Why You Can Overcome Fear and Anxiety In a World Gone Crazy

In today’s podcast, we take a broad look at the subject of anxiety, a symptom that’s on the rise in a mighty way in some as they struggle in uncertain times. In the book ‘Streams in the Desert,’ Mrs. Lettie B. Cowman tells of a minister who was heavily burdened under a load of anxiety and care. After carrying this weight for quite some time, he one day imagined that he could place his burden on the ground and stand back a step or two. Then he could look at it and analyze it. When he did that, he discovered that weight was made up almost entirely of borrowed things. A good portion of it belonged to tomorrow. An even larger amount of it belonged to the week to come. And a sizable percentage was a carryover from his yesterdays or his past. The author of this book indicates that this pastor was guilty of “a very stupid but very ancient blunder.” He had made the mistake of burdening himself in the “now” with things that belonged to “yesterday and tomorrow.”¹. Did you know that there is money to be made in making people nervous? Journalist Eric Sevareid (1912–1992) said, “The biggest business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement, and distribution of anxiety.” ². There is money in making people anxious. So in today’s podcast, we will address this issue as we continue on in our study on First Thessalonians. Why You Can Overcome Fear and Anxiety In a World Gone Crazy — that’s our focus on this week’s Light on Life.

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The Value of Casting Your Care on the Lord

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Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put it into operation.
This week’s call is:

Casting your care upon the Lord is a God directive straight to your heart. It’s a show of humility and an expression of your faith in God’s ability to see you through.

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Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11). Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony.
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Question: How has getting rid of anxiety been a blessing in your life? Share an example from your life where God delivered you because you were obedient.

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We are currently teaching in the book of First Thessalonians. You can click on the links below to listen to some of these podcasts.

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 45 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. He and his wife Sharon of 40 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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Podcast Notes

Overcoming Fear: An Apostle Expresses Himself

1 Thessalonians 3:5–7 (ESV) — 5 For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. 6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— 7 for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith.

Paul was in a strait.
He was concerned and anxious concerning the state of the Thessalonians believers.
Did you notice what Paul said?

I sent to learn about your faith, for fear…

It’s subtle — but Paul was operating in fear.
He was afraid that his work would go down the drain.
From what we see in God’s Word, what was the right thing to do?
The right thing for Paul was to trust God with the results of his ministry.
When he could stand it no longer, and was unable to come personally, he sends his own son in the faith, Timothy.
Timothy, wearing his gospel shoes of peace, comes among the Thessalonians with a singular purpose.
He’s prepared to establish and exhort them in their faith.
This is a fact that we saw in a previous podcast.
When Timothy arrived, he found the Thessalonians in much better shape than Paul anticipated.
He found believers walking in faith despite the challenges to their faith.
The Thessalonians were operating in the love of God, not succumbing to bitterness from all of the afflictions they experienced.
Things were going well spiritually for these brand-new believers.
They had questions of course — all new Jesus followers do and can I tell you? — old Jesus’ followers should have them as well.
Questions are the path to growth and development.
If you don’t know the answer, ask.

Matthew 7:7–8 (ESV) — 7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Overcoming Anxiety: Part of Paul’s Distress

Paul used a couple of other words besides ‘fear’ to describe where he was at this point in his ministry.

for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith.

Paul uses the word ‘distress.’
We don’t know what was the cause of Paul’s distress.
It’s not in evidence.
But, the word distress itself gives us a clue, and, with that thought, here is the Definition of the Day.
The Greek word ‘distress’ means pressure.
Paul was operating under distress or pressure.
Distress is extreme anxiety, sorrow, or grief.
Paul’s emotions were in the fray.
Fear, distress, anxiety, sorrow, grief — these are words of the soul.
The soul is the mind, the will, and the emotions.
Paul’s mind was burdened.
It was weighed down and under pressure concerning the state of the believers, he is trying to communicate with.
Thoughts were whizzing through Paul’s mind.
One gentleman said that ‘anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other’s thoughts are drained.³
That’s a good description of anxiety – it grooves out your mind so that all other thoughts get trapped in that channel.
Some of us have a Grand Canyon groove notched out in our thinking.
So, Paul thought that maybe the Thessalonians were struggling because Paul had been forced to leave them.

1 Thessalonians 2:17 (ESV) — But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face,

The Greek word ‘torn away’ means to be orphaned.
Acts seventeen gives us the scoop of what happened between Paul and the Thessalonians.
Verse five of Acts seventeen says the Jews became jealous of Paul and took some wicked men and formed a mob, setting the city in an uproar.
The brothers responded immediately by sending Paul and Silas away by night to Berea.
The Thessalonian believers were ‘orphaned.’
Their spiritual dad was forced to leave town.
Paul wanted to correct this and come back to town but, he couldn’t get there.
Satan hindered him in one way and another.
This ripping away combined with the constant hinderances weighed on Paul like a cannonball on a mosquito.
You know how the mind can be.
You’re wondering — you are all the over the place in your meditations.
You’re creating stuff in your head — you get it all in a churn.
Your head gets tight. Good night
Did the Thessalonians even want to see Paul?
Did they get mad and go back to their formerly lives of sin and separation from God?
These thoughts nagged at this giant Apostle to the Gentiles.
When Timothy arrived, he finds that the Thessalonians were not mad after all.
They greatly wanted to see Paul.
And, were walking with God.
Well, that news made Paul ecstatic.
That eased his worries.
We know that Paul was caught up with anxiety in some of the other letters Paul wrote where he outright told us so.
In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul shared this.

2 Corinthians 11:28 (ESV) — 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

Paul’s anxiety was pressure cooking his mind.

Overcoming Anxiety: Word Pictures and Definitions

You remember that we just covered that the Greek word ‘distress’ means pressure.
What about the word anxiety?
What does it mean in the original language?
The Greek word anxiety means worry or having the feeling of concern.
Louw Nida is a Greek lexicon based on semantic domains.
A semantic domain is a range of meanings of a word.
For example, the word run ‘can mean the activity of a sprinter or a track and field athlete — running is the opposite of walking.
Or, semantically running can be used to mean that ‘I’m running a business or, ‘I turned my car on and I am running it for a while so that I can charge my battery.’
So, you see the word ‘run’ has a range of meanings.
Louw Nida says that the word anxiety means a feeling of apprehension or distress in view of possible danger or misfortune—‘anxiety, worry, anxious concern.
Now add to this recipe the pressure part, the mind being cooked with concern.
And what you have is a total definition of what it means to worry.
It doesn’t matter whether the thing your mind is locked on is an unnecessary worry or if it’s a legitimate concern.
Legitimate or not, we are instructed in God’s Word not to worry.
Did you know that translating the word worry into other people’s languages yields some interesting pictures?
You know words are pictures.
We communicate in pictures, not alphabetic letters.
For example, close your eyes and think of a bird.
Think of a big bird.
Think of a big mean bird.
What do you see?
When you try to communicate the word worry so people can see it, some languages translate the word worry as ‘to be killed by one’s mind’ or ‘to be pained by thinking.’
Man, if that’s not an eye-opening word picture for worry – to have pain in the mind because of one’s thinking.

Overcoming Anxiety: A Matter of Choice

Worry and anxiety are self-inflicted pain according to the Bible.
It’s self-inflicted because worry is a choice.
We know that’s so because the Lord told us in many places not to engage in the practice of worrying.
Jesus weighed in on this very point.

Matthew 6:25–34 (ESV) — 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? 26 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? 31 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. 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.

Over and over again Jesus says, don’t be anxious — don’t worry.
We need to take these words to heart and agree with what Jesus said.
He told us not to have anxiety about everyday essentials.
Jesus told us to confine our meditations to the present – the twenty-four-hour period.
Do not be anxious about tomorrow.
Tomorrow has its own challenges.
The day we are living in today has its own challenges.
Don’t interject pain into your mind thinking about what the crooks in Washington are going to do tomorrow.
And, with that thought, here is the Illustration of the Day.

Did you know that an average person’s anxiety is focused on : • 40% – things that will never happen • 30% – things about the past that can’t be changed • 12% – things about criticism by others, mostly untrue • 10% – about health, which gets worse with stress • 8% – about real problems that will be faced⁴.

92% of what people attempt to be anxious about is nothing at all — fairy tales – what if’s, what could be’s — it’s all nothing.
Paul echoed these words to the Philippians.

Philippians 4:6–7 (ESV) — 6 do not be anxious about anything,

Not even eight percent of problems are real.
What does anything mean?
It means just what it says — anything.

but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I don’t know if you know that people will get mad at you when you tell them not to worry or be anxious.
A gentleman at work took great exception to me saying that worry is a sin.
He got upset when I told him not to worry about his kids.
The problem is that people equate worry with showing love.
That’s wrong thinking.
Worry isn’t love — it’s unbelief.
And, unbelief, all it does is put you further in the hole.
Worry is not trusting God to take care of your child’s health and welfare.
It’s not trusting God to take care of your finances, your body, or your future.
Again, this is a tough mindset lodged in the souls of world-class worriers: if you really love somebody you will worry about them.
No, if you really love somebody, you’ll believe God for them.
If you really love somebody, you’ll connect them to the answer.
If you really love somebody, you’ll connect them to the Word — you’ll connect them to the power of eternal life!
If you really love somebody, you will do everything you can to bring them into contact with the anointing of the living God.
He’s the only one who can actually do something permanent about your situation.
He’s the only one whose solutions go to the root of the problem without side effects.
Hello somebody.
I get tickled every time I see one of the new drug commercials that spend half the time talking about the side effects.
The side effects are way worse than the problem.

Overcoming Anxiety: Leave Problem-Solving to the Experts

You are not powerful enough to come up with the solution on your own — stop worrying.
Stop being anxious.
If you could you would come up with the solution through your mental machinery, you would have done it already.
Leave this stuff to the experts.
God’s an expert at annihilating problems and, He will do it in some of the most unimaginably creative ways.
He has had eons of experience and His foreknowledge makes problem-solving a slam dunk.

Isaiah 46:9–10 (ESV) remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

God doesn’t declare the plan from the beginning to the end.
It’s the other way around.
He declares the end from the beginning.
God works from the ending that He already has seen in His foreknowledge and backs up from that point and works the plan.
If we know that God is on duty and working on the problem from the end, then why would we worry, to begin with?
He is already at work.

Isaiah 64:4 (ESV) — 4 From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.

God works if we wait.
Waiting makes people anxious if they are not in faith.

Overcoming Anxiety: Don’t Work with Your Wits

We don’t want to wait and because we don’t, we try to work with our wits.
We believe that if we think about the problem long enough, if he keeps churning the problem, putting mental pressure on it, which is what worry is anyway — it’s mediating the problem — we think that somehow through all this mental minutia the solution is going to pop out of the churn.
But, how many of you have been disappointed that the solution often doesn’t pop out of the churn and all you are left with is a tight head?
The solution to world-class problems will not pop out of your head no matter how much you apply yourself mentally.
The answers are in your spirit.
And, the Holy Spirit works through your spirit, not your head.

Overcoming Anxiety: Lessons from the Psalmist

The psalmist went on to say this.

Psalm 127:2 (ESV) — 2 It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

Did you hear this phrase? — eating the bread of anxious toil?
What’s the Psalmist saying here?
Rising up early and going to bed late means that a person is trying to make the day longer.
They’re trying to squeeze more into the day.
This is a person who is cutting into their sleep trying to get ahead of the troubles or problems they are facing.
And with that thought, here is the Quote of the Day.
This quote comes from the New American Commentary on the Psalms.

The psalmist describes frenetic contemporary life, in which people in their vain search for success take on more work, grasp additional opportunities, and become enslaved to an impossible schedule. Even meals, which are intended to be times of refreshing fellowship, are turned into hurried pit stops “to have enough food,” as they become a hasty continuation of the rat race. The final part of this verse 2 points shows us that while humans are exhausting themselves in their futile attempts, the Lord blesses those he loves. “While people labor long and hard to earn their bread, God gives just as much to those He favors even while they sleep.” The Lord gives to his people by his grace what they never could grasp by their labor taking good care of those whom he loves. As Ross explains, “Those who place their complete trust in the Lord may rest assured that he knows their needs and will provide for them, and that agonizing and laboring in fear and anxiety will not get any more done than what he chooses to give. The life of faith is a life that rests in him; it may be diligent and industrious but it will be free of the restless anxieties.”⁵

Man, that is so good.
Glory be to God!
Does this quote describe a life you may be familiar with in the 21st century?

Overcoming Anxiety: Paul Gathers Himself

So, Paul wrote a letter to the Philippians telling them not to be anxious but he admitted to the Corinthians that he struggled in this area when it came to the welfare of the churches.
Now, when it came to God taking care of him financially, or physically Paul didn’t have pain in his mind.
When it came to supernatural signs, and wonders, needed to convince a Gentile world, Paul did not struggle with anxiety.
He had learned the marvelous truth of casting his care on the Lord.

1 Peter 5:5–7 (ESV) — 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 [ casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

The Greek word casting means literally ‘to cast or to throw cares upon’) to stop worrying and to put one’s trust in someone.⁶
To put one’s cares upon or to leave one’s worries to is another way of defining this.
How about making Him responsible for all your worries?

Psalm 55:21–22 (ESV) — 22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

What does sustain mean?
It’s a verb meaning God is actively doing something.
What is He doing?
He is sustaining you.
Sustain means to supply necessities and support.
The Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains says sustain means to provide, supply, i.e., give sustenance necessary for physical survival such as food and water, and possibly other kinds of needs or comforts⁷
Now, as we get ready to close take a listen to this wonderful quote by George Mueller – Apostle to the Orphans.
Mueller said.

The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. ⁸

Now Father God, we repent right now of worry, anxiety, and fear. We trust you. We wait on you. We refuse to get over into metal churning out solutions to problems only you are all to well qualified to handle. We cast our care over and upon you and we do it in Jesus Mighty Name, Amen.

Why You Can Overcome Fear and Anxiety In a World Gone Crazy.
We will see you next time for another edition of Light on Life.

Here’s How You Can And Should Pray About Worry [Encore Podcast]

__________
References:

Our Daily Bread, 10,000 Illustrations ↩
Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell, 300 Illustrations ↩
Arthur Somers Roche, Galaxie Software, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Biblical Studies Press, 2002). ↩
Source unknown, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations ↩
New American Commentary ↩
Louw Nida ↩
James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997). ↩
George Mueller, 10,000 Illustrations ↩

emeryhorvath.com

Equipping people to pursue God's glory

Why You Can Overcome Fear and Anxiety In a World Gone Crazy

Podcast: Light on Life Season Ten Episode Twenty-Nine

by Emery Horvath

Listen to the Audio

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Read the Notes

Accept the Challenge

Join the Conversation

Episode Resources:

We are currently teaching in the book of First Thessalonians. You can click on the links below to listen to some of these podcasts.

About Emery

Subscribe to the Podcast

Share the Love

Podcast Notes

Overcoming Fear: An Apostle Expresses Himself

Overcoming Anxiety: Part of Paul’s Distress

Overcoming Anxiety: Word Pictures and Definitions

Overcoming Anxiety: A Matter of Choice

Overcoming Anxiety: Leave Problem-Solving to the Experts

Overcoming Anxiety: Don’t Work with Your Wits

Overcoming Anxiety: Lessons from the Psalmist

Overcoming Anxiety: Paul Gathers Himself

Listen to the Audio

Click to Listen | Right Click to Download |Subscribe in PlayerFM

Read the Notes

Accept the Challenge

Join the Conversation

Episode Resources:

We are currently teaching in the book of First Thessalonians. You can click on the links below to listen to some of these podcasts.

About Emery

Subscribe to the Podcast

Share the Love

Podcast Notes

Overcoming Fear: An Apostle Expresses Himself

Overcoming Anxiety: Part of Paul’s Distress

Overcoming Anxiety: Word Pictures and Definitions

Overcoming Anxiety: A Matter of Choice

Overcoming Anxiety: Leave Problem-Solving to the Experts

Overcoming Anxiety: Don’t Work with Your Wits

Overcoming Anxiety: Lessons from the Psalmist

Overcoming Anxiety: Paul Gathers Himself

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