Anxiety, the Unbelieving Heart

[Brian Hoselton] The other night – I think it was not last night, but the night before – I woke up with a start. My wife was shaking me rapidly, and that is never a good thing. I sleep with ear plugs. I have done that since Jack was a baby. He cried all the time and we had to do the “cry-it-out” method, so I started sleeping with ear plugs and I just never stopped. And so, I don’t hear a whole lot that goes on at night.

But anyway, she woke me up and I knew something was wrong. And I pulled the ear plugs out, and said, “What’s was going on?” And my wife said “I heard something banging at the door. You’ve got to go check it out.” I was a little scared. She heard something going on at the door. And you know, I did some things in the room, looking for some protection there. I went to the front door and flipped the light on, and went back to the room, and just kind of hid a little bit, and watched to see if I’d see anything, or shadows, or anything. We had a window shade open, and I slowly walked over there after a minute or so, as we were listening for anything. I peeked out the window and didn’t see anything there. Then I peeked out the other window and didn’t see anything there. So, I went downstairs to see if there was anything going on down there, and I didn’t see anything.

I flipped the light, so I could see outside, and the light didn’t come on. And I thought, “That is not good.” So, I went back upstairs, and I finally put a chair in front of the door, and I looked down the window to see if there was anything hiding behind the door. And I didn’t see anything there either. So, I asked Carol, “Did you dream this? You know, what happened here?” She is convinced she didn’t dream it, but it might have been a dream. We just don’t know. (But I do remember being in a dream sometime in that night – and I think it was that night, or maybe before. And I was dreaming I was getting pressure to give a sermon when I wasn’t prepared to give a sermon. I think it was Mr. Robinson who was doing it. That is actually one of my worse nightmares, by the way – because I wasn’t prepared for it.)

So, I think we tried to go back to sleep. I had already been up earlier, so we went back to sleep – I think it was four in the morning. And I don’t think I went back to sleep – don’t think I did, at least – so I had dreams…. Actually, I knew I went back to sleep, because when the alarm went off, I knew I was asleep, but I was dreaming that I was running up and down the stairs, because the light was out downstairs – I’m convinced this was the reason – that different lights were going off. And I was convinced somebody was cutting our power. This was so real to me.

And then I looked out the window, and saw a bunch of people coming up the back yard – from the sound that was down there – and they were piling up. Several of them came on the deck. And we were looking at the doorway, and they were jiggling it, and all the sudden the door opens, and in come these two people. I said, “Wait! What are you doing here?” And they said, “We are coming here. We’re new, and we are taking over the house.” There were a bunch of other people that came up, and I saw them opening the office, and they were all pilling in the office. I said, “Call 911.” And we called 911, and there was this really low, deep, weird, scary voice that said, “We are aware of the situation. Refugees have been coming in, and President Obama has allowed this. And we are looking into it.” It was very freaky, I’ll tell you.

So, they were resettling in our house and in our offices. So, the next morning, I get these messages on my phone from Amazon about all these pictures that came up last year. This one came up right here. You can’t see that, but it is a scripture, and it says, “Philippians, chapter 1, verse 6 – “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” I got that the next day and it was very bizarre, because on Wednesday, I had decided to speak about anxiety.

So, I would like you to turn to Matthew, chapter 6 – Matthew, chapter 6, if you would. I want to read through this section. This will be our anchor text that we will kind of bounce off of today. Matthew, chapter 6, and I want to read from verses 25 down through verse 34.

Matthew 6:25-34 – 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 or gather in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who are you by being worried that can add a single hour to his life? And who are you to worry about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field they grow. They do not toil nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that not even Solomon, in all his glory, clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothed 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 shall we eat or what shall we drink or what will we wear for clothing.’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek after these things. For your heavenly Father knows you have need all of these things. But seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Don’t worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

You know, anxiety in life can be a very a challenging thing to overcome in this age. It is easy to look at circumstances around us and wonder how we got in them, how are we going to get out of them, what are we going to do about it? We often look for those fixes – we ourselves – rather than looking to God to consider how is it He is going to help us with the situation. How is He going to fix it? There is a little anecdote in a comical bit. It’s called Bits and Pieces. It’s a magazine. This came out of a 1993 issue. The article says this. “A man fell off a cliff, but managed to grab a tree limb on the way down, and the following conversation ensued. He said this: “Is anyone up there?” “I’m here. I’m the Lord. Do you believe me?” “Yes Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can’t hang on much longer.” “That’s alright. If you really believe, you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Just let go of the branch.” A moment of pause, and then he said, “Is anyone else up there?” It is a humorous story that really tells the truth in many cases. We want out of a situation or circumstance, but we want out of it our way. And when God provides the help, we look for something else, or someone else, because what He has told us to do, or He wants us to do, seems counterintuitive to our carnal human nature.

Brethren, do you realize that anxiety is a form of unbelief? Anxiety is a form of unbelief. There are many ways that unbelief can manifest itself in actions and behaviors. I’d like you to turn to Hebrews, chapter 3 – Hebrews, chapter 3. You know, when I have patients in my office, and I perform a simple neurological exam on them, there are ways that you can determine which part of the brain is functioning, and which are not functioning. There are ways you can look at parts of the body that they can’t fake it. You can fake a range of motion exam – asking somebody to look down, or look up, and rotate, or bend – and they can fake those things. There are malingerer tests to try and figure these things out. But people are really good at faking these things for their own purposes. But when you are looking at some of these things that are in the deep parts of the brain, you can’t fake a deep tendon reflex, for instance. You can’t fake a pupillary contraction. You can’t fake a capillary refill in a nail bed. You can’t fake these things. There are certain things you can look at. You can’t fake clonus in a foot. These things are windows into the brain and they are all manifestations of what you cannot see in the central nervous system.

In the same way, there are behaviors of unbelief that we have all exhibited in our lives at one time or another.  Hebrews, chapter 3, and verse 3, he says here – Paul writes:

Hebrews 3:12 – Take care brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, leading you to fall away from the living God. Verse 14:

V-14 – For we have shared in Christ, if we hold our first confidence firm to the end. In other words, one of the evidences that we have come to share in Christ – one of those evidences – is that we are united in Him in saving faith. It’s that we endure to the end – that confidence that we have in God. That’s one of the manifestations that we are with Him. We are not to make our shipwreck of faith.

Perseverance and faith is necessary for salvation. We have to stick to it and move through it. When a person is truly converted, you know the heart is changed so that now we live by faith by day to day. The newly begotten, then, with the Holy Spirit introduces a person into a life that is lived by faith – not just begun by faith, but actually lives by faith. The newly begotten with the Holy Spirit introduces the person to live a life of warfare now. We battle every day, and that warfare is called the fight of faith. I want you to see that in 2 Timothy, chapter 4. This is the fight of faith that we battle on a daily basis. Paul here is writing into Timothy, the young evangelist, about something that he needed to hear, because Timothy had many years ahead of him. Paul was nearing the end of his life, but Timothy had a long way to go. He says this in 2 Timothy, chapter 4, and verse 6.

2 Timothy 4:6 – For I am already being poured out as a drink offering – his life had come to an end – and the time for my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all those who have loved His appearing. So, Paul here is showing he is fighting a war. He’s fighting a battle. He has fought this after his conversion every day. And it was war that he fought continually day in and day out. Look at 1 Timothy, chapter 6 – Paul writes again here in the first book to Timothy.

1 Timothy 6:11 – But as for you oh man of God – in verse 11 – 1 Timothy 6, verse 11 – flee these things. Now he has a list of ungodly things from verses 3 to verse 10. He’s saying: You, o man of God, flee all of these things. But instead, he’s saying: pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness and gentleness. Then he says in verse 12: Fight the good fight. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you are called, and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

But here, back in Hebrews, chapter 3, and verse 12, it’s called the battle against unbelief. That is what Paul says in Hebrews, chapter 3. In verse 12 again:

Hebrews 3:12 – Take care brethren – when he says, “Take care brethren,” that is the vigilance of the battle – watch out, take care – lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. There’s the enemy. There’s the enemy and the warfare – the evil heart of unbelief – leading you to fall away from the living God. There’s the warning that the battle of warfare is serious. It’s a serious battle. It’s not just a kid’s game – not just a war game. It’s a very serious battle. This is real, real warfare, folks, and it is the more real than any battle that’s ever existed on this planet. I think of the battle of Gettysburg. We were reading that recently with the kids. They were going over that in history. And it was a battle that, I believe, 175,000 men that presented for battle in those three days, from July 1 to July 3 in 1863. And over 50,000 were either killed or maimed or disappeared from the north and the south. This is a more real battle that takes place on a spiritual level on us, and it is the most basic battle that everyone in this room fights, I believe, every day. And that is the battle against unbelief in the promises of God. It’s the battle to have the kind of heart that rests in God. Because, if unbelief in the living God gets the upper hand in our life, then the result is that the heart can become hardened like a rock, and it makes it impossible to repent, because it is unwilling to repent. Then we are cut off from the grace of God and His blessings and His promises.

Now some will say that, if you are converted this can never happen – this could never happen – that, if one is truly a child of God, that we would not have unbelief. You know, the simple question, I think, that has to be asked is, “If this is the case, then why would Paul even give us this warning?” Why would it be here? Why would there be a warning about something that wouldn’t even happen to us? I think the answer is simple. It is something that we have to take guard and watch out for. We have to always be on guard constantly against the wiles of the devil, because he would like us to move into that arena of unbelief. Once he gets us there, and he corrals us into that arena, then he can move us anywhere he wants. Beneath our battle against evil in our heart is the battle of unbelief. Beneath the battle against evil in our heart is the battle of unbelief. Unbelief is the root of evil and the essence of evil. All our sinning grows out of our unbelief in the living God and what He has told us in the scriptures.

Now, Matthew, chapter 6, illustrates this with a specific evil condition of heart – namely that is anxiety. That’s what he’s talking about specifically here. Now I am not attempting to exaggerate what is not in the text here. I am only showing you what I think the text is reading and what we can draw from it – that is, that the unbelieving heart is evil, and the anxiety that comes out of this is a condition of the evil heart. And therefore, we can say that anxiety is unbelief.

I want to consider for a moment and think about how many different sinful actions and attitudes come from anxiety. Of all these things that are manifest of the unbelieving heart, anxiety might be the one with the most far-reaching and possibly most tentacles out of any of them – out of any of the sins that we can think of. Anxiety, for instance, about finances can give rise to coveting, and greed, and hoarding and stealing. That is what anxiety about finances can bring about. Those are those manifestations. Anxiety about success or succeeding at some specific task can give rise to shortcuts that might involve theft or deception or falsification. I think about – for men, in particular – it might involve procrastination, due to anxiety of failure. Men are more worried about failure it seems like than women are. So they just don’t ever start. It could take men away from families – because of anxiety, due to long work hours. It could lead to health neglect, because of those long hours.

Anxiety might make us rude to our spouse. I find that when I have something coming up – a sermon or something – and I am running short on time, I get a little bit short, because I am a little bit anxious about it. It can make you a little bit irritable and abrupt, and a little bit surly. (And there she is nodding her head.) That is what anxiety does. Anxiety about relationships can make you come off as withdrawn and seem indifferent and uncaring about people. Whether it is true or not, it’s just the way it manifests. It can create uncomfortable situations between people because of the anxiety of talking and simply conversing with other people. Some people are so anxious they can’t hardly bring themselves to even speak two words to someone else because of the anxiety. The other person, actually, might have the same anxiety. And that only makes the interpersonal relationships worse, because now we have two people that are anxious.

Thus, the bondedness the church brethren should share is now awkward and is disassociated. Anxiety about how someone will respond to you about something could make you want to cover up the truth. You may exaggerate things in your favor because you are anxious about how people will look at you. You may change stories slightly to your own vent to make you look a little bit better than you really should. Or, you might blame others for a situation because of anxiety. The list can go on and on and on, and I am sure you could think of many things. Anxiety coming up from the roots beneath has many sinful branches. So, if anxiety can be conquered, a lot of sins could probably be overcome and a lot of issues could be taken care of.

What then is the root of anxiety? And then, how can it be severed? To answer this, I want to go back to Matthew, chapter 6. I want to look at Matthew, chapter 6, and just read a few things out of here. There are four times in this text that Jesus says that we should not be anxious – four times He says this. Let’s just read through these four times. Verse 25 – He says:

Matthew 6:25 – Therefore, I tell you do not be anxious about your life. He says in verse 27:

V-27 – …and which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? And in verse 31:

V-31 – Therefore do not be anxious. And verse 34:

V-34 – Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow.

So, I think, if there is anything that is certain that I can tell you today in this sermon, with the authority of Jesus Christ – right here – is that He does not want us to be anxious. He wants us to be free from anxiety. He wants us to be free. He wants us to be hopeful. He wants us to be joyful, restful and a confident people. He wants anxiety removed form our lives. You know, there is nothing that He has ever taught us in scripture that should increase anxiety, or, was designed to increase anxiety, but rather, it is designed to help us conquer anxiety.

Now what is the root of it in the text here. Matthew, chapter 6, and verse 30 – He is going to give us the answer to the root.

Matthew 6:30 – But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So, what is the root of big anxiety? The answer is little faith – little faith – little faith in our heavenly Father, believing that He has our best interest at heart no matter the situation, little faith in our heavenly Father that He is actively working in every situation in our lives no matter how big or how small, little faith in our Father that He will, no matter – and it doesn’t matter if it is in life or death – that He will do what is absolutely best for us. We don’t need to fear death, because He will do what is best for us. In other words, Jesus says that the root of anxiety is the lack of belief in our Heavenly Father. And that, if unbelief gets in our hearts, one of the manifestations of it is anxiety. So, when Hebrews says, “Take heed lest there be an evil heart of unbelief,” it includes this meaning. Take heed, lest there be in you an anxious heart of unbelief. Anxiety is one of the evil conditions of the heart that comes from unbelief. “Much anxiety,” Jesus says, “comes from little faith.”

Now, you may or you may not have thought about this before. I don’t know. When we hear the word evil, that brings up a very serious connotation in your head – when you hear the word evil. I mean, that’s wicked stuff. Evil. Paul is telling us, and therefore Jesus is telling us, that unbelief is evil. Now there are certain ways we may respond to this. And I will give you a couple of ways that might be normal responses to this. You might say to yourself, “Self” – if you talk to yourself, which I know you all do – “Self, that is bad. That is bad for us. This is not good news at all – I mean, not good news. In fact, it might be very discouraging to learn that what I thought was just a mere struggle with an anxious disposition is, in fact, a far deeper struggle with whether or not I believe in God.” It is not good news and it is good news.

Let’s suppose you’ve been having a pain in your stomach for some period of time, and you’ve tried different medications, and you’ve struggled with the different remedies, and done all the different helps, and gone to naturopaths, and tried different diets, and nothing is making your stomach feel better. One day you go to the doctor, and they run some tests, and they come back to you and they say, “You know what? You’ve got intestinal cancer. And that is where your pain is coming from.” That is not good news. That’s just not good news. Right? Or, is it good news? Let me put the question another way. Are you glad the doctor discovered the cancer while it is still treatable and that it, indeed, can successfully be treated? That’s good news. That’s really good news. So, you say to yourself, “Self, I am really, really, glad that the doctor found out the cause of this problem and that we can fix it.”

So, the answer to the question, “Is it good news?” is, “No and yes. It is, and it isn’t.” So, the news you have cancer isn’t good news, because cancer isn’t good news. But it is good news, because knowing what is really wrong with you is good news, and now it can be treated successfully. That’s really what it’s like to learn that the real problem with anxiety is really the unbelief of the promises of God. It’s not good news, because that cancer that is behind there isn’t good. That unbelief is not good. But it’s good, because we know now what the true problem is – where it exists. Now we can attack it, address it and do something about it. Because unbelief can be addressed, and it can be fixed by the greatest physician of all, and we know that is Jesus Christ. It doesn’t feel good to know that there is something deeper and more pervasive that’s causing the current condition and that it’s anxiety.

So, I want to stress that finding out the connection between our anxiety and our unbelief really is – and I think it should be – liberating. It should be good news to us, because it’s the only way to begin to battle against the real cause of our sin, and get the victory God wants to give us by the therapy of His word and His Spirit.

Now there’s another way you could respond to this news. And that is, basically, just sheer hopelessness. You might think to yourself, “Well, I have to deal with anxiety almost every single day of my life, And so now you are telling me that every day I deal with anxiety, I am dealing with unbelief – that I don’t believe in God. That that’s what it’s rooted in? Almost everyday, you are telling me that I don’t believe in God – that I disbelieve in Him and His promises? If that’s the case, then what’s the use? I’m totally inadequate to the task. How in the world can I be counted as part of the first resurrection if I don’t really believe in God?”  Because that’s what Paul wrote about in Hebrew, chapter 11 – in the faith chapter. One of the first things he said – when you come to Him – “You have to believe – you must believe – that He is – that He is.” So, you might be thinking to yourself, “You are supposed to be a comfort for me today, and you are not doing a very good job of comforting me. You are making me feel a little bit worse about myself.” Well, I feel worse about myself sometimes too.

But I want you to look at it this way. Suppose that you’re in a car race. You’ve got a race car, and you’re driving down the track, and your enemy, who doesn’t want you to finish this race, is going to start slinging mud on your windshield, so you can’t see. Right? Now the fact that you temporarily lose sight of your goal, and start to swerve, because you can’t see that road very well, doesn’t mean that you’re going to quit the race. It certainly doesn’t mean that you’re on the wrong race track, otherwise, your enemy wouldn’t be throwing mud on your windshield – because…I mean, if you’re going to win the wrong race, who cares if you win the wrong race? Right? He is going to let you do that. What it means is, that what you should do is simply turn on your windshield wipers. Get that windshield fluid going, and clean the glass off, so you can see again. Does that make sense? That is what we should do.

You know, brethren, we live in a world that throws mud on our windshields every single day. There is not a day that goes by when you interact with the world and this humanity – this carnality that exists within us – that mud and dirt is not thrown on our windshield. It gives us reason and pause to be anxious, because it gives us every excuse to reject God and to disbelieve in His involvement in our lives, and His healing, and His input, and His direction, and His support, and His provision and His protection. Is He really with us? Is He really working with us? Am I doing what is right? So, of course, there is going to be mud on your windshield. There is going to be mud on your face. There is going to be mud from the world that is covering you up on a regular basis. That is why we have the washing of the water by the word, because it cleans us off. It cleans us up and it lights our path and it directs our way. Constant connection with God – through His word, in prayer and in study – is how we wash away that dirt and mud that is on the windshield, so we can forge ahead toward that finish line.

So, when anxiety strikes, and it blurs our vision of God’s glory and His greatness of our future with Him – that He has plans for us – that doesn’t mean that we are not faithful. It doesn’t mean that we are faithless. And it doesn’t mean that we won’t be saved and born again at the resurrection. It doesn’t mean that. It means that our faith is being attacked. That’s what it means. When the mud of the world is thrown at us, we may swerve, and we may sputter and go through pits and starts, but the continual washing will clean the mud, so we can stay on course and make it to the finish line.

So, let me be clear. The issue, brethren is, not whether we have anxiety – and we deal with anxiety every day. That’s not the issue. Some wake up with anxiety with the opening of the eyes every morning. In some respects, I am with you. I wake up every morning, and I have a thousand things on my mind, and I worry about a lot of stuff – things that I shouldn’t worry about – and there a lot of things that make me anxious. Actually, I will share some with you at the end of the sermon.

So, we all have anxiety that muddies us up every single day. So let me say it again: The issue is not whether you deal with anxiety every day. The issue is how you deal with anxiety every day. How do you deal with it? What do you do when Satan attacks you? This corruption surrounds us, and we have the insults of the world that are constantly being thrown at us. What do we do? The answer is that we have to turn on the wipers, and we let the washer of our soul cleanse us in His word.

Let’s look at a couple of scriptures. Psalms 56, and verse 3. I’ll give you a couple of scriptures here just to illustrate the point I am talking about – Psalms, chapter 56, and verse 3 – David writes:

Psalms 56:3 – When I am afraid, I put my trust in God – or He says, “I put my trust in You.” When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. Notice it does not say here, “Because I put my trust in You, I never struggle with fear.” It says, “When I am afraid.” So, “When the mud is thrown at me and I lose my bearings, and I do something wrong….” So here’s a Christian – David is – a man that is described as a man after God’s own heart – a Christian that we all hold – and I believe completely that we all hold him – in very high regard – a man that shows us that normal Christian living is to deal with anxiety. Fear strikes, and the battle begins. So the Bible does not assume that true believers will have no anxieties. Instead, the Bible tells us how to fight when they strike. And David says here, When I am afraid..., what does he do? How does he deal with it? He says: I put my trust in You.

Look at 1 Peter, chapter 5. Peter writes something here that we have all seen many, many, many times – 1 Peter, chapter 5, and verse 7 – the apostle Peter says here:

1 Peter 5: 7 – Cast all of your anxieties on Him, for He cares about you. Now, it does not say that you will never feel any anxieties to cast upon God. It doesn’t say that here. It says when the mud hits you, and you lose that temporary sight – that vision – of the rode, and you start to swerve in anxiety, you turn on the wipers and use the Word.

You know, one of the greatest prophets of God was Elijah. And James tells us, in James, chapter 5, that he  was subject to like passions just as we are – that he is no different in many respects than we are. You know, remember that Elijah had great anxiety after he had that battle with the prophets of Baal. Queen Jezebel was after him. And she was going to take his life. And he was terribly anxious about her. He just had this great battle and he was concerned about Queen Jezebel. He was convinced that she was going to kill him. Does that sound like you at times? Maybe after you have a great battle, for some reason, you have a let-down and you think there is no way I’m going to win this next one? Something is at your back and you don’t think you can get out of it – you know, where there is a situation in life where we just don’t see a way out, and we feel boxed in, and we are convinced that it’s just us. Welcome to the fragility of the human condition. That’s what it is. It’s the human condition. So, for those of us that deal with anxiety every day, let me say this: That’s more or less normal. The real issue at hand is, how we deal with it? The answer to that question is, you deal with anxiety by battling unbelief. You deal with anxiety by battling unbelief.

Now how do you battle unbelief? Because it’s unbelief that sets in as soon as God’s future of joy and hope and gladness are cut off. We ask ourselves, “Is God really for me? Do I really trust in Him – that He is really going to take care of the situation?” You battle unbelief by meditating on God’s word, and you ask Him for the help of His Spirit. When we do that, the wipers, in one sense – or the promises of God – clear away the mud of unbelief. The fluid is the Holy Spirit that washes over to clean off that windshield. Without the softening work of the Holy Spirit, the wipers of the Word just kind of scrape over the blinding clumps of unbelief. So, you have to have the Holy Spirit there – active and working to soften that up to get rid of it. Both are necessary – the Spirit and the Word. We need both actively working in our lives. So, we fight the anxiety and the swerving of our life by looking to the promises of God to get the lies of Satan out of our heads, basically. We have to look to the future. That is what they did in Hebrews 11. That’s what got them through it, in many cases. They looked to the future, and they looked to a far-off land, and they looked to those promises. And they had earnest expectations that they were going to appear to them. These are promises that God holds out to you and me today.

I was thinking about some of the lies that cause anxiety. There are certain lies that we tell ourselves that will cause us to be anxious. There are some that I wrote down. For instance, you might tell yourself, or someone might tell you, “You can’t do that. You can’t do it.” That causes anxiety. You are worried that people will make fun of you – especially in school, growing up. I remember it in college. In many respects, that doesn’t go away. You are afraid people will make fun of you. They will mock you. You may tell yourself, “You are just a hopeless mess.” You go on to tell yourself, “My life really isn’t worth anything. What am I really here for? I am not doing anything for anybody.” You might tell yourself, “I can’t do anything right. I do everything wrong. What’s the point of it?” You might think to yourself, “God is just never going to forgive me. He will never forgive me of that – and neither will my church family. They will never forgive me.” All these things bring out anxiety because of unbelief.

Here is what we should do. We need to read the promises of God, and we need to pray for the help of His Holy Spirit. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? It just sounds so simple. And it really is. It’s as simple as this – as surrendering our lives to God and putting ourselves in His hands – allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us, and pray for God’s help and His guidance, and letting God’s Word pour over us. It is not that hard. And yet, it is hard. In many cases, the hardest part is taking the action – in getting that initial response – doing something about it. You know, we all know what we need to do, in many cases, in life. We just don’t do it. We just don’t do it.

I can’t tell you how many times patients have come into my office, and they have asked me, “What do I do to lose weight?” This has happened hundreds of times. “What do I do to lose weight?” And I talk to them about their dietary habits. And I talk to them about changing some of those simple things. And I usually get one of two responses. One is, “Yeah, I know, I know.” So, they know already. Or secondly, I’ll get the response, “I have tried everything. I’ve done all of that stuff. It doesn’t work. I don’t know what else to do.” In most cases – unless they have a thyroid problem or a metabolic problem – you are at a loss. You don’t know what else to say. The ones that respond to the latter – who say, “Yes, I tried all that stuff and it doesn’t work – I have seen a great many of them back months later, having lost a lot of weight. And I always ask them, “How did you do it? How did you lose all that weight?” “Well, I changed my diet. I stopped drinking sodas and started eating more protein. And I cut out late night eating…” – all these things we talked about. And I think to myself, “Uh huh.” But I am glad they did it! There is a block in people’s lives, and often it is that initial start to try and get them to do something. And that is the block. God wants us to take the necessary steps, because He has plans for us. He has wonderful plans for us. There’s that wonderful scripture in Jeremiah 29 – you all know it – Jeremiah 29:11:

Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord – plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. It is such an inspiring scripture. I have plans for you. They are good plans. They’re not bad plans. They’re very good plans.

When we can put our trust and belief in the Lord, and our belief grows stronger than the swerving of anxiety, that tends to smooth out. We don’t go from ditch to ditch anymore. We may tend to go a little bit over that line and back, but it smooths out that swerving of anxiety as we get the mud off our windshield on a regular basis. So then, we don’t frantically jerk that wheel around, because we can’t see through that mud anywhere. Man, that mud gets on there and you just get it cleaned off. You go to God’s Word and you get it cleaned off. Then we can calmly – believing and knowing that when we are driving down the road, and the mud gets on our windshield, that we are not going to hit the ditch – you can just calmly hit that little button and it will clean off that windshield, and we can go to that destination that God has chosen for us.

Let me close by showing how battling unbelief overcomes anxiety. Here in our text, we have the illustration of anxiety over food and clothing. Even in our country, as extensive as the welfare system is – and we have Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security and Unemployment and Food Stamps. There are all sorts of safety nets for us, if we have financial problems or health problems that this nation can help people with. But I don’t believe that there is one person in this room that is anxious about where lunch is going to come from. Is anybody anxious or worried about that? I would dare say that I don’t believe anyone in this room is anxious or concerned where the next 40 or 50 meals are going to come from. You probably feel pretty comfortable about that for the next couple months at least. There’s no concern about that. Yet, that is not true of about two-thirds of the population of the world. There are many places where people don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

Do you remember the story – I’ve forgotten the country – that we had just had that announcement that little children were taken across the border? I can’t remember if it was Congo or Rwanda? I’ve forgotten. But they were taken, and they couldn’t get the food into the country – the necessary food. And those children got one meal a day – whatever they could put in their hand. And that was it. That’s all they got. If anybody is anxious about food, I believe it would be them. But I do know that the basics of keeping life together and going, in this day and age for us, can be challenging. For instance, educating kids. For instance, clothing children, feeding them – feeding the family – making sure everyone is taken care of, making sure the bills are being paid and medical bills are paid, paying the heating bill in the winter time, paying taxes. All of these things, when you think about the day to day tasks, these things can make a tremendous impact on our lives and cause a great deal of anxiety for some of us – and I believe for many Christians across the United States and certainly across the globe.

Jesus deals with that practical issue in Matthew, chapter 6, and verse 30. And He says this very simply – He says it is according to unbelief. He says in Matthew, chapter 6, and verse 30:

Matthew 6:30 – Oh you of little faith…. So, this paragraph has at least half a dozen promises in it to battle that unbelief. For example, at the end of verse 32 He says this:

V-32-33 – Your Heavenly Father knows – reading Matthew 6, verse 32 – that you need them all, but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all of these things He will be yours as well. This is a spectacular promise when you think about it – an amazingly spectacular promise! In everything you do at home and at work, put God’s purposes first, and He will provide all that you will need to live for His glory – both physical and spiritual. Believe that promise and financial anxiety will evaporate in the warmth of God’s care.

Now Paul took this very command and this very promise and provided, in the context of this wiper and washer model – battling of unbelief – and he says in Philippians, chapter 4, and verse 6 – and I read it at the beginning of this sermon:

Philippians 4:6 – Have no anxiety about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication – that’s the wiping and the washing – let your requests be made known unto God.  So, asking God that He would come, and that He would clear away the dirt and the mud that is obscuring our view – that is stopping us from seeing hope – seeing hope down the road in His promises – that will veer us off track and keep us from pressing toward that goal. That is what we want to do – to ask God that He will help us to see that vision and see that Kingdom and that future, and know that He is going to take us there if we continue on that path. That is the high calling of God.

Then in Philippians, chapter 4, and verse 19, he gives the promise just like Jesus.

Philippians 4:19 – My God will supply every need – every need of yours – according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. So, Paul picked up the very same teaching in Matthew, chapter 6, and applies it here to the Philippians here – and, of course, to us as well. He applied it to the Philippian church and he tells us the same examples.

I have many anxieties. Let me tell you a few of them. My anxieties, of course, are not going to be your anxieties and your anxieties are not going to be my anxieties. You may have a longer list, or you may have a shorter list. This is not an exhaustive list. These are just some of the things that I jotted down as I was thinking about this. You know, when I am anxious in the morning about whether I will be meeting the needs of my patients. Am I helping them? Am I not helping them? Should I do something different with them? There are some things that I think about. And sometimes I don’t’ remember the scriptures off the top of my head, as far as where they are at, but I think about parts of them. So, when I looked them up, this is what I pulled up:

Philippians 4:19 –I think about God will supply my every need. God will supply my every need, but also, if I ask for it, God will supply their every need in what I do with them. If I give all I have to them – to each and every one of them – even in my quantity of deficiencies – God will make up what I lack and will supply what every patient needs every day.

Sometimes I wonder how am I going to deal with certain employees? I am anxious about that. How do you deal with certain problems with employees? I often think of Matthew 6:14.

Matthew 6:14 – For if you forgive other people…. And this goes to a certain level – obviously, there are certain things that have to be addressed – but I think a lot, “If I forgive other people….” – when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Everyone needs forgiveness.

When I am anxious about beginning a new endeavor – something I’m trying at work – some new project, or some new protocol, or even sometimes as I prepare a message – I get anxious often about that – I think of Isaiah 41:10:

Isaiah 41:10 – Fear not, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed for I am your God and I will help you and strengthen you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

When I am anxious about an insurance audit or some other surprise inspection that may come in, I think of Romans 3:31.

Romans 8:31 – If God is with us who can be against us?

When I have anxiety of health problems, I think of Philippians 1:21.

Philippians 1:21 – For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. It doesn’t matter to live or to die. I win. I win.

When I have anxiety about family problems that are health related of a family member, I think of Isaiah 53:4, where he says:

Isaiah 53:4 – Surely, He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet He considered Him punished by God and afflicted. Verse: 5: Yet He was pierced for our transgressions and He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was brought on Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

I went through two separate church splits – one in 1993 and one in 1998 – I believe it was – where I was the only one left in my church area. Of course, in Worldwide, I separated and the whole church stayed with Worldwide. And the other split with Global, they all left, and I stayed. I remember it so vividly. I would often call upon Romans 8:38 and 39 in those bleak times – and even today when I get anxious of life overall – where it says:

Romans 8:38-39 – I am persuaded that neither death no life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor dept nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When I am anxious that I may shipwreck my faith, and wonder if I will finish the race that is set before me, I battle the unbelief with the promise from Hebrews 7, chapter 7, and verse 25, and also from Deuteronomy, chapter 31, and verse 8. Hebrews 7 says:

Hebrews 7:25 – He that began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ.

And Deuteronomy 31 says:

Deuteronomy31:8 – The Lord, He is the one who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you, neither forsake you. Fear not nor be dismayed.

So, I urge you brethren, in your warfare – and it is a warfare – that you take up the book of God, and that you find those scriptures that can help you in the day of adversity, when your anxiety becomes great and when anxiety has set upon you. Ask for the help of the Holy Spirit and lay the promises of God up in your heart. Take hold of those and do not let go of them and battle on. Remember the promise of Proverbs 21:31:

Proverbs 21:31 – The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.