have pets of my own and all of the things. But human beings are more valuable than animals. God said it. Not because he doesn't feed these his animals that he created, not because he doesn't make a way or sustain them, but he said, Aren't you more valuable than the birds? You are more valuable than your pets. Human beings are more valuable than the created beings around us. Not that we shouldn't care for animals, not that we should abuse animals. I'm not, don't get it twisted. Okay, I'm not saying to abuse anything or to misuse anything or anything like that, but your value is more. If you love your puppy dog and you love him so very much, know that God loves you so much more than that. The value that you place on that, he places more value upon you than you could place on your animals, on your pets, whatever. He said, he talks about the lilies. And I love talking about the lilies because right now I'm gardening and I've actually planted some lilies. I have some lilies on my porch, some Easter lilies, some Tropicana lilies, and they are just beautiful. And in this season of my life, I am finding the joy in slowing down and letting the pace come to just not a complete standstill, but I want to see the hummingbirds come to the feeders and hear the sounds of their wings because there's something magnificently glorious in it. And that God would allow me to make some sugar water and put it in my feeder so that I can be a part of the whole process of these little birds being fed, that I can look out and I can see the lilies and I can see the buds and I can see the blooms, and then I can come out and they just blossom. One day they just are fully in bloom and the joy that it brings to me, and then they're so incredibly beautiful. And in this life that we're in, this fast-paced world that we have created, our schedules are we're not running our schedules, our schedules are running us. And the Lord is saying, look at the flowers. Stop what you're doing for a moment and just consider these lilies that they are planted into the ground and they are buried and the dirt is all over them. And they must depend on the rain to fall from heaven. They must depend on water to come from an outside source. Whether it's rain from the heavens or it's water, it's me picking up my water hose and turning it on and watering them. They've got to depend on water from an outside source. That water hits them, the nutrients hit them, the sun hits them, and they begin to bloom. Not all at once, but over time. The seed bud, the the seed bud at the bottom begins to break open, and a stem begins to come forth. Roots begin to dig into the surface, and little by little, as it digs down, it begins to push forth, and then it comes up from the ground, and then it's green, and it's leaves, and then all of a sudden that stem shoots up, and then there are buds all over it. And then one day, just ever so gently, piece by piece, step by step, sun and water, rinse, repeat. All of a sudden, that bud one day begins to burst forth and it starts little, and then all of a sudden, you'll come back the next day and it's wide open. And God is saying, Let your life be like this. Depend on me to bring the water, depend on me to bring the sun, depend on me to clothe you. Don't worry if I care about these little things. If these little things bring me joy, you bring me more joy than the plants, you bring me more joy than the birds. I'm more invested in your succeeding in this life and you're having what your basic needs being met. I'm more concerned about your basic needs than I am about these flowers and these birds. You are worthy. You are worth it. When you feel like you don't matter, Jesus is solidifying in this passage, in this sermon on the mouth. You have value, intrinsic value is woven into every fiber of your being. Whether people recognize it or not, the heavens recognize it. God recognizes you. He hasn't forgotten you. He has declared his love for you. So have faith in God. Do not worry then, saying, What will we eat or what will we drink or what will we wear for clothing? For the Gentiles or the heathen people at this time. There were the Israelites, the Hebrews, and then everyone else was considered Gentiles if they were not born into Israel or into the Hebrew faith. He said, The Gentiles seek after these things. The people of the world are constantly seeking. Why? Because the more clothes I have, the more filled I am, or the more full I think I am, the more cars I have, the more houses I have, the more lands I have, the more money I have, the more quote unquote full that I am. The Gentiles, the heathens of this world have to depend on physical items to fill them up because they don't know that true fulfillment comes from a relationship with Christ. It doesn't come with how many outfits that I have. It doesn't come with all of these things that I've just mentioned earlier. True and lasting fulfillment comes with Christ. Everything in this life, without Christ, it is empty and void. And it may leave you feeling ecstatic for a moment or jubilant for a moment or happy for a moment, but at the end of the day, it will never be enough. Things will never be enough to satisfy you. That's why the world seeks after things. But we, he said, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added unto you. The heathens are seeking things. We are seeking his kingdom. We are seeking his righteousness. We are a people born to seek out. But it's what we seek that separates the sheep and the goats, that separates believers and unbelievers, that separates godly and heathen. We seek his kingdom. God, what is your big picture plan? If I have to wear the same outfit every day for a whole entire month, praise God for the water that I have, for the little soap that I have that I can wash it. You know, praise God if I have the same, if I only have one pair of shoes. What is your big picture and how do I fit into your kingdom? What do you want? Let your kingdom come, your will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Where is your righteousness? And how can I be clothed in it? Because Scripture tells us our righteousness is as filthy rags, but we can be clothed in the righteousness of God, which is in Christ Jesus. And if we will seek his kingdom, the bigger picture, if we will seek his righteousness, he said, I'll take care of everything else. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. He's saying, Don't get into next week's trouble. Just live in this day. When he tells us not to worry, he's not telling us to check out, to zone out, to live on audio. Pilate, be active, be present, but trust. Trust in God. The cure for anxiety is unrelenting, unfailing trust and faith in our God. We believe in Him. I want to go really quick to Philippians because I believe it's a phenomenal passage of scripture and it helps to keep us focused when we are weary and when we are overwhelmed. I give it to a lot of my sheep and my congregation because it is wonderful. And let me get to it really quick. Philippians 4. In verse 6, it says, Be anxious for nothing. Have don't let there be any reason for you to have anxiety. But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So the counteract for anxiety would be that I pray and I bring thanks. I cannot be thankful and worried at the same time. Those cannot simultaneously exist in my brain. So whenever I feel anxiety coming, I begin to give God thanks for what I do have, for what is in front of me, that He has a hope and a future for me and a plan, even though I don't know what's going on in this moment. It says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all of my comprehension, when I can't make life make sense, the peace of God will come and will overshadow all of my confusion, and it will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. So finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of a good report, if there be, if there is any excellence, and if there's anything worthy of praise, then dwell on these things. If you're gonna dwell, dwell in the good things. Don't dwell in anxiety, don't dwell in worry, don't let those things begin to eat you alive. God is going to take care of you, but my God shall supply all of your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. He never promised me I was gonna have everything that I want. So if we can go ahead and let that go, we can say, Lord, this is what I want, but I know that you're gonna supply what I need. So whatever comes into my hands, it's because you know I needed it. And Lord, I thank you when you do supply the little things that I want. We were just in Trinidad and there were several things that the ladies on our trip mentioned. One wanted ice cream, one wanted pizza. Um, because we were in a foreign country. They they don't eat the same things that we do. Uh their tummies are used to different things than we are. And and getting a little homesick, we were, we were desiring the flavors of home. And in a foreign land on mission for the Lord, there were little things. And one by one, we saw how the Lord, one night there was ice cream, and we rejoiced and we praised God for the little things because it wasn't what we needed. There was plenty to eat, plenty to drink, but there were little comforts of home that as we thanked God for where we were, as we thanked God for the provision that was already there, we said, Lord, it would be very nice if we had some pizza. It would be very nice if there were ice cream. It would be very nice if there was watermelon. But if not, thank you so much. And in the little things, he began to pour out. There was watermelon, there was pizza, there was ice cream, there was, there were, there was Starbucks, there was Subway, there was KFC. There were little comforts of home that he made possible because he cares, because he loves. And so just a little way to tell you how to be thankful for what you have. We were always thankful for the provision. We were thankful for the food that was set before us. And in our thankfulness, we let our requests be made known to God, even sometimes jokingly. You know, God, God, you know, if sure, it would be lovely to have these things. But if not, we are grateful. We are thankful and we are blessed. And He provided. And so if you need some, if you need some encouragement, please mark that down. Philippians 4, 6 through 8. Go back. If you if you have trouble keeping in your mind what you need to think about, what you need to focus on, write the scripture down, put it in your vehicle, set it as your lock screen on your phone. Think on the good things because at the end of the day, there are many more good things that are going for you than the few negative things that you're worrying and stressing about. Don't stress. Give it to God. It's not your portion. Jesus doesn't want his people to be stressed. We can't think clearly when we're stressed. He wants us to have a peaceful mind. He wants our soul to prosper and be at rest. And the only way for us to do that is to bring everything into alignment inside and to follow his plan. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness above everything else and everything that we need. And some of our wants are going to be added. He's going to take care of it. If he takes care of the birds, if he takes care of the flowers, if they are valuable to him, we are much more valuable than they are. And so today I just want to affirm you: God loves you, he sees you, he cares about you. Brother, sister, quit letting anxiety take over your life because Jesus is Lord. There's never been a day that he said, I don't want to be God today. I don't want to be Lord over all. I don't want to be King of kings. He is on his job. He is He is taking care of business. He's working things out for you way down the road that you can't even see. Before we were calling and asking for watermelon or ice cream, the menu had already been planned. God had already gone ahead of us. Before we were asking, he was already answering. And that's just a little example, just a most recent example of God's care for us. And he's doing, if he did that for us, he's doing it for you too. But until you see the fruition, don't live in the worry, don't live in the anxiety, live in the peace of God that passes all understanding. Live in faith. Live trusting that I can't see his hand all the time, but I know that he's my provider and I know that he's going to make a way when there seems to be no way. I love you. I bless you in the name of Jesus. I pray that you have a most wonderful day. I pray that anxiety and fear and torment have to leave you, and that the peace of God would rush over you right now, and that the peace of God would begin to flood you and would begin to wash away all of those anxieties, all of those fears. You will have a roof over your head. You will be taken care of. Somehow, the ends are going to meet, and everything is going to be as it should be. God bless you and keep you. Make his face shine upon you. May He be gracious to you and give you peace. Amen. Until next time. Bye bye.