We get a lot of questions and emails about anxiety disorders and attention deficit disorders, ADD, ADHD. One listener asks if these are merely disorders or are they also sin? Is it either/or, both/and? Over the years, Pastor John, as a pastor, how did you process these questions over panic attacks, anxiety, and ADD?

Well, as I've tried to think about them, and I have over the years, they really are pretty distinct issues. So let me separate them out and maybe we can do ADD in its own podcast. But with regard to anxiety, the answer is yes. Paul and Jesus explicitly command us not to be anxious, so being anxious is a sin.

Jesus says, "Do not be anxious about your life, what you are to eat, what you are to drink, about your body, what you shall put on." And then he gives eight reasons in that paragraph in Matthew 6 why we don't need to be anxious and shouldn't be anxious. "Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself," Matthew 6:34 or Matthew 10, 19.

"When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say." And Paul in Philippians 4, 6, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." So yes, worry, anxiety is a sin.

God wants us to trust his sovereign, all-wise, all-good, all-providing, all-protecting, ever-assisting care. This is a trust issue. And he wants us to do it so deeply that death itself is not the ultimate threat. Death cannot separate us from the love of God or rob us of our joy. So the godly opposite of anxiety is peace and contentment rooted in trust in God's promises.

It's the experience of Paul's secret. I have learned, this is Philippians 4, 11, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. That's the opposite of anxiety. I know how to be brought low and not be anxious about being brought low. I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.

I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger. Now hunger would mean, I don't know where my next meal might come from. And need, I don't know if my needs are going to be met. And he's saying I've learned a secret. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

So the great challenge to all of us is to trust God more and more. Because Tony, all of us are anxious. I mean I hope the person who asked this question doesn't hear me say, "Yes, it's a sin." Say, "Well, thank you. That's no help." Well, it is a help because I'm joining you in it.

There is no human being on the planet besides Jesus who doesn't struggle with anxiety. All of us are flawed in our faith. If we were perfect in our faith, we would be anxiety free. And the more we mature in faith, the more anxiety free we are. But I don't think in this life there's ever been a person who when faced with some new threat, some new danger, some new difficulty, doesn't have anxiety pop up in their life.

And then, like the Psalm says, Psalm 53, 6, "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you." So there's this transaction that goes on as we deal with the remaining corruption and unbelief in our hearts. Now, having said that, we're all on the same team of trying to grow into greater and greater faith and less and less anxiety.

Having said that, it is true that there are psychophysical conditions that make extreme anxiety and panic attacks, for example, uncontrollable phobias, a real life problem. So there's a continuum for all of us, but I do want to acknowledge for some, in these unusual cases, the believer needs very wise counsel from those who know him best and knows those physical and psychological conditions best.

Here's the bigger picture. The physical brain and the spiritual soul are interdependent in ways that we cannot fully see. This means that there are, and there always will be, physical strategies as well as spiritual strategies for dealing with the conditions of our soul. That's a huge statement. We might want to talk more about that later.

There will always be physical things you do and spiritual things you pursue and do in dealing with the condition of the soul. What we eat and drink and how we sleep and exercise and whether we, the weather we live in, like is it dark in February? Will it ever, will the sun ever come out?

Will this temperature ever get below, you know, above zero? The lighting that we have at work, the sounds that we're surrounded with, a chirping bird versus a whirring freeway, all these things affect our psychological and our spiritual condition, which simply means that there may be extreme cases that require special physical efforts, including medication that provide a kind of equilibrium where the more natural strategies can have their best effect.

In other words, medication may bring a person to the point where they can avail themselves more effectively of the God-given natural strategies. And maybe later we could talk about how these work. I have ideas about how to sanctify these natural strategies. But for now, I just want to emphasize that yes, we ought not to be anxious.

And yes, we are all anxious. And yes, God has provided wonderful resources, both spiritually in his promises and physically with kinds of steps like get enough sleep in order to have the resources that he provides to be content. Good. Thank you, Pastor John. And on this topic of anxiety, back in episode six, you addressed your nerves as you prepared to speak in front of 60,000 college students at Passion 2013.

That episode can be found early in the APJ archive, that's episode number six. On anxiety and worry, it's worth checking out Pastor John's book, Future Grace, and one whole chapter in the book, chapter three, which is titled Faith and Future Grace vs. Anxiety. We'll be back tomorrow to talk about attention deficit disorder.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. 1 Page 1 of 3