Peace: Overcoming Anxiety Series

We’re in a summer sermon series devoted to bringing the change into our lives that we’ve always longed for. It’s a series devoted to advocating living life with the fruit of the Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

We’ve been looking at the fruit of the Spirit in turn over the course of the summer. We began the series by looking first at love and then we looked at joy. Today, we examine the third healthy attitude a believer is to adopt in their lives: the attitude of peace. Wouldn’t you like to be more peaceful? Wouldn’t you enjoy your life and your relationship with God, if you were less anxious? Change is possible; your life is not hopeless! But you’ll need more power than just willpower in your life. You’ll need God’s power.

Today, I want to speak about how you can have greater peace in your life. Specifically, I want to speak on how to overcome the anxiety that creeps into our lives. I have noticed at least two characteristics about anxieties and worries. First, my anxieties is usually about my future. Anxiety and worry is rarely about my present circumstance but my future. Worry and anxiety are voices that creep up inside your mind and say, “I think there will be problems down the road.”

Second, the most anxious people I know rarely listen to reason. An empty-nest wife is petrified to be alone. She has visions of robbers and rapists invading their homes when her husband is away on business trips. Her husband asked the local police for records of crimes committed within a three miles radius. And even though there was very little in the way of crime in their neighborhood, she wasn’t put at ease. Then the couple installed burglar alarms, security cameras, and motion detectors around the home. But none of this helped. Again, the more anxious you become, the less you listen to reason.

Jesus wants to give you peace and a steadiness to life.

“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? 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? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 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? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

‘Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble’” (Matthew 6:25-34).

Two Fights

Keep in mind that before your conversion, you were fighting against God – this is what I’m calling your first fight. After your conversion God is fighting against the evil in you – this is what I’m calling your second fight. But the minute you make peace with God instantly, all of God’s enemies declare war on you. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). The first fight (before your conversion) you had to lose. You were fighting God. The second fight you must win for God is fighting on your behalf. Again, there’s hope for you in the fight against anxiety and worry. You can have peace – remarkable peace.

Here’s a brief sermon preview of where we’re going: 1) Provision of God; 2) Prison of Anxiety; 3) Power of Surrender. At the end of today’s message, I am going to tell you a personal story of how God spoke to me through these verses today.

1. Provision of God

Circle or underline these words in your Bibles: “…your heavenly Father knows that you need them all” (Matthew 6:32). God takes care of His children. Repeat that after me: God takes care of His children.