I want to let you in on the story of Southern Alberta's worst first-time preaching story that has ever existed. I take that crown with joy in my heart because I know that my first time preaching was the worst it could have ever been in any situation. It was absolutely atrocious. I was in bible college, and my Bible college course was very mission-focused. The whole program was leading up to going to Africa. So, we did a few extra mission trips in between to get us ready to go there. One of them was going to Vancouver, BC. Vancouver is 30% “Wow, this is really cool.” And 70%, “Oh my goodness gracious, what the heck is going on here?” Because it can be pretty wild in Vancouver. So we went on this mission trip, and going into this, people kind of saw me as the Bible nerd. They saw me as the person who was “Wow, you and kind of knows his Bible pretty well. He obviously knows how to preach really well. Obviously, if he's reading his Bible at least once a day, obviously he's really, really good at preaching.” I was not. I had never preached before, ever in my entire life. So they picked me to preach at this little hole-in-the-wall food bank slash soup kitchen. I found this out two hours before we got to Vancouver. So, I thought, “How am I going to make this message as good as possible?”

I was getting all wound up and really nervous. What are they going to think of me? What is my teacher going to think of me? What are the people going to think of me? Am I going to get injected with heroin while I'm on stage or something? It was really scary. There were all these wild people there, and I was getting all hyped up. Then, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I decided that I was going to rip off my favourite preacher's sermon word for word, and I was going to speak it up there. It was going to be great. I figured that no one was going to know that I was a terrible preacher because I was going to rip it off from this person. So I started writing down the sermon, and I actually got so confident that halfway through the sermon, I just stopped writing it. I was so confident that I knew what this guy was talking about that I could just do it.

So there I was with half a manuscript of this guy's sermon, and I was fixing dinner in the soup kitchen before I preached. There were rats in the fridge and in the kitchen. And the lady that I was cooking with was a really nice Chinese lady, but she didn't speak any English. So I was trying to put this ingredient in, and she was trying to put this ingredient in, and by the end, even though we were trying to make lasagna, we ended up with soup. It was not good. So I was already flustered because of this, and I was all wound up, and I stepped on the stage in front of an audience of around forty, maybe a little bit more, homeless people that had come off the streets.

And I was excited. I was prepared. Now, all these people had to listen to my sermon first before they got to eat. That's why they were all there was to eat. They didn't actually want to hear me speak; they just wanted the food. So I was standing up there all confident. For some reason, I figured that all these people were there to see me speak, but they were just there to get this lasagna soup thing that we'd made with expired food. So, I went up on the platform and began speaking. I introduced myself, and I was talking about how good God is or how to live a holy life or something like that. I was not doing a very good job. I was reading this manuscript and had the book in front of me, and within two minutes of being on the stage, I heard a man in the back yelling something. I was trying to listen to what he was saying as I was speaking, and then I heard it: “Boo! You suck! This is the worst sermon I've ever heard!”

That started everyone else up. I began to hear comments like, “Oh my gosh, get off the stage. I'm hungry.” It was terrible.

So I spoke for another five minutes and I was shaking and  finally I said, “Okay guys, have a good night.” And I'd gone off the stage within about five minutes of me preaching my 20 minute message. And yeah, in the meantime, there was some guy barking like a dog in the back as well. It was just a wacky time. So, the anxiety that I started with actually ended up coming to fruition. In the end, people looked at me like I was some terrible preacher, and my classmates were kind of laughing at me. People looked at me differently. They no longer saw me as the Bible nerd. They saw me as a first-year Bible college student. I was just like the rest of them. And for me, it took a lot from me. I didn't know how people saw me and how people felt about me. So I was always anxious. I was always anxious about how they would see me. And that came right from the beginning of my prepping that sermon. I wanted people to see me as someone who was really good at something I’d never done before. And obviously, it was terrible. I got booed off the stage. That's why I say that's the worst Southern Alberta first-time preaching story. I don't know anyone else who's gotten booed off the stage on their first message.

Today, we're talking about anxiety. I was pretty darn anxious through that whole period right till the end, and it was pretty tough. So even throughout that anxiety-inducing story--through that wild time that I had in Vancouver--I think that some of you may be recalling sometime in your life when you had anxiety about something. Maybe that story is bringing up something like, “Man, maybe I have had an anxious spurt like that.” Today, we're going to look through what the Bible says about anxiety in this under-pressure series. But I want to say one thing before we get into this.

I think this is a really important point to say: there's no one fix-all for anxiety. I don't want to bring it across like that today. Anxiety is something that we all may go through, each and every single one of us, some people more than others, but in the end, I want to show you guys that there is hope today and in eternity as well. It's something that we all may go through, but how can we grow through this as well?

“There is no “fix-all” for anxiety!”
— Pastor Ewen

Before we get into this message today, I want to go over something really important, and I think this is something that we really need to touch on: what is anxiety? Anxiety is not worry. We have to draw a dividing line between anxiety and worry. They are not the same thing. They have similar attributes, but they're not the same. Pastor Stephen even touched on it in his message about worry, where he addressed it by itself because they're very different.

But I'm going to show you why it's different because I think it's pretty important for us to see these differences. The very first one is that worry stays in our minds, whereas anxiety affects our minds and also our bodies. Have you ever worried so much that you felt sick? I felt pretty sick when I was doing that first message. I felt like I was going to pass out, especially after I got booed off the stage, I felt like, oh man, I'm going to faint. It's terrible. But have you guys ever felt like you were worrying so much that you felt sick? See, it might have not been worry. You might have actually been going through a little bit of anxiety.

Worry more or less stays in our mind. It's just up here in the head. Whereas anxiety will show itself physically. You might feel lightheaded, you might feel a little bit sick, you might feel a little bit weak. Sometimes we can even have anxiety attacks. That's the number one difference between them is that sometimes anxiety can be felt actually physically when we're going through a really stressful anxious time. The second one is that worry is temporary, but not anxiety. Worry is temporary. Anxiety is long lasting. Anxiety will consume us if we allow it. The third reason that anxiety isn't worry is that worry does not impair our day-to-day functions, but anxiety will. Worry won't really make it that difficult to get out of bed. Maybe we'll feel a little bit of a tinge inside. Maybe we'll feel a little bit stressed when we wake up in the morning, but anxiety seeps into our psyche a bit. When I say a bit for some people it can be a lot and it makes us tough to focus on these day-to-day tasks. It consumes our focus. That's a big one. I want you guys remember is the word consumes anxiety. It consumes our focus and it consumes our day. And unlike worry, anxiety might make you call in sick, might be so anxious, you're like, I can't go into work today. I can't think about anything else. Maybe some of us have gone through that before. It can be really tough that way. But I want to share the biggest difference between all of these.

The biggest difference between anything between worry and anxiety is that worry is rational. Whereas anxiety is irrational. See, like I said before, worry will get us off our butts. It'll actually get us moving. It'll say maybe it's a temporary situation that we're going through like, man, I should do something about this work's getting tough. Things are getting tough. I need to do something about this and it'll push us in the right direction. In some cases, it invokes this push. But anxiety is a completely different beast, completely different than worry. It will overestimate absolutely everything. It'll become so irrational that it's not even funny. I want you guys to think a bit like this. You work in a company of 10,000 people, and they're doing a layoff of 1% of the entire employee base. See, worry will make you think about it and say, “Man, maybe I should get my office in order. I should make sure that I get everything working well and make sure that I'm putting in a good effort.” Though you will be worried about it, you won't necessarily be thinking about it once you actually start to do these things. Once you have your office in order, you stop worrying about that. Once you start to get a bit better at work, you'll stop worrying about that. Once you actually show up on time to work every day, you'll stop worrying about it. You know that you're in the right. Whereas with anxiety, the 1% will become 100%. For a person with anxiety, it's almost as if that 1% is “I'm going to get laid off, I'm going to get laid off, and there's nothing that I can do about it.” Or if you start trying to do something about it, it's almost like the thought of getting laid off will consume you.

“The biggest difference between worry and anxiety is that worry is rational. Whereas anxiety is irrational.”
— Pastor Ewen

You're like, “Am I doing good enough? What does my boss think about me? What do my fellow employees think about me? What does my wife or my husband think about me? Am I doing enough? What do my customers think about me?” It'll overestimate absolutely everything. Anxiety is all-consuming. I want to share with you a quote from Rocky Balboa. This is what he says. “I don't care how tough you are; it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.” I love that movie, and that quote has always stuck with me, but I think it's a perfect indicator of anxiety. It will beat you to your knees if you let it. Absolutely, 100% anxiety can be a big thing, and that's not to discredit it at all because anxiety is a tough thing to work through.

But let's today go through what the Bible has to say about anxiety because I'm going to tell you right now, just like a lot of our other under pressure series, honestly, the people in the Bible were some really mentally unhealthy people in a lot of situations. We can look at David, we can look at Saul, we can look at the disciples, we can look at even Jesus went through a lot of these things. But today I want to share with you a really interesting story about a lady named Martha. You may know the name Martha. For those of you who haven't heard the Bible story, maybe the phrase “Don't be a Martha” will come up for you. Or maybe you've heard that before. I remember when I was younger, I called an older lady “Martha” because she was really uptight about something and that didn't go over well.

Martha was a very uptight person. She was someone who was anxious and she was very worried, unlike her sister Mary, who was only focused on Jesus when he came through. So today, let's go through the story in Luke 10:38-42.

“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”” (Luke 10:38–42, ESV)

You can see the anxiety that's coming off of Martha, but at the very same time, Martha just had the God of all creation, the Lord of the universe, the Prince of Peace, say, “Calm down.” I hate it when someone tells me to calm down. When someone says, “Chill out” or “Relax. It's not a big deal.” When someone says that to me, I'm like, “It's a big deal now that you've made it a big deal!” But Martha just had God tell her that. So, obviously, it was a bit of a deal here. So, I want to break down these verses. We're going to start in verse 41, and we're going to break things down from here. See, verse 41 says that Martha is anxious about many things. She says many things, but this lines up very well with us today, which is that anxiety is all-consuming.

Martha's anxiety has consumed her daily functions. It consumed her when God himself entered her house. The first thing that she thought of was not him in terms of going to greet him, going to be with him like Mary was. Instead, she was worried about how he viewed her. But we go into the first part of verse 42, and Jesus states one thing here. He says there's only one thing that is important. See, Mary chose the rational thing. Mary chose the rational thing, whereas Martha chose the irrational thing. She was very anxious about all these things. I'd only think about the things that she was thinking about. How does her house look? What is the food going to taste like? How is the stay going to be? I'm going to try my best not to bother him while he's here. What are the disciples going to think about me? Am I going to be healed as the people around me going to be healed? Let's not bother him too much.

All these things are probably stirring in Martha. You can see it through her actions. She's anxious about so many things when the God of the universe has come to stay with her when God incarnate has come to stay with her. But here's the thing: that anxiety can be a big thing, a massive thing. It can be one of those things that consume us, but at the same time, anxiety sometimes becomes part of who we are in a lot of ways. Just like Martha and Mary. You can see a very stark difference between the two of them, and it's a perfect example because there's a rational and an irrational portion to the story. There's a rational Mary and an irrational Martha.

So this is what Jesus says. Again, going down to still in verse 42, in the second part, he basically says that Mary has done the rational thing and that Martha has not. See, this isn't a condemning thing. I don't want to condemn anyone who has anxiety, but I want it to show us one thing: that anxiety can happen to us all. Anxiety is something that can impact all of us. And Martha was an anxious person by nature. As I said, you could see between Mary and Martha, she was an anxious person by nature, and it was the irrational thing that she did that was just normal for her. This was a normal process of life. Just like I said, it can become part of us. We don't even know that we're anxious sometimes. So, let's look ahead to anxiety. How do we tackle anxiety? And like I said at the beginning of this message, that's kind of a hard statement to make because I'm not going to give you a five-step process on how to fix your anxiety or a 10-step process on how we can go about our day without anxiety.

I'm not going to do that because, like I said, anxiety is different for us all and for all of us. It can be a process, and it's not something to toy around with and to tell someone, “Hey, you have anxiety. You are in the wrong.” That's not true at all. Jesus even comforts so many people with anxiety, and I think that's our job as well: to comfort and console.

I want to go through a few things that we can do going ahead, looking ahead for anxiety, and even if you don't have it, maybe if you have friends that maybe are a little bit anxious, maybe having some talks with them and just conversing about it, seeing how they're doing.

Get Help and Talk About it.

The very first one is get help and talk about it. That is the number one thing. I literally cannot say a bigger thing here. Get help and talk about it. Talking will change everything. See, this is the thing with anxiety is that getting help can be anxiety inducing. It can be so anxiety inducing that we don't actually want to go out and get help because we're worried about what people are going to think about us. We're thinking that they're going to look at us in a different way. But I want to encourage you today, if you are struggling with anxiety--maybe you've been anxious for years!--find someone to talk with, even if it is just a friend to begin with, I really do recommend going to a counselor as well, a Christian counselor. Or if you don't have the finances, like Pastor Stephen wrote last week, come and talk to me or Pastor Stephen or Pastor Embree. I mean, we cannot guide you as deeply as a licensed counselor can, but like Pastor Stephen wrote, people have told us that we're pretty good at listening.

Try to think rationally

The next thing I want to let you know is: begin to Think Rationally.

That's one of the biggest things we've been talking about it throughout this whole time, is that anxiety is irrational. So the way that we can combat this is by training ourselves to think rationally. It's going to be very difficult for some, but begin to pull yourself out of the situation, begin to pull yourself out and take a third person perspective. For some of us who maybe don't struggle with anxiety on a regular basis, that's a pretty easy thought. for people who have and the people who are here that do go through anxiety, it's a lot to pull yourself out of a situation, but I want to encourage you that it is possible if you are in a situation that's anxiety-inducing, maybe go into a different room, go on a drive.

My favourite one is if someone's really stressing me out, I love to text my wife and say, “Hey Rachelyn, can you give me a call right now so that you can tell me that I need to be somewhere so that I can get out of this conversation?” That's one of the ones that I love to do. If someone's stressing me out and making me anxious, or maybe they're just going on too long, that's a good tip from a pastor. Yeah, so if you see a phone ring when you're talking to me, I hope that's not what's happening.

But here's the thing is that when that 1% becomes the 100% chance for you and for us here or for your friends or for your family, pull yourselves out of the situation. Begin to think rationally and to get into a space that's healthy. This one is all about taking a break, and getting your bearings. And for some people, that situation might be in bed. It might be you are so anxious that you feel like you're bedbound, and I want to encourage you if you are feeling like you're stuck in bed, that there is hope.

Live with thankfulness

The third thing I want to get into here is be thankful as the Bible says. I want you to be thankful in all situations and you'll see why here in a moment. Let's go to Philippians 4:6-7.

“do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6–7, ESV)

There's some pretty good stuff in there. See here is the great thing about this is that this passage doesn't actually say that this is one of the things that old-timey Pentecostal churches or even some charismatic churches might go into is this is saying don't be anxious because anxiety is a sin. However, that is not what this passage is talking about at all. Anxiety is not a sin and it's not something that is terrible. Some people try to blame the person with anxiety. But what this passage is saying is that when anxiety comes, give it up to God. When anxiety comes (because it will) it will put you on your knees if you let it, but when anxiety comes, give it up to God, present your requests to God with thanksgiving and the peace of God will be with you.

Now, what I'm not saying is that this peace is going to fix your anxiety immediately. For some of us that might not be a thing. For some it may. When I pray, I feel at peace quite often and I feel like a lot of people go through that as well. But what I am saying is that anxiety can be given to God. Let's give it to God through thanksgiving, not by demeaning or by condemning or by complaining about our life, but rather, in this Thanksgiving season, give thanks to God for all that we have.

That's a great first step. If you're dealing with anxiety, thank God for what we have in our lives today. Thank God. I want to let you in on a little Bible secret: Jesus went through all of these things himself. You might think that cannot be the case because he is God. You might think that he didn't have the brain of a human. I want to say for those that might believe that, that Jesus didn't have a glowing orb in his head! Jesus was 100% man and 100% God. He had the brain of a man, an actual human with a human brain. And this is the thing with Jesus is that he experienced the exact same emotions and the exact same feelings that we go through on a day-to-day basis. See, Jesus' earthly father died, possibly when he was a little younger or even in his teenage years. Jesus was also on the run all the time. Wouldn't that make you a little bit anxious being on the run during the three years of your ministry? He had followers that left him. Not once, but twice. All the friends that he made along the way, leaving him in his most desperate time, and through everything that happened, Jesus knew that he was going to die an absolutely painful, terrible death. Would that not make you anxious knowing that you were going to die the worst way possible?

I was talking to Andrew about it this week as well, the guy that we had the video of last week, and Andrew was talking and explaining a little bit more on his topic of death and how the idea of death is a comforting one because we get to be with Jesus. He said, “The idea of death is great, but the idea of me dying in a painful, terrible way is not great whatsoever.” It's an anxiety inducing topic. See, Jesus was so anxious and stressed that in the garden of Gethsemane, he even sweat drops of blood. But here is the hope in all of this. I'm not just telling you this so that we can feel bad for Jesus because that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is comes in Hebrews 2:14-17.

“Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. For it is clear that he does not reach out to help angels, but to help Abraham’s offspring. Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:14–17, CSB)

What this verse is saying is that Jesus became a man so that he could be like us. Jesus knows what we go through because he's been there, he's experienced it, and because of that, we can give our anxieties to him. We can give our anxieties to him with thanksgiving and we can say, “Lord, I need your peace. God, I need your hope.” And for us today, there is a hope and a peace for now, and there's a hope and a peace for eternity as well.

I don't want to get your hopes up too much, because this world is cruel and this world can be hard and the things that we go through in life will differ from person to person. And I've even talked with some people who say, “I really feel jipped in this life,” but I do want to give you guys hope. For me, I know that I would be an absolute nut basket if I did not have Jesus in my life. If I didn't know that I had a hope for later, I would be anxious with no end. But because I have the hope of Jesus, because of his gospel, because he came and he lived and he died and he rose again for me and for all of us, I know that there's a hope and that there is a way that I can go that does not lead to death, though anxiety will come.

I want to encourage you today that it's okay, though it may not feel like it is okay. We have Jesus. We have God, and he's faithful to his promises. He's so faithful. If you have been going through a ton of anxiety, remember that Jesus has us in his hands and that Jesus is trustworthy because he's been where we've been and even today, he's still fully God and fully man, ruling at the right hand of God; interceding for us, praying on our behalf so that we will be able to walk this life that can feel so terrible sometimes. So, today, let's pray that God will be with us and that we won't lose sights of the great things that He has promised us.




This post is taken from Pastor Ewen Erickson’s message, “Answering Anxiety”