Weak and Strong

Message Transcription

Well, good morning, church. It's good to see some familiar faces we hadn't seen in a while. Welcome. If you have your Bible, invite you to turn over to Romans Chapter six, we're going to be there together. I'm thankful that got us pointed in the right direction this morning. We're going to spend our time listening some to what Paul has to say is we think about this idea of taking Jesus promise and his challenge seriously, these words that he gives to us in Matthew Chapter six. He says, So don't worry about your life saying What will we eat or what will we drink? Or What will we wear for the Pagans Chase after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them? But seek first the kingdom. As we wrestle with this text with this challenge that Jesus says in the Kingdom of God, there's no reason for us to ever live an anxious or worried life. And he's not saying we may not ever feel anxious. He's saying there's no reason for us to live an anxious life. What does that actually look like? What does that mean? So we began last week by thinking some about what is anxiety and remembering this first challenge. Everybody gets anxious. A research is really clear on this, in fact, what what you'll find if you do the survey of the research is there's a percentage of the population that's just more likely or or predisposed genetically to be more anxious, while there's also a certain percentage that's genetically predisposed to not be as anxious.

Now, most folks fall somewhere in the middle, but you tend to fall on the more anxious end of the spectrum. What they found in in brain research is that they have folks in that area have brains in central nervous systems that are not or that are very sensitive to adrenaline to the neurotransmitters of GABA. And so it takes a little more stimulus or less stimulus, rather, I'm just confusing everybody. Can I start over for a minute? I'm feeling a little anxious like I need to reset here. Ok. So on that spectrum, if you tend to be the less anxious persuasion, what they found is your brain takes more stimulation, more adrenaline to get that fear factor cranked up in your life. And you're you're less sensitive to some of the neurotransmitters like GABA that calm us down. All right. On the other end, you have the folks who are more anxious. It doesn't take a whole lot to get that fear factor going. Now the challenge is that's our brain. You can't stop and tell your brain to produce more GABA. I need to calm down brain. Go to work or brain. I need more energy. I need more excitement. I need to respond to the stimulus. Produce more adrenaline. That's not how the body operates.

Right. So we're not able to change ourselves that way. That has to do with brain chemistry. We can't stop and change what all our how all our brain functions rather. We see God is the only one who can look into our brains and he knows how we operate. He knows what level upon which our brains react to those neurotransmitters. And so again, our goal is not to be perfect, it's just to take the next step on the journey wherever we fall on the spectrum. You know, last time we talked about anxiety, it's a signal to us. It's a warning. It's a siren that a storm is coming, but it's not the storm itself. And so we want to learn to manage it appropriately. Learning to manage it, though, is not just about turning that signal off, but rather we talked last time about how anxiety can serve as a grace to us, sometimes in our life. It can often teach us some things. It warns us that something's not right. Something needs to be addressed, and that's a gift of grace. It warns us that a change is needed, and so we looked at a couple of ways that anxiety can serve as a grace in our life, and the first one was this. It points to where we think we need something that we don't actually need. Right, anxiety reminds us that there are things in our life that we are tending to put our trust in, our hope in, to build our life upon, and we don't really need those things.

Sometimes you're in a situation at work or school, maybe it's in a relationship with a trusted friend or a spouse or even a co-worker. We feel exposed and uncertain, unsure of what to do, what to say, where to go, how to respond. And that feeling of anxiety comes inside. And if you're like me, I spend a lot of time trying to quench that feeling, trying to not feel that way. But what happens is then my focus becomes on quenching my own feeling rather than what God might be doing, what God might be trying to show me or teach me or tell me in a scenario. You think you need to change how we feel, maybe God's trying to change our lives. You see, anxiety can be a gift of grace to us by pointing us to the things in our life that we think we really need, but we don't actually need. But it can also serve as a grace to us and that it points us to where we're following a false gospel. This gospel of self-reliance of I can do it. I can take care of myself. You say anxiety can warn me that I'm trusting in myself and not trusting in God. And so again, this is a grace, because it's important that we learn to notice and identify and name the anxiety, the sources, its triggers kind of where it's coming from.

And then moving past it, and it's only by doing that that we encounter the true gospel, the gospel of grace, the gospel that I want us to spend some time looking at this morning. So what is the pathway to learning to manage our anxiety this way, to respond to it, to move through it and to actually encounter the gospel of grace, the gospel of freedom? Well, Jesus and the New Testament writers have a lot to say about this. In fact, Jesus would say it this way. And, Luke, Chapter nine, if anyone, any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow me for those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake, will save it. Paul, to the church in emphasis would say it this way, you were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self corrupt and diluted by its lusts. And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to clothe yourselves with the new self created according to the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. Peter would write to his young church, we looked at these words a few months ago like obedient children do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.

Instead, as he who called you as holy, be holy. Be wholly yourselves and all your conduct. You see, according to Jesus and Peter and Paul, the pathway through managing anxiety and into the gospel of freedom is denial of self. It's taking up your cross daily. That was the way of Jesus, and that's the way of his followers. You see anxiety. Remember is the signal that we're wanting something needing something that we don't actually need. And when we start to need it, but don't get it, we feel anxious. And that begins to block our awareness of God, and it causes us to believe in this false gospel that we need something other than Christ to survive, to make it to be satisfied, to feel OK. In this lie is often at the heart of the anxiety. Instead of denying it or dying to it, we cultivate it. In fact, Steve Case, I've told you this is a book that's had a huge impact on my understanding of this and in my own leadership, my own self leadership. But in his book, Managing Leadership Anxiety, he says this is often the biggest reason people tend to stall out or stagnate in their faith and spiritual journey growth. Instead of learning to recognize the anxiety to name its triggers, we simply assume it's reality. Now, Thomas Merton called this lie the false self.

In fact, this is how he wrote about it. Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person, a false self. We're not very good at recognizing illusions. Least of all the ones which we cherish about ourselves, the ones we are born with and which feed the roots of sin. For most of the people in the world, there's no greater subjective reality than this false self of theirs, a life devoted to the cult of the shadow. Is what is called a life of sin. Martin called it the false self. This false self shrinks the gospel, and it keeps us stuck in this dynamic, these patterns of relating and being that don't lead to life, but only to more anxiety as we feel more anxious, we depend on ourself, this false self, which again leads to more anxiety. One of the ways that Steve and others again say to break this cycle is learning to recognize when anxiety happens to name the thing that we think we need to name the way that we're trying to take control to die to it and then to lean into the gospel. It leads to freedom and not just this freedom that it comes one day a long from now, whenever that happens to be when I'm in heaven, but rather I can experience it moment to moment. In the daily, the ordinary, the everyday moments of life.

Maybe that's why Jesus said, if you want to follow me, take up your cross daily. Deny yourself daily. Learn to step back into the flow of God's grace. See, one of the biggest challenges I've had in my own spiritual life was learning not to see my life in Christ as some future reality that will come one day long from now when I get older, when I get mature. You see, I'm sinful and broken now, but but one day I'll be that person when Jesus returns that that I've always been created to be, that I've wanted to be. You know, I've been baptized, so I've gotten my future taken care of, and now I'm just going to try to live in such a way as, I don't screw it up. I've kind of got a hold of something. I'm going try to live in such a way that I that I don't miss out, which really, if you think about it, is not much of a grand vision of life. In fact, that's that's a great recipe for more anxiety. I don't know exactly where all that came from, but that certainly kind of what I took away from some of the teaching that I received. But again, that's a recipe for anxiety. See, the power of the gospel is not just a future power, it's actually a daily present power. In fact, Steve says it can impact our past and how it impacts us today.

Look again at Paul's words in Romans Chapter six, we'll pick up in verse six. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin for whoever has died is freed from sin. The death Jesus died. He died to sin once, for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness. But present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. See, Paul says we can simultaneously be freed from sin, from the power of sin, and yet still find ourselves struggling with sin. You see, the power of the cross has conquered sin, but somehow sin still entices us. I appreciate so much the way that that Dyke pointed to it, but also Steve explains it. How even though we've been freed from sin, we still struggle. We still battle, we're still enticed. What is that about? Well, if you notice in Paul in Romans, Paul talks about sin.

Most often when he talks about it, it talks about it as a noun instead of a verb. Now, for my grammar folks, you'll know exactly what that means, but for the rest of us, what's the difference between sin as a noun or sin as a verb? Well, I think Paul often describes Sin as a condition that we're in, rather than something that we do. So for Paul, being set free from sin is more like being sick or infected and then being healed rather than just doing bad things. You see in Romans one, Paul seems to be arguing that the bad things that we do are more a symptom of the condition rather than the SEN itself. So if the cross is freed us from the power of sin, why do we keep struggling with sin? Paul says it's because our attention, our energy, our effort is focused in the wrong direction and the wrong place. Any Paul's implication here is that sin gains its power over us, the more we engage in it. In fact, Steve says it this way where we put our attention defines our spiritual growth. And where we put our attention, he says, defines our spiritual growth if we spend our time offering ourselves to sin. Sin becomes our master. That becomes the focus of our growth. It gains power and control, but if we spend our time offering ourselves to God.

He becomes our master. His power and his grace, his spirit flows more fully in our lives and we find the grip of sin lessened. That's why here at Broadway, we talk a lot about the importance of the spiritual disciplines of holy habits of prayer and Bible study in meditation and contemplation, in silence and solitude and community, and gathering up and praying for each other. Not so that we get this little star next to our name in the Great Book of Life. But because we recognize where our treasure is there, our hearts will be also that what we give our attention to, it will become our master. James K. Smith wrote it this way you are what you love and what you love is shaped by your habits. The things that we do over and over and over again, the things that we give our time and our attention and our energy and our effort. It shapes our loves. Jesus said you can't serve two masters. You'll be devoted to one and you'll hate the other. That's why Paul says this and a little later in Romans six verse 23 for the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord. You see, for too long, we've taught God kills and God gives life. That's not what Paul's saying here, he says sin kills the wages of sin is death, but God gives life.

So the reason that we choose not to send that we give ourselves to God and not sin is not because we're going to disappoint God if we do or make him angry and he's going to send us to hell. Now the reason we don't sin, we choose not to send a fight and battle against it is because sin kills every time. Every time we've sinned, we feel the punishment sin punishes us. And we can feel the weight of that, so we have this choice every day, what or rather who will we give ourselves to? The guy who brings us life. Or the sin that brings death? Which brings us back to where we started. How do we learn to live into the gospel of freedom? By denying ourselves taking up our cross daily. The following Christ. By choosing to give ourselves to God and not to sin. You see sin and shame and worry and anxiety are bred by becoming a slave to the wrong thing. By giving ourselves to the wrong thing, you see, when we struggle with anxiety, we think we need something other than Jesus to make us feel better or to make us feel OK when we try to take control of a situation that only God can control when we trust ourselves more than we trust God. It starts to consume us.

The scary thing is, sometimes we can take care of ourselves, can't we? Sometimes we've figured out a few things that actually work. But sadly, we we all know they only work for a little while, eventually, we don't feel satisfied anymore. As a kid growing up, I don't know where this came from, I have some ideas, but whenever I was hurt or got hurt, the thing I looked most forward to was the the solution at the end. The ice cream that came at the end. Oh, you filled out your left scoop ice cream? Yeah, right. And they seem pretty innocuous, right? The only problem is that same dynamic has followed me into adulthood. Let's say, oh, you had a bad day at work, much eating little ice cream feel better. Oh, you had a fight with your spouse and you're not sure what's going on. Why don't you go find something to eat? You see, I found this dynamic that I just feed that insecurity in me. I had a hard time confessing to my wife, I did this or I said this, or I shouldn't have why? Because what if she won't love me? I don't want to think about that, so I want to think about Bluebell. I don't want to think about this. I want to think about my favorite pepperoni pizza, right? And I feed that insecurity. The only problem is it may be satisfied in the moment, but when I'm laying in bed at night and I remember we lock eyes the next day at work, I remember.

And it comes back. You see that that little dynamic that came about as a kiddo may seem like a small deal, but the same dynamic is at play for each and every one of us that in the moment you feel anxious or worried or afraid that all of a sudden you're going to look to this guy. What can I do? What do I need here to solve this problem to get out from underneath feeling this way that the temptation is going to be find it. And some people find it in a bottle and some people find it in another relationship and other people find it in their kitchen cabinet the way that I did, and some people find it in just giving themselves more to work. That may work for a while. But it never satisfies. See, the consequences may vary from situation to situation, but that I'm trying to satisfy this need that I think I need something in my life other than Christ, and I pursue it and it leads me to death. You see, Jesus death on the cross freed me from having to meet that need that approval of others. That I need to be liked or to be seen as smart or better or in control, or have an idea or solution to a problem, whatever that need is.

Paul says now that we're in crisis and no longer has power over us because Jesus has revealed the lie, he's shown and broken that lie. And so Romans six actually becomes this daily fork in the road moment for us to say, when I face a situation that's bringing me stress or anxiety or worry, you have a choice to make. Who am I going to trust? He says we look at the power of the cross, the miracle, Steve says, is not just that Jesus stops us from sending or being tempted by sin. But Jesus can change what we want. Jesus can change our hearts. What we most desire. Now, when facing anxiety and this is critical, friends, we're going to we're going to talk some more about this in the coming weeks, but as we move forward into understanding how we live lives that are anxious for nothing. It's that we're choosing to give ourselves to God. We're going to choose to give ourselves to God in every moment when we feel anxious. We'll notice it and we'll name it. And we'll name it, Lord, this is me wanting to be smart. This is me wanting to to seem like I have it all together, Lord, this is me unsure of where this relationship is going to go and if it doesn't go the way that I want it to go, I'm not sure what that means for me.

I'm not sure how I'm going to survive it. But Lord, that's not really true. What I need most right now is you what I need most right now is your strength and your power and your faith and your courage to stand in this moment and to feel the feels, as we say in my house. To not be distracted. And arrest our identity, got a new in the work that you're doing in me. You see, anxiety can be this reminder to us that the false self, as Merton called it, is trying to take back over control again. And this is actually good news, because it means the gospel power it's available to you at any moment in any situation, in any relationship and any work project, in any neighborhood distress. And any hospital room. And any diagnosis. Steve gives me the sentence, and it's a prayer, actually. Maybe it could become a breath prayer for you. Jesus died, so I don't have to blink anymore. Jesus died, so I don't have to be a people pleaser anymore. Jesus died, so I don't have to solve everybody's problem anymore. Jesus died, so I don't have to be perfect or be seen as perfect anymore. Jesus died, so I don't have to avoid conflict and hard conversations anymore. So now we each are going to have a different blank to fill in there.

But the power is the same. Now, it's not going to be easy to do. Most of us, myself included, have given over ourselves to that false self, far too often it's become a habit and to break a habit, it's going to take some, some effort and some attention. It's going to take the Holy Spirit at work and us listening for those prompts in the beginning to act on what we're being prompted to do. Now, if you're like me, you've been around at this faith journey for a while, it's it's easy to feel overwhelmed and frustrated with myself. Why are you not farther along on this call? Why are we still in the one on one stuff? What is your problem? Get that question a lot. Let me give another word that Paul offers to the church in Rome. He says therefore, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, because through Christ, the law of the spirit, who gives life. Has set you free from the law of Sin and death. Jesus died, so you don't have to beat yourself up over your past mistakes anymore. Jesus died, so you don't have to pretend you have it all together anymore. Jesus died, so you don't have to chase after a lesser dream or a lesser vision or some other need or want or control anymore. Instead, instead, you can step into life because you, friends, you church have been set free.

A father made this be true of us this week. As I know, I know. I know it in me. I know it in us. Father, we are facing some overwhelming things these days. Facing some circumstances that we are not sure how it's going to turn out, or maybe we know how it's going to turn out and we don't like it. Further, some of us are facing relational challenges that seem to be just crushing us. Others are facing work or school or some other scenario. And got it's exposing in us those dynamics. And we want to run to the to the kitchen cupboard and grab whatever it is that will make us feel better. Only to find that that is just empty. Some of us run online and look at stuff and spend time watching things that we don't need to be. Makes us feel empty and hollow. Some of us are chasing a bottle. Some of us are chasing other things got. None of them, none of them bring the kind of life. They belong for. Instead, they just bring us more anxiety. So, God, we hear these words of Jesus, don't worry about your life and and it's confusing, it's overwhelming to us because everything in our life seems to be something to worry about. Oh, God. Would you draw us closer in again? Would you help us to see those Romans six moments, those crossroads, those forks in the road? Well, we have a chance to give ourself to you rather than to whatever need, whatever control we think we need.

Instead, we'd embrace you. Oh, God, would you give us eyes to see and ears to hear? And would you help us to start in the small things, the small ways, just even as we get out of bed at choosing what kind of attitude we're going to, we're going to try to embody this stay. Maybe it's sitting around the breakfast table or around that, the coffee pot in the office. Maybe it's as we walk into our first class at school. Whatever it may be, got that Romans six moment we help us to remember this prayer. Had Jesus died. And he was raised back to life. So we don't have to anymore. We don't have to pretend. We don't have to manage impressions. We don't have to wrestle control. We don't have to have every question answered anymore. Instead, we can trust you. Trust your word that in your kingdom, there's always enough. That in your kingdom, no one is left out. That in your kingdom, everyone matters. And in your kingdom, death is not the end of the story. It's a transition into the eternal. In fact, your promise says that. Those who follow you who believe in you, who put their hope, their trust, their life in you. I'll never die. I'll be with you forever.

God, we want that.

You want to live the kind of life that lives in light of those kinds of promises. That is a life in which we're anxious for nothing because we know nothing can ever separate us from your love. Nothing. So, God, for my friends here today and those online listening. Whatever it is that they're tempted to run to, to find, to grab hold of other than you. Oh God, would you wake them up to it this week? Give them the courage and the strength to step toward you again. Maybe it's stepping back into your word or back into time of prayer with you each day. Maybe it's stepping into Christian community in a deeper way. Maybe it's stepping into a counselor's office to to get some help, to unpack some of the the baggage that we bring along with this. Maybe it's to pull aside a trusted friend. Yeah, whatever it may be, would you help us to follow you? To deny ourselves to take up our cross daily. And follow, they got. That's the pathway to life and oh God, we long for life. Father, may be so we pray in Jesus name, Amen.