Wisdomfest 2024: Rising Above Anxiety – Life Is More Than Anxiety 6/23/24

In Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation, subtitled The Anxious Generation: How The Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, he argues that a smartphone-based childhood can actually interfere with a child’s social and neurological development, leading to a decrease in attention and sleep, and an increase in loneliness, anxiety, and depression. He writes,

“Anxiety and its associated disorders seem to be the defining mental illnesses of young people today.”

He provides a lot of data on the rise of anxiety, specifically among young people. I’ll just share one example.

“A 2023 study of American college students found that 37% reported feeling anxious ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’ while an additional 31% felt this way ‘about half the time.’ This means that only one-third of college students said they feel anxiety less than half the time or never.”

Many today will argue that actually that’s a good thing in some ways. The argument goes, that people in the past repressed and didn’t really talk about their problems. People today, young people especially, are more prone to be tuned into and talked about their injuries, struggles, hurts, fears.

In some ways that is true. That’s a good thing. It’s an important thing for all of us, no matter what our generation, to be willing to talk about struggles, fears, hurts and to be willing to get help when needed.

I’ve used the illustration in the past of our cars. If you drive a car, eventually you’re going to need to pop open the hood, change the oil, check the belts. Do we still have belts in cars? Like, do what we need to do, maybe even get some major engine repair. But then once we’re done, we need to close the hood and get back on the road. The problem with some of us is we drive with the hood open. We are, in the words of one psychologist, “ruminating.” Let me explain.

Leif Kennair, a psychology professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, makes the case that habitually thinking and talking about our problems will actually increase our anxiety and our chances of experiencing depression.

“If you do this,”

he said in an interview — that is, habitually think and talk about problems —

“you are co-ruminating at least. But I believe [this generation] they are ruminating more. And rumination is the major predictor for depression.”

What is rumination? Rumination is repetitive contemplation. That is, keeping the hood up on your car. That is, mulling over that post that no one noticed on Instagram, or maybe noticed negatively. That medical diagnosis you just can’t figure out. That bill you’re wondering how you’re going to pay.

It’s not just thinking about, but it’s habitually, repeatedly, mulling over. Then we begin to wonder why we can’t see clearly. We begin to wonder why we wake up sad. We don’t enjoy things we used to enjoy, and why life seems hollow, pointless, hopeless.

In Matthew 6, Jesus is training his followers as to what to live for, who to live for. Another way to say it is, where do we put our trust ultimately? The chapter can be broken into two parts: (1) don’t live for status, first half of Matthew 6; (2) don’t live for stuff, second half of Matthew 6.

Near the end of the chapter, he moves even closer as part of this discussion on don’t trust in stuff to anxiety. So we’re going to talk for the next five weeks, slow way down and unpack carefully, those final verses of Matthew 6 — what does it mean to rise above anxiety?

Today we’re focusing on “life is more than the stuff we look to.” Next week, “Are you not of more value?” July 7, “Will he not much more clothe you?” July 14, “Your Father knows that you need them all, so seek first his kingdom.” Then July 21, “Tomorrow will be anxious for itself.”

For today, just three things we want to notice about Matthew 6:25 — the master of anxiety, the meaning of anxiety, and the message of anxiety. One at a time.

First, the master of anxiety. Sigmund Freud’s view of anxiety evolved significantly throughout his career, but he gave a series of lectures at the University of Vienna from 1915 to 1917 where he concluded,

“There is no question that the problem of anxiety is a nodal point at which the most various and important questions converge, a riddle whose solution would be bound to throw a flood of light on our whole mental existence.”

In other words, Freud is arguing, if you solve the riddle of anxiety, it’s like opening up these huge picture windows, and a flood of light comes into your mental existence.

Freud did not come close to solving the riddle. Jesus solves it. And it’s so interesting. One of the ways, just one of the significant ways he solves the riddle of anxiety is by linking it with authority. He links authority, which is not the way we would naturally think. He links authority with anxiety.

How does he do that? Look where we ended last week. Matthew 6:24,

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Or God and stuff, possessions. What does that have to do with anxiety? Look at the next statement, 6:25a, where we pick up today.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life …”

He is linking authority with anxiety. Anxiety helps us see who or what we believe is in charge of our life. Who do we worship?

The Apostle Peter does the same thing in 1 Peter 5:6. Peter is writing to suffering Christians, and in 1 Peter 5:6-7 he says, “Humble yourselves—” Think about how crazy that command is. “We’re suffering, Peter. Are you clueless?” You don’t tell suffering people to humble themselves. This is where it’s so counterintuitive because when we experience anxiety, we feel humble because we feel terrible. But you can feel terrible and not be humble. You can feel terrible and be full of resentment, craving control.

What Peter says, if you want to get your arms around anxiety, rise above anxiety, you have to begin “humbling yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God—” He’s going to exalt you at the proper time. “…casting all your anxieties on him—” Why? “…because he cares for you.”

Do you see where Peter goes? Standing in awe of the greatness of God — the mighty hand of God, and the goodness of God — he cares for you — then you’ll give him your anxieties. You’re not going to cast your anxieties before someone whom you do not think is powerful enough or kind enough to care for what you care about. But if we begin by standing in awe of our Creator, our Savior, our Father, and we know he is great, and we know he is good, we will give him our anxieties. If we don’t believe that, we will carry them and they will eventually crush us.

Jesus is starting this series by saying to us, “Settle this question: who is the master?” Who are we serving? Stuff? Country? Family? Our own brains? Our image of what life should be like? Whatever it is, it’s a fake savior, won’t truly save. Jesus calls us to the master of anxiety.

Number two, the meaning of anxiety. He continues.

“Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.”

What does he mean when he says, don’t be anxious? And if I am, is it sin? The Greek verb here is “merimnao,” which simply means to be anxious, to take thought for, to care for. It can be either good or bad, depending on what we do with it. Let me show you some examples.

In 1 Corinthians 12:25-26, Paul explains how God has composed the body of Christ.

“…that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same [merimnao] care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

God has designed the church family for mutual care, mutual anxiety. You can’t be part of a family, a church family, or a mini family without experiencing concern. He’s saying this is a good kind of concern.

Paul desires to send Timothy in Philippians 2:20-21 and he gives the reason.

“For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely [merimnao] concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.”

Here’s where it gets interesting: right after commending Timothy for having a genuine merimnao, two chapters later, Paul writes, “Do not be [merimnao]—” Don’t do it. “Do not be anxious about anything.” Your brain is going, “But you just said, ‘Timothy is someone I can send because he is merimnao.’ What’s the difference?” I think this really helps us understand what anxiety is. It’s similar to anger.

We all know there’s a good kind of anger and a bad kind of anger. A righteous and unrighteous anger. If you can look upon injustice and not feel anger, you’re immoral or dead. We’re going to experience anger but what we do with that anger and how fast we do it will determine whether it’s righteous or unrighteous.

If we go inward with it, mulling it over, planning strategies of revenge— it is bad anger, and it will eat us alive. If we go to God with that anger and then we display that confidence in the ultimate Judge in righteous ways, that anger can be a good anger. Does that make sense? Same thing with anxiety.

When we experience concern for something or someone, that can be a healthy thing. All of us today are going to experience times of anxiety, but what do we do with it? Paul gives an example right here in this verse.

Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with…”

What?

“… thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God.”

There is this vertical tendency that Christians have that turns anxiety into an invitation to pray, to give thanks, to trust God, the Master of anxiety, lest that anxiety turn on us and go bad, if you will.

Let me give you another example, the story of Martha and Mary. Jesus is at their house. Martha gets frustrated that Mary is not helping prepare food. Mary is in the living room listening to Jesus. Luke 10:40,

“But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him [Jesus] and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are [merimnao] anxious and trouble about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

The reason I think this is a helpful example of good and bad anxiety is the fact that Martha was concerned, anxious to care for the people in her home, to make sure there was some good shawarma and hummus to prepare for her guests. Is that a bad thing? There should be a better response than that. Where would we be without Marthas? Starving. It’s a good thing to want to care for your guests. It’s a good thing to want to prepare a good meal. That’s a good thing.

But you can imagine how a good thing went bad. As she’s feeling pressure — maybe the chicken’s not ready, and she thinks the session is almost over, and she keeps out of the corner of her eye, noticing Mary just sitting there listening. “Come on, a little help in here!” The anxiety of not measuring up, not having it all done, maybe it’s not going to be good enough for Jesus, turns into a bad anxiety.

Listen, rule to live by: anytime Jesus is teaching in your living room, shawarma can wait. A good thing can wait. That’s what Jesus meant by “one thing is necessary.” “You’re not going to have me in your living room teaching in this life forever.” Jesus is saying what anxiety does, anxiety blinds us to what we have and gets us focusing on what we’re deficient in. It’s not going to be good enough. We’re not going to have it done in time. Why isn’t everyone helping?

Let’s step back for a moment and get a general definition of anxiety. Anxiety is an unease with an uncertainty, an unease with an uncertainty, often anticipatory. We’re imagining often what is going to go wrong. What might happen if we don’t worry about this? Anxiety is just one of several words that describe a spectrum of emotions, from mild concern to worry to anxiety to fear to full-blown panic.

I was going to, at this point, talk about anxiety disorders, DSM-5 definitions, and that. But I think what might be more helpful is to describe how some people experience anxiety.

This is Ecklund, a woman describing her experience with anxiety. One thing I want you to notice is the body-soul connection. We experience anxiety psychologically and emotionally, but physiologically as well. There are physiological influences and physiological expressions.

Often Christians get into body-soul debates, as if you can divide us up compartmentally. We are body and soul, so everything we experience as a soul in this life, we’re going to experience in our bodies. You’ll hear some of this in this example from Ecklund.

“Anxiety can feel different at different times, even to the same person. The same trigger can cause different symptoms on different days. The most common feeling for me is being trapped inside my head, believing people are talking about me or things are out to get me. My heart races and I can’t stop it, yet on the outside people can’t tell anything is going on. Often I need to stop and sit because I can’t put one foot in front of the other. Anxiety robs me of sleep. I fear closing my eyes because I’m trapped with my thoughts. Other times I sleep to escape my thoughts. Other times anxiety manifests as procrastination. I worry what I do won’t be good enough, so I put things off.”

Debbie describes her experience of anxiety here.

“I experienced overwhelming thoughts of worry, anxiety, and fear — the trifecta of all three — as I worked through the process of writing and launching my first traditionally published book. It began with a thought, then I worried I wasn’t enough. My thoughts raced, then got carried away like a runaway train, turning into fear and anxiety. I was overwhelmed and discouraged, and even though I knew the truth in God’s Word, my feelings threatened to overtake me. It was a full-on assault designed to take me out.”

One of the difficulties in understanding the meaning of anxiety is that it comes in so many different forms. So I want to personify anxiety a little bit here and suggest — these are just a few, there are many more — how anxiety comes to us.

Anxiety can come as a concerned parent trying to protect. So we’re personifying anxiety as a concerned parent. This is usually the milder form of anxiety where we simply feel weighed down with concern.

Anxiety can also come as an impatient customer trying to push. Imagine yourself standing in line. Someone’s waiting behind you. You’re trying to get to the counter, and there’s someone breathing down your neck. You have this feeling, if you don’t stay close to the person in front of you, they’re just going to swoop in front of you and cut you off. I know for me, that’s when I experience anxiety. It is that sense of pressure, pushing, “give me some life space.”

Third, anxiety can come as a false prophet trying to predict. This is probably one of, or if not, the most common personification of anxiety. Anxiety stands in its pulpit and preaches “what if” sermons.

Number four, anxiety can come as a stern judge trying to decree. Anxiety loves to issue verdicts based on hearsay and partial evidence. “You’re a failure. You’ve ruined everything.”

Anxiety can come, number five, as a frustrated tyrant trying to control. Anxiety loves to pretend it’s in charge.

Then number six, anxiety can come as a destructive mob trying to take over. This is where anxiety goes all out. I have not seen the movie yet, but I have heard that Inside Out 2 does a great job portraying an anxiety attack. In this scene, anxiety kicks all the other emotions out, takes over Riley’s control center, and you get this sense that we no longer have control. This would be a great picture of an anxiety attack.

One more: anxiety can come as a new student trying to be enough. Imagine you’re going to a new school. You don’t know anyone in this school and you’re wondering, “Am I going to fit in? Am I going to be able to keep up? Am I going to make this team or be accepted in this club?” That feeling.

I was talking to a pastor friend of mine this week who described this feeling going into conversations. Often wondering, “Am I going to know enough or respond rightly? Or am I going to be exposed as a fake pastor?” The meaning of anxiety.

Number three, the message of anxiety. Anxiety typically preaches a message of scarcity. You’ll see it in Matthew 6:25.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

The false prophet of anxiety loves to preach sermons on scarcity. What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? What are we going to wear? Each of those questions implies you’re not going to have enough. You’re not going to be enough. You’re not going to look good enough.

Notice how Jesus responds.

“Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

Jesus keeps using this word “more.” Why? Because he’s countering anxiety’s sermon on scarcity. Anxiety blinds us to abundance. We can’t see it. We can’t see who God is in his abundance. We can’t see what God has given us. All we can see is what we lack, what we’re deficient in, what we don’t have and want to have. Our Father’s abundance calls us to rise above anxiety’s deficiencies.

Anne Steele knew this well. Anne was born in 1717. Her father pastored the Baptist Church in Broughton, England. Anne experienced numerous difficulties which gave anxiety plenty of opportunities to preach its message on scarcity.

Her mother died when she was three. She contracted malaria when she was 14. She would suffer lifelong recurrences of anemia, fevers, weakness, etc. She went to boarding school when she was 16. She was thrown from a horse and seriously injured when she was 18. Her fiancé drowned the day before their wedding when she was 21. I could go on.

But Anne lived a joyful, fruitful life. She loved worshiping in her father’s church. She wrote poems and hymns that were eventually published. Some have called her the “Mother of the English Hymn.” Let me just give you one example entitled, “When I Survey Life’s Varied Scene.”

Here she’s describing the happy times and the hard times. She writes ten verses (classic old hymn), and in classic modern fashion, I’m only going to give a few. Here we go.

“Lord, teach me to adore thy hand,
From whence my comforts flow;
And let me in this desert land
A glimpse of Canaan know.”

I love that for a couple of reasons. One is, I love the “teach me.” Some of us think we should learn this immediately and automatically. It is not the way it works. Teach me today, tomorrow, 10 years from now, 20 years, 30 years. I’m in this school of learning to adore thy hand. That’s the master question she’s getting at. Can I adore your hand, in this case, when you provide comforts? She goes on,

“Is health and ease my happy share?
O may I bless my God;
Thy kindness let my songs declare,
And spread thy praise abroad.”

In other words, when things are going well, help me to see this as a platform of praise! But when sickness and sorrow come…

“When present suff’rings pain my heart, Or future terrors rise —”

What’s that? That’s anxiety. Unease with uncertainty about what is coming in the future.

“And light and hope almost depart
From these dejected eyes,

Thy pow’rful word supports my hope,
Sweet cordial of the mind!
And bears my fainting spirit up,
And bids me wait resign’d.”

What’s a cordial? In that day, it was a sweet medicinal drink. So she is saying, “Your powerful word is a sweet medicinal drink.”

“And O, whate’er of earthly bliss
Thy sovereign hand denies,
Accepted at thy throne of grace,
Let this petition rise:”

Pause for a second. Here she talked about God’s sovereign hand providing comforts, and here she talks about God’s sovereign hand restraining, withholding comforts. Can I trust him in both cases?

What is her petition? I believe this is all of our prayers for this series.

“Give me a calm, a thankful heart,
From ev’ry murmur free;
The blessings of thy grace impart,
And let me live to thee.”

Not to status, not to stuff, not to my feelings, not to my circumstances. Not going to worship you when things are going well and curse you when things don’t go the way I anticipate. This is what Jesus is calling us to. Let’s pray.

Father, we are asking for calm and thankful hearts. Even right now, with all that we have surging in our minds, our families, our loved ones, friends, keep breaking our bondage to status and stuff. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man or money. You are the master of anxiety, your greatness and your goodness. We can put all of our eggs in that basket.

Teach us to adore your hand in the middle of hardship and in the middle of prosperity. Open our eyes to the worth, the wealth of your grace. We pray that your Spirit right now would be pouring out grace right now to help in time of need. Thank you. Thank you for speaking to us. Thank you for ministering to us. Continue this work now. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.