Learn five ways to fight anxiety in this message from Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church.
Worry is like this.
It’s around and around and around.
Notice one thing about all my spinning…other
than the fact that some of y’all are getting
dizzy just watching me do this.
Imagine how it feels to actually do it.
Well, this is what it feels like when you’re
spinning.
A lot of motion, but I keep ending up right
where I started.
I’m right back here, only now I can’t see
straight.
That’s what it’s like to toss and turn over
stuff you can’t control.
After you’ve spent all night spinning, all
day spinning in your head…
It starts with the most innocent thought.
The Devil has been at this a long time, sweetie.
He’s not going to give you a bad thought.
He’s going to try to give you an innocent
thought and get you to take it in the wrong
direction; a scenario that on the surface
doesn’t seem that bad, but it’s the way you
spin it.
It’s like Fox News and CNN.
It’s one story they’re telling, but it’s spinning
different ways.
It’s how you spin it that determines how you
see it.
When you get in that spin cycle it’s just
around and around and around and around, and
it doesn’t make any difference.
I’m not getting anywhere.
I’m not working on it.
I’m not making progress anywhere.
The Devil gets me so dizzy that now, by the
time I’m facing my real-life challenges, I
don’t have the equilibrium to apply the effort
in the direction that would create a result.
Because I’m so dizzy I can’t find my balance,
and now I don’t know who to trust.
I don’t know what to do.
Whoa!
Hang on.
I need a minute.
I’ve been spinning.
By the way, that’s why it takes you a few
minutes when you get to church to get your
heart in the right place, for the caffeine
to kick in, and for you to stop spinning.
Jesus said, “Look up at the birds, and then
look at the flowers.”
“The flowers?
So, do you want me to look up or do you want
me to look down?”
“I want you to look both.”
Notice something the flowers don’t do that
your mind has been doing lately.
He said, “When you look at the flowers, notice
how they do not
labor or spin.
Yet your Father…”
They don’t spin.
They don’t sew.
The birds don’t store away, the flowers don’t
spin, yet look at how God does that on that
level.
If he made you in his image, what makes you
think you have to spin out in these cycles,
these tormenting cycles, these confusing cycles,
So you’ve been going around and around and
around in circles, but God said today is your
day to stop spinning.
If your mind has been doing this, I came to
preach to you, and the presence of the Lord
is in this place, and your Father knows what
you need, so stop spinning.
Stop worrying about what God is already working
on and just worship him.
Part of this being brave is about learning
to discern in your life between a genuine
concern and a needless anxiety.
I would say to you that sometimes you can
interpret the same event in both of those
ways.
You can turn a genuine concern into a needless
anxiety by the way you approach it, because
it’s the same word.
Sometimes you go through a situation, and
you deal with it, and you handle it with strength.
You’re brave about it.
That’s a genuine concern.
Sometimes you go through a situation, and
you’re tied all up in knots about stuff you
can’t do much about anyway.
That’s a needless anxiety.
Wisdom will show you the difference…the
difference between needless anxiety and genuine
concern.
Here’s how you can do it.
Be anxious for no thing.
I was talking to a friend one time.
(This was many years ago.)
He spilled orange juice on his computer while
he was on the phone with me one morning, but
he was so calm about it.
He said, “Oh, hang on a second.”
He was gone a long time on the phone.
I said, “What happened?”
He said, “I just spilled a whole glass of
orange juice on my computer.
It’s not working anymore.”
I said, “And you’re not using profanity?”
He said, “No, it’s nothing but a thing.”
This guy isn’t a billionaire.
He said, “It’s nothing but a thing.
If they can fix it, they fix it.
If they can’t, they can’t.
It’s nothing but a thing.”
I thought, “I want that.”
Do you remember that phrase?
We used to say it a lot when I was coming
up.
We used to say, “Ain’t nothing but a thing.”
I think Paul is trying to get us to see here
in Philippians 4, “Be anxious for no thing.”
Be concerned about the state of your soul.
Be concerned about the state of your children’s
souls.
Be concerned about God’s work in the world.
That’s a genuine concern.
But when it comes to the things, you have
to learn to look at some things in your life
and just say, “That ain’t nothing but a thing.
It’s nothing but a thing.”
Let me show you this in Romans.
Paul is talking in Romans about some pretty
heavy stuff.
He says in verse 31 of Romans, chapter 8,
“What, then, shall we say in response to these…?”
Say it out loud.
Every location, say it out loud. “…in response
to these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us?”
That’s what gives me courage sometimes when
I feel opposed.
Well, if God is on my side, I’m good.
If he is not, I’m in trouble.
It really doesn’t matter what they’re saying
about me.
It just matters what God sees in me, because
if he is for me, who can be against me?
Take a number.
Line up.
It won’t matter, because I’ll still be standing.
You can have that confidence as God’s child.
It’s not cocky; it’s just confident.
That’s what Paul is saying.
He said, “It’s just a thing.”
Look at the next verse.
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave
him up for us all—how will he not also,
along with him, graciously give us all things?”
It’s nothing but a thing.
Skip to verse 37.
He starts listing some things.
He says, “No, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him who loved us.”
“What kind of things are you talking about,
Paul?
Spilling orange juice on the computer?
Big deal.”
No.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor
life, neither angels nor demons…”
This is heavy stuff! “…neither the present
nor the future, nor any powers, neither height
nor depth, nor…”
Paul says, “Let me just put a blank here so
you can fill it in.”
“…nor anything else in all creation…”
Bankruptcy.
Joblessness.
Homelessness.
Addiction.
Whatever.
“…will be able to separate us…”
Oh I love it! “…nor anything else…”
Do you see it? “…nor anything else…”
Nor anything else!
Reach everybody you can reach and tell them,
“It ain’t nothing but a thing.
It’s just a thing.”
Be anxious for no thing.
I want you to do that this week now when you’re
faced with something.
If it doesn’t fit in Paul’s list, that’s what
the blank is for.
That’s what the “anything” is for.
It’s nothing but a thing.
Shift over from needless anxiety to genuine
concern, controlling what you can and trusting
God where you can’t.
When the Enemy comes after your destiny, his
first step is to set up a stronghold in your
imagination.
The Enemy wants to make it where you can’t
stand to be alone, and every time you go to
think you worry so much about what might happen
that you can’t worship God.
So now you can’t worship because you’re so
worried, but God said today we’re going to
get this thing turned around and recapture
your imagination to where you feel free again,
to where you can dream about something again,
to where you can think crazy thoughts and
just write stuff down and just walk around
singing stuff off tune, making up words.
You used to do that.
You used to walk around with just anything,
but now you’re so…
I told the Devil the other day, “Get your
hands off God’s property.
My imagination is God’s house.
My imagination was purchased with the blood
of Christ.
You can’t set up camp here.
I’ve got dreams to dream.
I’ve got visions to see.
I’ve got a future to imagine.”
The good news is if you’re really good at
worrying you’re going to be great at worship,
because all it is is the same imagination
serving the opposite purpose.
God said we need to reverse the cycle of the
way you’re thinking about things.
We need to reverse the cycle so when you wake
up in the morning, stop checking the “fearcast.”
Stop waking up in the morning and thinking
about how every possible meeting could go
wrong and you don’t have anything clean and
you wore that on Tuesday.
I promise you nobody has been keeping a spreadsheet
of your shoes.
Put on those same shoes you wore Tuesday and
walk into your Thursday and expect to see
the goodness of the Lord.
Where are you, faith people?
Do I have any “faithcasters” in the house?
David said, “If I take the wings of morning
or dwell in the uttermost part of the sea,
even there your hand will lead me and your
right hand will hold me fast,” because God
is watching over me and he’s looking into
me.
I didn’t check the fearcast this week.
I checked the faithcast.
It’s corny, but I bet you it’ll drive back
depression if you check the faithcast, because
God has been too good for me to stay anxious.
The interesting thing is I’m holding the mic,
but there’s a guy you don’t see, among many
others at our different locations, who happens
to be in the back of the room sitting behind
a console.
It’s interesting.
I’m up here talking, and I’m holding the mic,
but at any moment he can decide…
At any moment he can decide…
You know, maybe I fuss at him or something
like that and he doesn’t like it.
At any…
Here’s the principle: I’m holding it, but
I’m not controlling it.
That’s what I know about my life.
That’s what I know about my time.
That’s what I’m learning about my money.
That’s what I’m learning about my children,
my responsibility.
I’m holding it, but somebody I can’t see is
controlling it.
He’s in control.
He speaks and winds obey.
He speaks and waves die down.
He speaks and seas split, because what I can
see is controlled by that hand I can’t see.
Now I want to humble myself under that mighty
hand.
I’m coming to the place in my life where I
say, “God, I don’t even know what I need anymore,
so I trust you and your timing, and I trust
you and your heart, and I trust you and your
wisdom,” and I humble myself.
As I humble myself, my anxiety goes out the
door with my pride and my arrogance and my
plan.
“Humble yourself, therefore, under God’s mighty
hand, that he may exalt you in due time, casting
all your anxiety on him because he cares for
you.”
I’ve been trying to cast my anxieties and
keep my pride.
The thing about it is you need to know the
pride and the anxiety come in the same package.
If you insist on doing it your way, then expect
to feel like the weight of the world is on
your shoulders, because it is.
You can’t just do verse 7 because you decide
to.
“God, take it off me.
God, take it off me.
I’m so worried, God.
Make me not worried anymore.”
“Don’t you care if we perish?”
That’s what Peter said one time in the boat.
“Don’t you care that we’re drowning?”
“God, you said cast all my anxieties on you.
I’m casting them.
I’m casting them.
This isn’t working.”
Look at the word anxiety.
I’m telling the Lord in my prayers, “I don’t
know if I can do it.
I just need you to give me a sign that I can
take the church forward the next 10 years.
Take this anxiety.
I’m casting it on you, Lord.
I am casting it on you, all of my anxiety.”
After I prayed this way for a little while,
the Lord spoke to me in my heart.
This is not an out-loud conversation.
I don’t want you to think I’m really, really
crazy, but this is the impression I got.
The Lord said, “Are you done now?
Shut up, Peter.
Are you done now?”
Look at the word anxiety.
Look at how it’s spelled in English.
Look at what is in the center of the word.
Do you see it?
At the center of your anxiety, if you really
trace it…
I’m not talking about a medical condition.
I’m not a pharmacist.
I don’t know about all that.
I am not a neurologist.
I’m saying, spiritually speaking, the Lord
told me at the center of your anxiety is your
pride.
The reason you’re so anxious is because you
have you at the center, and you can’t sustain
it because it’s not your throne.
“Even listen to your language,” the Lord said.
“I don’t know if I have what it takes.
I don’t know if I can do it.
I don’t know if I can make it.
If I, if I, if I, I, I, I…”
You can’t spell anxiety without I.
It’s right in the middle.
Do you know what other word I is in the middle
of?
Pride.
Maybe the reason you’ve been carrying anxiety
that you can’t get rid of is because you’ve
been bearing weight you weren’t meant to bear.
You’d better humble yourself under the mighty
hand of God, because if you stay weighed down
with pride, you’re going to be weighed down
with anxiety, and God can’t lift you up.