Anxiety: Sin, Disorder, or Both?

00:00:00.000 | We get a lot of questions and emails about anxiety disorders and attention deficit disorders,

00:00:10.000 | ADD, ADHD.

00:00:12.240 | One listener asks if these are merely disorders or are they also sin?

00:00:16.620 | Is it either/or, both/and?

00:00:19.080 | Over the years, Pastor John, as a pastor, how did you process these questions over panic

00:00:22.680 | attacks, anxiety, and ADD?

00:00:26.000 | Well, as I've tried to think about them, and I have over the years, they really are pretty

00:00:32.480 | distinct issues.

00:00:33.480 | So let me separate them out and maybe we can do ADD in its own podcast.

00:00:38.840 | But with regard to anxiety, the answer is yes.

00:00:43.280 | Paul and Jesus explicitly command us not to be anxious, so being anxious is a sin.

00:00:52.040 | Jesus says, "Do not be anxious about your life, what you are to eat, what you are to

00:00:57.440 | drink, about your body, what you shall put on."

00:01:00.080 | And then he gives eight reasons in that paragraph in Matthew 6 why we don't need to be anxious

00:01:06.800 | and shouldn't be anxious.

00:01:08.920 | "Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself," Matthew 6:34

00:01:15.800 | or Matthew 10, 19.

00:01:17.240 | "When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say."

00:01:22.000 | And Paul in Philippians 4, 6, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer

00:01:28.800 | and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God."

00:01:33.320 | So yes, worry, anxiety is a sin.

00:01:37.440 | God wants us to trust his sovereign, all-wise, all-good, all-providing, all-protecting, ever-assisting

00:01:45.920 | care.

00:01:46.920 | This is a trust issue.

00:01:50.720 | And he wants us to do it so deeply that death itself is not the ultimate threat.

00:01:58.240 | Death cannot separate us from the love of God or rob us of our joy.

00:02:03.560 | So the godly opposite of anxiety is peace and contentment rooted in trust in God's promises.

00:02:12.440 | It's the experience of Paul's secret.

00:02:15.840 | I have learned, this is Philippians 4, 11, I have learned in whatever situation I am

00:02:21.600 | to be content.

00:02:22.600 | That's the opposite of anxiety.

00:02:25.120 | I know how to be brought low and not be anxious about being brought low.

00:02:29.280 | I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.

00:02:33.880 | I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger.

00:02:38.880 | Now hunger would mean, I don't know where my next meal might come from.

00:02:43.760 | And need, I don't know if my needs are going to be met.

00:02:47.480 | And he's saying I've learned a secret.

00:02:49.640 | I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

00:02:54.800 | So the great challenge to all of us is to trust God more and more.

00:03:01.800 | Because Tony, all of us are anxious.

00:03:05.440 | I mean I hope the person who asked this question doesn't hear me say, "Yes, it's a sin."

00:03:09.600 | Say, "Well, thank you.

00:03:11.080 | That's no help."

00:03:13.040 | Well, it is a help because I'm joining you in it.

00:03:16.640 | There is no human being on the planet besides Jesus who doesn't struggle with anxiety.

00:03:24.520 | All of us are flawed in our faith.

00:03:27.040 | If we were perfect in our faith, we would be anxiety free.

00:03:32.520 | And the more we mature in faith, the more anxiety free we are.

00:03:38.400 | But I don't think in this life there's ever been a person who when faced with some new

00:03:44.360 | threat, some new danger, some new difficulty, doesn't have anxiety pop up in their life.

00:03:52.920 | And then, like the Psalm says, Psalm 53, 6, "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you."

00:03:59.080 | So there's this transaction that goes on as we deal with the remaining corruption and

00:04:07.720 | unbelief in our hearts.

00:04:09.920 | Now, having said that, we're all on the same team of trying to grow into greater and greater

00:04:15.840 | faith and less and less anxiety.

00:04:18.560 | Having said that, it is true that there are psychophysical conditions that make extreme

00:04:26.080 | anxiety and panic attacks, for example, uncontrollable phobias, a real life problem.

00:04:34.880 | So there's a continuum for all of us, but I do want to acknowledge for some, in these

00:04:42.040 | unusual cases, the believer needs very wise counsel from those who know him best and knows

00:04:52.040 | those physical and psychological conditions best.

00:04:56.560 | Here's the bigger picture.

00:04:57.640 | The physical brain and the spiritual soul are interdependent in ways that we cannot

00:05:04.520 | fully see.

00:05:06.020 | This means that there are, and there always will be, physical strategies as well as spiritual

00:05:12.920 | strategies for dealing with the conditions of our soul.

00:05:16.840 | That's a huge statement.

00:05:18.440 | We might want to talk more about that later.

00:05:20.720 | There will always be physical things you do and spiritual things you pursue and do in

00:05:26.980 | dealing with the condition of the soul.

00:05:30.240 | What we eat and drink and how we sleep and exercise and whether we, the weather we live

00:05:37.720 | in, like is it dark in February?

00:05:40.160 | Will it ever, will the sun ever come out?

00:05:42.720 | Will this temperature ever get below, you know, above zero?

00:05:46.920 | The lighting that we have at work, the sounds that we're surrounded with, a chirping bird

00:05:52.800 | versus a whirring freeway, all these things affect our psychological and our spiritual

00:05:59.400 | condition, which simply means that there may be extreme cases that require special physical

00:06:09.000 | efforts, including medication that provide a kind of equilibrium where the more natural

00:06:16.520 | strategies can have their best effect.

00:06:18.480 | In other words, medication may bring a person to the point where they can avail themselves

00:06:24.280 | more effectively of the God-given natural strategies.

00:06:29.400 | And maybe later we could talk about how these work.

00:06:32.760 | I have ideas about how to sanctify these natural strategies.

00:06:37.360 | But for now, I just want to emphasize that yes, we ought not to be anxious.

00:06:43.920 | And yes, we are all anxious.

00:06:45.680 | And yes, God has provided wonderful resources, both spiritually in his promises and physically

00:06:51.560 | with kinds of steps like get enough sleep in order to have the resources that he provides

00:06:59.480 | to be content.

00:07:00.480 | Good.

00:07:01.480 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:07:02.920 | And on this topic of anxiety, back in episode six, you addressed your nerves as you prepared

00:07:07.860 | to speak in front of 60,000 college students at Passion 2013.

00:07:12.240 | That episode can be found early in the APJ archive, that's episode number six.

00:07:16.560 | On anxiety and worry, it's worth checking out Pastor John's book, Future Grace, and

00:07:21.080 | one whole chapter in the book, chapter three, which is titled Faith and Future Grace vs.

00:07:25.520 | Anxiety.

00:07:26.520 | We'll be back tomorrow to talk about attention deficit disorder.

00:07:30.280 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:07:31.280 | Thanks for listening.

00:07:31.960 | [END]

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Anxiety: Sin, Disorder, or Both?

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