It's time now for the chapel hour coming
to you from the campus of Bob Jones
University in Greenville, South Carolina.
Our speaker today is Dr. Jim Berg, Dean
of Students at BJU.
The title of his message is, Anxiety, the
Silent Killer.
The text is from Philippians chapter 4, verses
4 through 9.
Take your Bibles this morning and turn to
Philippians chapter 4, a very familiar passage to
us.
I want to talk this morning about anxiety,
the silent killer.
We're entering a time of the year, a
very pressured time.
The weather is changing and so we all
get colds and tests are coming and papers
are coming and the projects are coming and
the honeymoon in the dormitory rooms is over
and we're starting to find out what our
roommates are really like and they're finding out
what we're really like and there are a
lot of pressures on us at this time.
And the Bible gives us hundreds of references
to fear and worry and anxiety really are
synonymous here.
And many of these references actually command us
to fear not, which means that we can't
just be praying, God take away my fear
because he commands us not to fear.
He places a burden on us with certain
things we're going to talk about this morning.
And he says, be anxious or careful for
nothing, which we'll look at this morning, that's
a command.
And in Matthew, our Lord himself said that
we are to take no thought for certain
things, we're not to have this unrelenting concern,
this anxiety.
And our passage today is one of those
commands that very plainly says, be careful or
anxious for nothing.
But that is easier said than done.
And so Paul tells us how it is
done.
And we want to look at that in
Philippians four, beginning in verse four, he says,
rejoice in the Lord all way.
And again, I say rejoice, let your moderation
or your gentle, considerate spirit be known unto
all men.
The Lord is at hand.
He's come.
He could come anytime.
Be careful or anxious for nothing, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let
your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding shall keep your hearts and minds from
this sin of anxiety through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things
are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things
are of good report, if there be any
virtue, if there be any praise, think on
these things and those things which you have
both learned and received and heard and seen
in me do and the God of peace
shall be with you.
Dealing with worry is very difficult for several
reasons.
It's difficult because it seems so normal and
so responsible for us to be thinking about
the things that weigh upon us.
And in fact, it seems so normal.
It seems so much that we are at
home with it that we might even just
dismiss it as a personality quirk or that's
just the way I've always been, or that
runs in our family or it's a family
trait.
And it's difficult to deal with.
It seems so normal to us and it
feels so responsible.
Worry is difficult to deal with because it
is unseen, so it's rarely challenged by other
people.
Somebody might challenge us about other sins.
We might be challenged about music or Christians
might be challenged about music or about immorality
or about gambling or cheating or lying or
something.
But but very few times are we challenged
by another believer about our worry.
And at Bob Jones, we don't even give
demerits for worry.
And we're not going to start, but it
is a sin and it's unseen and it's
very seldom challenged by other people because of
that.
It's difficult to deal with because it very
quickly becomes a habit, a lifestyle, and it
seems to take on a momentum of its
own.
And we lay in bed at night and
we just can't stop our mind and it
just keeps going and going and going and
going.
And it makes it very difficult to deal
with.
Worry is difficult to deal with because it
isn't often addressed biblically when we do try
to deal with it and then we give
up.
So we want to see what Paul has
to say about it.
We have to deal with it.
There are scores of commands in the Scripture
telling us to fear not and to not
be anxious.
But anxiety is an equal opportunity killer.
It is very destructive.
And in fact, both the English words worry
and anxiety come from Anglo-Saxon terms, which
mean to strangle.
And it really can do that.
It strangles so many things for us.
And it is a killer.
It kills peace and quiet in our soul.
A warrior's mind is never at rest.
There are always loose ends to tie up.
There are always more things to be thinking
about before he can feel he's at rest
or he can feel safe.
It's peace killing is felt when we develop
perfectionism or obsessions or compulsions and we just
can't ever seem to rest.
Then it can torture a person with an
overly sensitive conscience because he worries that he
did something wrong before God and maybe God
won't forgive him of this thing or that
God hasn't forgiven him or that he isn't
even saved.
And worry is a peace killer.
Worry kills joy.
A warrior can't enjoy normal life.
There are too many uncertainties to really be
enjoying things as they come.
You can't even go to a birthday party
of your friend without worrying because you're worried
that maybe he won't like or he or
she won't like the gift that you bring
them or maybe the other people he invited
won't like you.
And you can't even enjoy a normal celebration
because you're worried.
And worry is a joy killer.
Worry kills grades.
A warrior can't concentrate on the book he
is studying.
He can't concentrate on the lecture that he
is listening to because his mind is meditating
on the possibility that he might not pass
this and he might not get it all
and maybe he didn't get all the notes
down just right and maybe he won't have
time to review all of this and it
kills all of that.
And he has a hard time with pressure
situations like unexpected assignments or tests or the
computer printer went down or I lost it
on my hard disk crashed or something.
And he will have a hard time taking
tests or giving speeches.
It is a grade killer.
Worry kills our health.
A warrior can't sleep well, has trouble digesting,
can't recover from normal illness as well.
Anxiety is at the root of eating disorders
and panic attacks and many endocrine malfunctions and
many gastrointestinal disorders and many cardiac difficulties, including
heart palpitations and even high blood pressure.
And doctors will tell you this is a
health killer.
Worry is a health killer.
Now there are other causes for some of
those things that high blood pressure and palpitations
can be other things, but certainly worry aggravates
all of those things.
It kills relationships.
Relationships are built on trust and a worrier
can't trust, can't even trust God.
It doesn't feel like he can open up
to people or reach out to people and
worry then becomes a relationship killer.
And lastly, it kills opportunities.
And in the more extreme situations, a worrier
might avoid being in public or might avoid
sitting in the middle of crowds or avoid
trying new things or avoid accepting new responsibilities
or or will not complete present assignments and
responsibility or avoids driving many, many other things
because there's too much anxiety.
There are just too many things that could
go wrong.
Worry is an opportunity killer.
And there's no doubt that living on a
fallen planet, a lot of things can go
wrong and the problems are common to man.
And it's interesting even that that it is
worry is even the besetting sin of even
some of the most sincere Christians we know.
Because it's silent and it's inward and all
of a sudden they develop what seemed to
be just strange and unusual problems and all
along they've been worrying a great deal.
None of us are exempt.
And that is why God has given us
scores of passages to deal with this matter
and how to look at the uncertainties of
life.
And with that, we want to look at
Philippians four, four to nine.
And the first thing he tells us in
verse six that we want to look at
is he tells us, number one, pray right
and pray.
Thankfully, that's how you pray right.
You pray thankfully.
Now, there are many profound truths about prayer
in this one verse, and we're just going
to look at two.
He first of all tells us to pray.
And whether we pray or not reveals where
our hope lies.
A worrier is thinking to himself about problems
because he is his hope.
His mind is his solution.
I can come up with it.
If I can just get a handle on
this, I can be at rest.
I've got to go through this one more
time.
If only this would be true.
And if I could get a handle on
this, he's looking to himself.
And Paul says, you don't look to yourself
here.
You need to look to God.
I want you letting your requests be made
known unto God, he says.
And even, however, with a worry, a lot
of praying is just worrying to God.
We just kind of go over our worry
list in front of God.
And we might even say, I give it
to God and took it back and give
it to God and took it back and
give it to God and took it back.
And it's wonderful that our God is so
patient.
You know, if we treated the bank that
way, you know, if we deposited our money
and then we went a day later and
said, you know, I'm not I'm not sure
this is really safe here.
I need to take that back.
You know, we keep it for two more
days and then go back and take it
and deposit it again and say, all right,
I'll try it again.
And then we turn around later in the
afternoon and take the money back.
And we might become a frequent flyer there
at the bank.
And why?
Because we don't trust the bank.
We don't trust people we don't know well.
And we don't trust God if we don't
know him well.
And it's good for us not to trust
people we don't know.
Well, there's a situation happening now over around
the campus and last just over in the
bylaw parking lot here a few days ago,
where a man in about his 20s is
posing a very well dressed, nice, casual clothes
posing as a man with car trouble.
And he wants you to give him a
ride to the bank and where he will
give you a check and you deposit in
the ATM and take out cash for him
out of your account and make this deposit
in your account and I'll be happy.
And three people have done that and lost
$100, $150 each time.
And the bank says, don't be so good
to people.
We shouldn't be trusting people we don't know
well.
Somebody like that has trouble offered to call
them a wrecker service or the highway patrol
or something, but but don't offer to give
them your money that way.
And they do some real tricky switches on
the deposit before they put it in the
bank for you and into the ATM machine.
And but we're not supposed to trust people
we don't know well, and we don't trust
God because we don't know him well and
understand that this passage about praying with Thanksgiving
and letting our requests be made known unto
God is in the context of all of
this epistle of Philippians, where Paul is rejoicing
in prison about the kind of God he
has.
And you can't pray right unless you know
the kind of God we have.
And Paul here says, for example, in one
six, he says, I am confident of this
very thing that he which has begun a
good work and you will perform it in
the day of Jesus Christ.
He is at work and I know he
hasn't given up.
And he says later in 213, it is
God which work within you both to will
and do of his good pleasure.
God is at work in us.
He says in 413, I can do all
things through Christ, which strengthens me.
And in 419, he says, but my God
shall supply all your need according to his
riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Paul knew some things about God that made
it so that he could trust God.
And we'll talk about a little bit more
about that as we go along.
If Jesus Christ is our hope, our hope
for our security, our peace, our quiet today.
Then, as he says in verse four, rejoice
in the Lord always.
And again, I say rejoice.
We will be rejoicing if we really know
what God is like.
And we love to sing here Ron Hamilton's
song, Rejoice in the Lord, it comes from
this verse, verse four.
Listen to how central God is in this
in this song he has written.
It says God never moves without purpose or
plan.
When trying his servant and molding a man
give thanks to the Lord, though your testing
seem long in darkness, he giveth a song.
I could not see through the shadows ahead,
so I looked at the cross of my
Savior instead.
I have a Savior.
I have someone who wants to save me
from sin, not just the sin of my
that results in my eternal damnation, but the
sin of worry today.
I looked at the cross of my Savior
and said I bowed to the will of
the Master that day.
And that's an important part of this we'll
talk about.
Then peace came and fear fled away.
Now I can see testing comes from above.
God strengthens his children and purges in love.
My Father knows best and I trust in
his care.
Through purging more fruit I will bear.
Oh rejoice in the Lord.
He makes no mistakes.
He knoweth the end of each path that
I take.
For when I am tried and purified, I
shall come forth as gold.
You see how central Jesus Christ and his
Father must be in our thinking for us
to pray right.
Our hope can't be in us coming up
with a solution in our head.
Uncertain circumstances reveal where our hope is.
If our hope is in ourselves, we worry.
If it's in our Heavenly Father and his
wonderful son, Jesus Christ, we pray.
But he says he doesn't just say pray.
He says pray.
Thankfully, that tests our goal in times of
trouble.
Again, look at Paul's ultimate goal for everything.
Remember, he's in prison.
They don't give him a menu to choose
from of what he gets to eat and
what side dishes he gets to have and
what hors d'oeuvres or appetizers and what
desserts and what blends of coffee he likes
for dessert.
I mean, this isn't happening in his life.
He doesn't get to pick his roommates either.
He doesn't get to, you know, he doesn't
have visitors coming and no cell phone for
people to visit with him.
I mean, he's in prison.
And listen what his goal is.
112, he says, I would you should understand,
brethren, that the things which have happened unto
me, all of this imprisonment and the beatings
and everything has happened under the furtherance of
the gospel.
All of this happened, but I am so
thankful the gospel is getting out in this
in this place.
120 and 21, he says, my desire is
that Christ shall be magnified in my body,
whether by death or by life, for to
me to live is Christ and to die
is gain.
In 3.8, he says, but what things
were gained to me, all of the positions
and stuff I had before those I counted
lost for Christ, yea, doubtless, and I count
all things but lost for the excellency or
the highest goal of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus, my Lord.
And in 3.13 and 14, he says,
but this one thing I do for getting
those things which are behind and reaching forth
unto those things which are before I press
toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
And what is his goal?
He prayed for other things, folks.
He prayed for daily provisions.
He prayed, we know in this book, for
the healing of Epaphroditus.
He prayed for the unity of the church.
And he heard about some of the problems
and a couple of people were having difficulty
and he's praying for their unity.
And it's all right to pray for these
things.
We are to bring it by everything by
prayer and supplication.
We are to pray for those things.
But the thanksgiving comes when we know what
the overarching goal is and that even if
I don't get the answer to the request
I want, God will still use that hardship
and that difficulty to make me more like
his son.
And that's what Paul wanted.
I want to know him better and I
want to be like him more.
And that can always happen, and so you
can pray thankfully, he says.
Jesus Christ is just wise enough to take
all of our troubles and all our circumstances
and make something out of it for us,
for good, our good, our Christ likeness.
He's powerful enough to do that.
He's he's skilled enough to do that.
He's loving enough to do that for us.
I admire the creative types.
I told his daughters, we're in elementary ed
and you have to do a lot of
creative things in that.
And my youngest is an art major and
you have to do all the creative things.
And I used to tease my youngest daughter
when she was little that we had to
sneak the trash out of the house before
she made something out of it.
I mean, she could she could see little
pieces of cardboard and styrofoam and she could
see things in those that we never saw.
And with the skill can put things together,
I am I amazed at that.
When I see that in in other people.
You know what our God is like that.
He can take everything that's happening in your
life now, and he's wise enough and skillful
enough to put all of that together so
that it teaches you more something about himself
and makes you more like himself, more patient
and more godly and more loving and more
kind and all of these things.
And this is the ultimate goal for all
of this for us, he says.
And sometimes I hear people say, well, you
know, don't just throw Romans 828 at people.
That's a powerful, wonderful verse.
God is working all things together for our
good, our Christ likeness and everything, he says,
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.
Let your requests be made known unto God.
We are allowed to pray for dates and
for grades and for money and for health
and time to do important things and reconciliation
of relationships and for salvation of others and
a thousand other things.
But what a tragedy if God would answer
those requests and leave us the same.
Oh, he wants to change us.
So do we pray and do we pray
with thanksgiving?
One of the reasons we don't pray with
thanksgiving is because we are entertaining its opposite,
and that is discontent.
Discontent is complaint giving instead of thanksgiving.
You can't be giving thanks when you're giving
complaints to yourself and maybe to other people.
Discontent says, I know what I really need
and it's not happening.
And we get into what we call if
only thinking.
I know what I need and if only
I had it, if only I had that
boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife, if
only I had better grades or a better
mind or better health or a better job
or a better spouse.
If only I knew whether I had cancer
or some serious disease.
If only I knew that I wouldn't blow
the test on Friday.
If only I had more control of my
life.
If only I had more freedom.
If only I knew what was going on
back home with my girlfriend.
If only I knew what was going on
back home with mom and dad and their
marriage or with that job opportunity for the
summer.
I have to know.
If only I had that truck or that
motorcycle or that car or that house or
that job.
And if you're a worrier, one of the
first things you can do is start making
a list of all the if only's.
Those are the things that you say, I
have to have this to be satisfied.
When Paul says, no, you just need God
to be satisfied.
And sometimes people say, I don't understand that.
Well, if you think about a young couple
who just got engaged, they think that way.
I remember when I first got engaged, I
thought, you know, we'd, I mean, we can
live in a little cracker box.
It's all right.
We don't need to have furniture.
We'll sit on wooden crates.
We'll eat macaroni and cheese ever.
And we did for a while.
You know, we can eat macaroni and cheese
that we don't need anything.
We just have each other.
And you know what?
There's a part of that that's really right.
And then you find out you do need
some other things.
You do need insurance and you do need
your car to work and you do need
some other things.
But.
But, you know, we know what it is
like to say, if I just had that
person, I don't need anything else.
And you know what?
That's true of God.
If I just had God, if I just
if I was just knowing him better, I
wouldn't need all of this stuff.
And that's true.
Paul knew that Thanksgiving has inherent in it
a surrender that says, God, in my scheme
of things, I think I need control of
this area of my life or I need
this thing in my life.
But obviously, you don't think that I need
it.
And I give up my demand for that
control or for that thing to you.
I'm thankful that you're loving enough to give
me what I need when I need it.
I'm thankful that you are powerful enough to
give me what I need when I need
it.
I'm thankful that you are wise enough to
give me what I need when I need
it and give me that thing if you
wish.
But most importantly, use this to show me
where I'm not like you and how I
can become like you.
It has to have a surrender in it
to pray right, to be thankful.
That's what our Lord prayed in the garden.
He said, if it be possible, Father, let
this cup pass for me, nevertheless, not my
will, but thine be done.
It has to have that surrender.
And you know what the result is?
Verse seven.
And the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds from
that sin of worry through Christ Jesus, my
Lord.
We're screaming, I have to have control.
I have to have this thing.
And God is saying, no, you just need
me.
So the first step in dealing with anxiety
is to get our hope in the right
place and our goal in the right direction.
The goal of Christ likeness.
Well, he tells us another thing of verse
eight, he says in this verse, basically think
right.
Think selectively.
Think right.
Think selectively.
You know, if you just go around eating
anything you pick up off the floor, you're
probably going to get sick.
Most of us are pretty selective about what
we eat.
We may too much or we made the
wrong things, but we're pretty selective.
We just don't go out and rummage around
in the trash cans or go out on
the campus, see what we can find in
the ground out there.
Use candy.
But, you know, somebody left a little bit
of a candy bar, a piece of gum.
It's not fully chewed, you know, or something.
We don't do that.
And we have to think selectively, too.
And I don't have time to go through
all of these words here.
It's a wonderful study, but.
And I would encourage you to memorize the
list of just what sort of things are
true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report.
If there's virtue and there's praise, think on
these things.
But I just want to talk about the
first one, and that is things that are
true.
Because a worrier doesn't spend his time thinking
about things that are true.
He spends his time thinking about possibilities, things
that haven't even happened yet.
A worrier gets involved in what we call
what if thinking.
What if I don't get that grade?
What if she doesn't pay any attention to
me?
What if mom and dad have trouble?
What if the finances don't come through?
What if I don't get that position?
What if I don't get that boyfriend?
What if, what if, what if?
All of those are possibilities.
Worriers meditate on possibilities instead of uncertainties.
And Paul said, if you want to deal
with this issue, you have to meditate on
the things that are true.
What are the things that are true?
The promises of God are always true.
And Paul meditates on those in this book.
The attributes of God are true.
And instead of laying at night in our
bed thinking about all the possibilities of things
that are wrong, we need to be filling
our minds in the daytime in some meditation
about the promises of God and the attributes
of God.
So we do have something selective to think
about at night.
You have to reject all of the possibilities,
and there are an infinite number, it seems,
of possibilities of things that could go wrong.
And just when you think you've got an
answer for all of those, you think about
three more that you hadn't thought about before.
You can't spend your time, if you're going
to deal with anxiety, worrying about meditating on
possibilities.
You have to meditate on certainties.
But the problem is we go to bed
and we haven't ever meditated or memorized any
of those.
We don't have anything to think about except
the uncertainties we've memorized.
We have to think about the certainties, meditate
on the certainties of what our God is
like.
If you want to attack anxiety, you have
to meditate upon what is true, mostly about
our God.
He is here.
He loves us.
He is wise.
He is good.
God is always good.
God is always wise.
God is always loved.
God is always here.
And because of those things, we can pray
with thanksgiving.
Worriers spend much of their time in their
own imagination, reject those imaginations, make a running
list of your what ifs like you do
your if onlys.
And you begin to see how much we
meditate on things that aren't even true.
A lot of times we just memorize verses
against fear.
Fear thou not.
And then what does he say?
Fear thou not, because I am with thee.
That's what we need to meditate on.
Be not dismayed.
I am thy God.
I will strengthen thee.
I will help thee.
Yea, I will uphold thee with the right
hand of my righteousness.
That's the part we need to meditate on.
But we just memorize verses that say fear
thou not or be anxious for nothing.
And all that does is just like put
it.
And I'm not saying that's wrong.
That's like placing speed limit signs out on
the highway.
It just tells you you're breaking the law.
You're breaking the law.
It doesn't stop your car.
Get the speed limit signs up so that
you know when you're doing wrong, but then
you've got to get some breaks.
And the breaks are the right things to
be thinking, the things that are true and
honorable and just and pure and lovely.
All of those things, especially about our wonderful
God.
And meditating on those who put the breaks
on real quick.
So it just seems like there's something wrong
with my brain.
It just keeps coming no matter what I
do.
There's nothing wrong with your brain except it's
been habituated.
It just goes that way all the time.
But just like you write your name with
your right hand, you can learn to write
it with your left hand.
It's awkward and it feels like your brain
isn't working when you're right with the other
hand.
But it will work if you practice that
enough.
And so will this.
We have to practice rejecting the uncertainties and
the possibilities and begin meditating instead upon the
certainties.
And lastly, he says, do right practice, practice
faithfully, do right, practice faithfully.
That's verse nine.
Those things which you have both learned and
received and heard and seen in me do
and the God of peace shall be with
you.
We learn best by imitation, and Paul says
here, watch me.
And we could expand that and he would
say, watch, watch Daniel, watch Joseph, watch David,
those things that you have heard and seen
in them and received and learned from them.
Do those things.
And that word means it's present active and
it means continue to do that.
Practice this faithfully and the God of peace
shall be with you.
You can't give up on this, just like
you can't give up learning to write with
the other hand until you're really fluent with
it and until the normal practice of our
life is to pray thankfully and to think
selectively and to continue practicing that faithfully.
We have to keep doing anxiety doesn't have
to be a killer.
There's a cure.
Praying right and thinking right and practicing and
doing right.
The most crucial component, however, folks in the
cure is getting the right view of God
in the picture.
You can't work on anxiety without getting the
view of Paul that Paul had of God
in Philippians, the kind of view of God
that made him rejoice in the first place.
Remember when you were in kindergarten and the
teacher would pass out this sheet and it
had at the top of it, what's wrong
with this picture?
And it might be a farm picture with
the pond out by the barn.
And there's a cow flying in the air
and a plane is in the pond.
And you're to take your crayon and circle
all of the things that are not supposed
to be in this picture.
What's wrong with this picture?
What is wrong with the picture of our
lives when we're worrying and anxiety?
The thing that is wrong is that God
is not in our picture or the wrong
view of God is in the picture.
And I would encourage you take this book
of Philippians.
Don't just memorize four through nine, but meditate
on all the things that teaches us about
our great God.
All of the certainties of who he is
and what he has promised.
And reject the other thoughts.
He said you're to be thinking on these
things and God will help us.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we come to you confessing that
it is so easy for us to depend
upon ourselves.
It is so natural for us.
And Lord Jesus, in our own pride, it
is so natural for us to think that
we know what we need and that we
have to have the thing that we need
to have peace.
But you've told us differently.
You've told us what is true.
Help us to meditate on these things that
are true and to give ourselves wholly to
them that our profiting may appear to all.
Help us to take heed unto ourselves.
And under this doctrine and doing this, you
have said that we will not only spare
ourselves, but those that hear us.
Lord Jesus, you are so faithful and you
are so kind and you are so loving
and you are so wise and you are
so powerful and you are so great.
And we pray that we might learn how
to rest in who you are and in
your work in us for your glory.
has been sponsored by bob jones university