The Struggle is Real: Fear & Anxiety
Chandler Young
- FEAR
- The threat of harm, real or imagined
- ANXIETY
- Feelings of tension, worried thoughts, rapid heart rate
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
2 TIMOTHY 1:7- Faith in Christ is the antidote to fear and anxiety.
- Faith is trusting that God is able — and even if He doesn’t, He is still good.
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
MATTHEW 6:19–21Faith and dependence are united in God’s economy.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
MATTHEW 6:22–23What you look at matters.
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.”
MATTHEW 6:24When we are double-minded, it is as if our whole body is full of darkness. We try to live for two masters at the same time, and it puts a dark shadow over everything in our life.
Fear and anxiety are bred in the darkness of living double-minded.
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?”
MATTHEW 6:25These three inquiries engross the whole attention of those who are living without God in the world. The belly and back of a worldling are his compound god; and these he worships in the lust of the flesh, in the lust of the eye, and in the pride of life.
— ADAM CLARKE
16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.
1 JOHN 2:1626 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 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?
MATTHEW 6:26–3031 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
MATTHEW 6:31–32If you have faith to believe that He is good, that He is God, that He is in control, then you can trust that He already knows exactly what you need.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
MATTHEW 6:33–34Replace your worry with a concern for the Kingdom of God.
- What has your heart?
- What are you looking to? What are you seeking?
- Do you trust that Jesus is the King? Is Jesus the King of your life?