Welcome to the Food for Your Soul podcast, where we apply the Word of God to the hearts of men and women to stoke the fires of your delight in Christ. Here is D. Richard Ferguson teaching on anxiety and the peace of God. So far we've looked ended purpose for anxiety. The way it's supposed to work, the way he designed it to work, a crisis arises, anxiety forces you to deal with the crisis, you deal with it, you take action, and then the anxiety subsides. That's how it's supposed to work, that's the normal process, that's good anxiety. Now the whole rest of this study, we're gonna focus on bad anxiety. And mainly we're gonna look at the causes, and the cures. Once you identify the right spiritual cause for your anxiety, and then you find the corresponding remedy, you will see immediate results. You'll be amazed how good this works, how effective it is when you apply the right cure for the right cause. Now, there's also some anxiety that's caused by physical problems, like hormonal changes or problems in the nervous system or brain or whatever, and we'll examine that as well. But before we delve into the causes and the cures, for tonight it's important to put some protections in place. Because all anxiety, including good anxiety, burns like a fire in your soul and in your body. And it will burn you out from the inside if you're not filled with a fireproof substance called the peace of God. Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7 says, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So the way to fireproof your heart This thing that's going to protect both your heart and your mind from the ravages of both good and bad anxiety is the peace of God. And when it says peace of God, that's not just peace from God. It's the very peace that God Himself experiences in His own being. God's peace. God is at peace. Now, God cares deeply about important things, and even to the point where He's emotional about them, but He's not flustered. He's not worried. He has perfect peace. And when you pray the way that this passage prescribes, you're going to enjoy that same peace. And it says it's transcends understanding. It's beyond the reach of human thinking. You cannot talk yourself into this kind of peace. You cannot get it through therapy, or reasoning, or optimism, or medication, or reading books, or any of that. Peace beyond understanding. And that's really quite a claim, if you think about it, because we can understand a lot, right? I mean, we can understand the sense of security that comes from a huge retirement that is way more money than you'll ever need. We can understand job security. We can understand health insurance, lifetime warranties, deadbolt locks, police, strong military. We can understand dozing in a hammock on the beach in a breathtaking paradise somewhere, you know. We can understand a lot, but God promises a peace that transcends any of that. It's bigger than anything we can even comprehend. And when Paul wrote this verse, I think he might have had Jesus' words in mind when he talks about transcendent peace that is beyond understanding. He might have been thinking about John 14, 27, which says, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not be afraid. Saying the same thing, right? He says, I don't give you the kind of peace the world gives you. This is different, it transcends understanding. All the world's protections have limits. No matter how safe they are, your 401k will give you peace of mind until the stock market crashes, and then it'll give you anxiety, right? A parent job security will give you peace until they lay you off. You can have a Cadillac health plan, everything else all lined up, but that's not gonna calm your heart when some family member comes to you and says, I hate you, get out of my life. Nothing in this world can give you peace in those times when you actually need it the most, right? Which is when everything falls apart and your whole world crumbles. Everything that's stable in life crumbles under your feet. There's nothing in this world that can give you peace then. But this, God's peace, will. even then. Psalm 46.1 says, God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging. Even in the most extreme imaginable calamity, when everything you've counted on dissolves just beneath your feet, and there's no stability in your life left, Even then, the peace of God will quiet that internal chaos and give you an ordered, divine calm. Just listen to some of the promises that God makes about our anxieties. Let these just kind of wash over your soul. He offers to make us lie down in green pastures and lead us beside quiet waters. When anxieties within us are many, His comforts delight our souls, Psalm 94. Isaiah 26, with a mind set on Him, He will keep you in perfect peace. 1 Peter 5, He invites us to cast our cares on Him so He can carry them for us. And when his disciples were distressed at the news he was going away, that's when he said, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Well over a hundred times in the Bible, God assures us we don't have to be afraid. And usually it's followed by some form of, because I'm with you. Now, I should point out this amazing peace is not offered to everyone. It's only available to those who are in Christ. That's what he says, Philippians 4, 7. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So that phrase, in Christ, is Paul's shorthand for a believer. That's what he when he wants to talk about people who are intimately connected with Christ because they place their faith in Him, they follow Him because they trust Him more than they trust themselves. That's what a Christian is. And, of course, following Him always begins with repentance, turning from sin to embrace God's will. People who have done that are who get this promise. No promises are made to people who are not in Christ. Now, people who are not in Christ, unbelievers, they can have some peace, but not this peace, the peace of God. So if there's a question mark on whether you have placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and all your sins are forgiven, that needs to be taken care of. Anxiety is the least of your worries at that point. You actually should have anxiety. You're on a sinking ship. That's not the time to reduce your anxiety. If you don't know the Lord personally, then let your anxiety drive you to take the most important action you can ever take, bow the knee to Jesus Christ, enter into a relationship of trust with Him, who is the only one who can ever give you real peace. But maybe you hear all that and you say, well, I am a believer. I've been a Christian for years. I pray for peace every single day. Why don't I have this transcendent, amazing peace that's promised? The peace is only for Christians, but it doesn't automatically come just because you're a Christian. It comes through prayer, and not just any prayer. This is a peace that comes when we follow the model of praying that's laid out for us here in Philippians 4. And it has to be that model. The wrong kind of prayer only makes anxiety worse. If your prayer for example, is just a repetition of the anxious thoughts that got you worked up in the first place. You know, fixing all your attention on your problems, rather than on God, that's not gonna do anything. All that's gonna do is throw more gasoline on the fires of your anxiety. Oh God, I've got this problem, and I've got this problem, and I've got that problem, and this is wrong, and that's wrong, and that's bad, and this is bad. And by the time you're done, your problems seem bigger than ever, and God is the last thing on your mind. even though you're supposedly praying. The same thing is true of praying with wrong attitudes. That will also make your anxiety worse. For example, supposing your anxiety is caused by an attitude that says, this thing that I want, I gotta have that or I can't be happy. and it doesn't matter what, you can fill in the blank. It could be, I gotta have this relationship, I gotta have this circumstance in my life, I gotta have that job, I gotta have this, I gotta have good health, I gotta have at least, I gotta have it, or I can't be happy, anything in this world, any attitude like that, where there's some earthly circumstance you have to have in order to be happy in life, is gonna cause you anxiety when you pray, because as soon as you pray, you realize God might say no to the prayer. You might not get this thing. Or if you already have it, there's always a possibility you might lose it. And so you're going to have constant anxiety. And when you bring that attitude, that I-can't-be-happy-without-this-thing attitude into prayer with you so that you feel like happiness is impossible, if God doesn't say yes, then your prayer is only going to make anxiety worse because God might say no. And it's not just that He might say no. He will say no. It's more like a certainty. That attitude that says, I've got to have this, or I can't be happy. God, you're not enough. I have to have you in this. That's the very thing that makes God say no to prayers. That's James 4, 3, and 4. Because he's not going to assist us in our love for the world. He calls it adultery in that passage. So that kind of prayer will make anxiety worse. And one other reason why this kind of praying aggravates anxiety, is it rises from a false conception of God. This kind of prayer casts God in the role of a servant, a cosmic bellhop. Now, do bellhops bring you peace? Only when they do what you want and make your life easier, right? Bellhops with a plan of their own are just an irritation. And so if you think of God as a bellhop, you're going to be aggravated. Most people will pray when they're in trouble. Almost everybody gets into a foxhole. They're going to pray. If they get in enough trouble, they'll pray and ask God for help. But in most cases, the goal is to use God, not to seek him. They have a solution in mind. It's like, I've got this trouble. This is the solution. This is what I need. They ask God for it. If it doesn't happen, if I don't get this solution and all I have is just God, I'm not going to be happy. That's not going to be enough. So, what are the ingredients of the good kind of prayer, the kind that will bring this transcendent peace of God? Well, Paul's going to lay that out for us. He's going to show us the elements of it in Philippians 4.6. But before he does that, there's something we need to see in verse 5. Because in verse 5, Philippians 4, 5, he lays the foundation for this kind of prayer. And this foundation is critical, but it's easy to miss because we can get distracted by the verse divisions. So, what does he say right at the end of verse 5? The Lord is near. Now, Because of the way the verses are divided up, we tend to think of that as going with verse 5, going with what came before, instead of going with what comes after. But verse divisions, those weren't in the original. You should try to ignore those as much as you possibly can. They're not part of Scripture. And sometimes they can be confusing. I believe The Lord is near goes with what follows. So it's starting that new section. What he's saying is, the Lord is near, don't be anxious about anything. The Lord is near, don't be anxious about anything. And this is the foundation for the prayer that he's about to lay out, this formula for prayer that he's about to lay out. The peace of God only comes through the presence of God. And if you don't start with that starting point, then prayer isn't even going to be prayer. The peace of God only comes through the presence of God. And seeking that presence is going to be the starting point for all true prayer. Now, a refresher. I know you've heard me talk about this a lot, but just as a refresher to make sure we're on the same page here. What is the presence of God? Why does the Bible speak of God being near? Like this verse, the Lord is near. Why does the Bible say the Lord is near? Or sometimes it says he's far away. How can God be near or far when God exists everywhere? Well, it's because the existence of God and the nearness of God are not the same thing. He does exist everywhere, but God's nearness or His presence refers to Him, His favorable attention. And God does not turn His favorable attention to every place. The Old Testament word translated presence doesn't mean existence. It means, it's actually just the normal Hebrew word for face. Just the regular word for face. When it says God is present, that means God turns his face toward you. And when God turns his face toward you, that means he's turning his favor toward you and drawing near you relationally. If he turns his face away from you, that means he's withdrawing relationally and becoming more distant. Less accessible. God exists everywhere, but he doesn't turn his favorable attention everywhere. He's not accessible everywhere. So where does he turn his attention? To us, to us. To whom is God accessible? To his children. to His children. When Paul says the Lord is near, that means when we as His children, people who are believers in Christ, are in trouble, God is near. He will come alongside us to provide us strength and comfort and enablement and encouragement. And knowing that is the foundation of prayer. We could go on and on. You know that I can do sermon series after sermon series on this topic. We did Loving God with All Your Heart sermon series. If you want a refresher, you can go through that sermon series. The Daily Devotional, Deeper Knowledge of God covers all that. But now we'll move on. The foundation. So that's the foundation. The foundation of God's nearness is crucial because it reminds us that the remedy for anxiety is something that no earthly thing can give you, no drug can ever give you, no treatment can ever give you, because it's personal. It's personal comfort. In 2 Corinthians 1, 3, and 4, the Lord is called the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles. And that word translated comfort literally means to approach, or to be near the person. When God comforts you, He does it by drawing near. That's how he comforts a person, is by drawing near. And for most dangers and troubles that we're in, isn't it usually a personal remedy that we want more than anything? Like a frightened child runs to where? Mom and Dad, right? If you're lost in the woods, A map would be nice, but really, what's way better is some person comes and just rescues you. Some person shows up, say, let me show you the way out of here. If someone threatens to hurt you, well, if you have a defensive weapon, okay, that's better than nothing, but ideally, you just want someone really big, way bigger than this threat, who can just take care of them, you know, for you. When my son Josiah was driving a safety patrol truck, he stopped on a vehicle on the left shoulder of the interstate. It was a teenage driver who was just terrified, so terrified she could hardly speak when he came up to her window. She was out of gas, stranded, left shoulder, cars whizzing by 90 miles an hour, couldn't go anywhere, it was freezing cold, she was trapped and she's all alone, didn't have a phone. Josiah rolls up, he turns on all his lights, comes up, talks to her, and he assured her, he says, I won't leave you until we get you to a safe spot and you're okay. As soon as he said that, she just started sobbing with tears of relief. Now, she didn't know Josiah from Adam, right? I mean, for all she knew, he was terrible at his job and couldn't help her at all, but he was just someone who was there, right? And that assurance, I won't leave you, was all she needed. is I won't be alone, and she was comforted. There's something about personal comfort that we need in times of anxiety. The world offers pills and practices and therapy. God reminds us of his nearness, and he gives us a personal solution. Psalm 94, 19, when anxieties within me are many, your comforts delight my soul. Now turn to Psalm 91 in your Bible, because I think this is worth looking at. I know we're hopscotching all over the place, but I'd like you to see this in Psalm 91, verses 9 and 10. Because he makes an amazing promise here, and it's beautiful, but there's a condition on it. Psalm 91.9, he says, If you make the Most High your dwelling, then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. If you make the most high your dwelling, the word dwelling means home, the place where you live. Now, just think about the concept of home for a minute. Isn't that a beautiful concept? Can you think of the last time when you uttered the words, I can't wait to get home? Why did you say that? Why is your desire for home so strong? Well, it's a place of rest, comfort, safety, familiarity. You just feel comfortable. You know where everything is. It's where all your stuff is, right? Everything you need, it's there in your home. And you don't always want to be there. I mean, it's good to venture out, right? You venture out, you go to work, you go on a vacation, you go travel the world. When you're done with your adventure, you always set out on your adventure from somewhere, right? And when you're done with it, you want to come back home. Is there any more comforting word in the English language than home? And this Psalm, Psalm 91, promises that God will take care of us if we make Him our home, our dwelling. So the idea is God is that home base for you. He's your place of comfort and refuge and safety. When you need comfort and rest and resupply, or you just need to get regrounded in a place of familiarity, you go to Him. You run to Him. That's the highest goal of prayer. The goal of prayer is not to get through your list so that you can tell people at church, I prayed for you. I always think of that. There's this one comic I saw once. This guy's walking up in church, and he thinks, oh, here comes Bob. The guy's name is Bob in the comic. He's like, God bless Bob. And then he's like, Bob, been praying for you. You know, sometimes we do that. We're just like trying to get through our list just so we can say we've prayed for all this stuff. That's not the goal of prayer. The starting place of prayer is to go home. to go home. Make the Lord your dwelling. Do that, and you will have no reason for anxiety, because the Most High will protect you from harm. Now look over to Psalm 121, which is kind of parallel to Psalm 91. And we need to think this through, because when He says He will protect you from harm if you make Him your home, does that mean you're exempt from trouble? You're not going to have any trouble? It kind of sounds like it at first, but the answer has to be no, because Psalm 121, which is a whole psalm on that point, a whole psalm is just based on the promise of God's watch care, and that psalm begins with trouble. Verse 1, I lift my eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He's looking for help. He's in trouble. And that word help means rescuer, right? It's like, he's in a lot of trouble. And so he's looking up to the mountains, which is the place of supernatural help. That's what the mountains mean. And he's saying, I want help. And what does that help look like? Verse three. He will not let your foot slip. He who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm. He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore." Notice how many times he says that phrase, watch over? Six times in the space of six verses. Watch over, and it's such a beautiful concept. I looked up that word. The Hebrew word appears for the first time in Genesis 2.15, where it's used to describe Adam's responsibility in tending the garden. The word tend, that's this word, watch over. So it's the idea of tending. And then it's used again in Genesis 4 and 9 where Cain asks, am I my brother's keeper? And it's the noun form of the same word. Do I have to watch over him? Am I his guardian, his protector, his caregiver? Am I supposed to keep track of my brother and watch over him every moment? That's what he's saying when God asks, where's your brother? But he uses this word, so it gives us an idea of what the word means. So you can see it's a really rich concept. To translate this word, just protect, is a little flat. I think that's inadequate. Because you can protect someone without really caring about the person's well-being. It's just your job to protect them. This word is a combination of protecting and cherishing. I think the best translation would be watch-care. Watch-care. Because you care about the person. So six times in six verses, God promises his watch care. And that's what we need to be free from anxiety. To be free from anxiety, you don't need a promise that, oh, you'll never have any trouble. You don't need a promise, oh, your problems will all be solved. You don't even need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. You only need a caretaker who will watch over you. You don't know what the future holds. It might hold a whole lot of hardship. In fact, it most certainly does hold a whole lot of hardship. But if you make the Lord your home, then when that hardship comes, God will be your protector, your guardian, your keeper, who watches over you, cherishes you, and takes care of you. You're gonna suffer hardship? Of course you will. John 16, 33, in this world, you will have trouble. But who will separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble? or hardship? No. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, or any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That thing you're so stressed out about? You don't have to be afraid of that. You don't have to be afraid. Whatever it is, it cannot separate you from the love of your caretaker. And this love is better than life at its best. So that means that even if the worst case scenario happens in your life, you're still going to have access to a happy life. You're never going to be sentenced to a miserable existence. You don't have to worry about that. As long as you make the Lord your home, you'll have access to joy. Psalm 46, verse 1, God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear. Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging, there is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. the presence of God. Godliness training exercises. Number one, keep reviewing your verses in Matthew 6, but instead of going to the next verse in Matthew 6 for today, pick something that has to do with God's presence in times of trouble. So you could use one of the passages that we talked about in this session, Psalm 46, 1-3, the 23rd Psalm, verses 2-4, Psalm 139, 7-12, Psalm 91 verses 9 and 10. Psalm 121, the whole eight verses is fantastic. Psalm 46, one to four. Romans 8, 35 to 39, nothing can separate us from His love. Or Matthew 24, three. I'll be with you even to the end of the age. Just pick one of those. Pick one verse, pick a whole set, whatever. Just look through those. Find the one that you think is most likely to be the verse that will calm your heart in times of the anxiety that you struggle with. So look through those, take a little time, look through those, maybe find another verse if none of those are quite right. Find one that's like, this is what I need to remind myself specifically of God's presence, God's calming, reassuring presence. So that's number one. Number two, God designed your brain so that the anxiety centers can override your rational brain. That's on purpose. God gave you that as a gift, on purpose. That's for emergencies. You're in your car, you're driving along, you're relaxed, you're talking to your friend, all of a sudden, in your ear comes the sound of squealing tires and something in your peripheral vision, and your subconscious throws your brain and your whole body, your nervous system, everything into the state of readiness, and your muscles tense up, your heart rate speeds up instantly, your breathing gets real shallow and real fast. Everything you need for a quick response You're gripping the wheel, you stop talking, and your foot is on the brake that fast. All of that happens before you even have any idea what's going on. You don't even know what's happening. Your conscious mind only figures it out a split second later. God designed us this way for quick response in emergencies. That information goes into your ears and it goes to the amygdala before it gets to the cortex. And that's super good for emergencies, but it can be a problem. So when that happens, what happens is your emotional brain says, I'm taking over, and your conscious brain just like has to stand aside for a second. Your emotional brain can override your conscious thinking. But that can be a problem when it's time for your conscious brain to regain executive control and start regulating those emotions. The higher your anxiety level, the more difficult it is to think clearly. You just can't think. But you need clarity of thought to recover from the anxiety after the crisis is over. So to prepare for this, here's the second godliness training exercise for this time. Write a note to yourself. Write yourself a little letter. and make it a letter from calm you to freaked out you. From calm you to anxious you, you're writing a letter. And what you're doing in this letter is just simply reminding yourself of the principles from this session about the presence of God. The principles, especially those ones that you really need to remember the next time that you're all worked up. These are principles that, right now, they just seem the most obvious thing in the world. They're super easy to call to mind. They're super easy to remember. But in the turmoil of anxiety, they're going to be next to impossible to recall. We all know what this is like, right? Simple stuff that you know now, but when you're all worked up, you just don't come to mind. So keep that letter, keep it in a place that you can grab it the next time bad anxiety is starting to, you first feel it coming on. Earlier you hit it, the better. So you first start feeling, oh yeah, I'm starting to get worked up. Oh, where's that letter? Where's that letter? Okay? So a letter from calm you to anxious you, reminding you of the main principles you need to remember in those moments. Okay, number three. Those principles that you wrote down in that letter, share those with at least one other person. Communicate them. So you can do it in a casual conversation. You're just talking to somebody and you say, hey, you know what? I've got to tell you something I've been learning. I'm kind of excited about this. Here's something I was reminded of the other day. And just tell them. Just verbalize it. you don't have an opportunity for that, send somebody an email. Just pick somebody, send them an encouraging email. Maybe your pastor, you know, or someone you don't, a family member, whatever. Whatever opportunity you can have to put these principles into words, your own words. Explain them. Abstract ideas become much more solidified in your mind and in your memory. when you put them into words. And the process of putting them into words also has an effect on your amygdala, on your whole subconscious mind. That converting ideas into words, it communicates things to your whole brain. So, very important principle. And it's especially good if when you communicate this to someone it turns into an extended conversation. Then it really helps. Alright, that's number three. Number four, last one. Be alert to the next little anxiety that arises in your life over the next 24 hours. And practice calming your soul. calming your spirit by enjoying God's nearness, God's presence. Now this is for practice. You're trying to build a skill here for when you need to be better at it. You want to make sure this is a success. So start with something really easy, really small. Very small irritation, something you can handle. You don't start getting in shape by trying to climb Mount Everest, so don't use this on your biggest, baddest problem, biggest, worst problem. Watch for some very minor, little anxiety to arise in you, and get a win by soothing your soul and your spirit with promises God has made, I will be with you. Thanks for listening. These sessions have been so popular that Richard is publishing them in a book titled, Anxiety and the Peace of God, Six Biblical Cures for Worry, Stress, and Inner Turmoil. If you're enjoying the class, you'll definitely want to grab your copy of the book because the book has much more material than the class. You can find all of Dr. Ferguson's books at drichardferguson.com. And if you believe the book would help others, we're asking that you please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Just a sentence or two is plenty—anything that will help people decide if the book might be for them. The more reviews, the more Amazon will show people the book. So thanks ahead of time for your review. We pray these principles from the Word of God are helping you find the peace of God as you draw nearer to the God of peace. Until next time, may the Lord make His face shine upon you and give you peace.