and that you are walking closely with our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and finding much joy in your relationship with Him. This has been a great blessing and a great privilege to be able to study God's Word with you, and we're working our way through some very important counseling issues that we trust that you will dig deep and study well on these topics.

They will serve you well in counseling ministry for years to come, and it's just a privilege to study with you in this online format. And so tonight we are looking at the subject of worry, anxiety, and fear, the WAF combo, as we called it in our year one training.

Worry, anxiety, and fear tend to go together and are really used interchangeably in the Scriptures. I guess there's someone who could possibly say that I'm really worried, but I'm not anxious at all, or someone might try to say that I'm really, really anxious, but I'm not afraid, but I think all of you would agree along with me that if you are worried, you are most likely also anxious and fearful, that those three terms tend to go together.

And we made an argument in our year one training that the WAF combo, the triad, is really dealing with a cluster of sins that need to be addressed biblically, and we want to do our best to do that, to give hope and help from God's Word. And I trust that you will be equipped to help people change in this area.

Just an introductory comment as we began before I go to prayer. The Bible does give so much hope and so much comfort to those who are anxious, to those who are afraid. John 14 verse 25, Jesus said to his disciples, "These things I've spoken to you while I am still with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." And I often think to this last evening that Jesus spent with his disciples in the upper room, and how they were tempted to be anxious, they were tempted to be afraid, they were facing the prospect of life without their Master.

As Jesus has told them, "Then I'm going away, and where I'm going you cannot come." And Jesus speaks to them these words of comfort, these words which speak peace to their souls, and he promises them that there will come the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who will bring his peace into their lives.

And I just think that the tenor and the tone of Jesus's loving words to his disciples ought to mark and characterize our ministry as biblical counselors, especially as we minister to those who are anxious and weighed down by life's troubles, that God has given to us his Holy Spirit, that we may experience the peace of God, that Jesus the Prince of Peace has died on the cross and risen again, that we may have objective peace with God our Father, and because of that we can experience the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, and we can face the future with courage and with assurance, knowing that our Father will never leave us or forsake us, knowing that the Son has died in our place for our sins, and that the Holy Spirit lives in us and will produce his sweet fruit in us as we walk by his influence and his leadership day by day.

I just think that we as biblical counselors have so much hope and so much help to offer those who are anxious, those who are afraid, and if you look at this subject from the standpoint of secular psychology, you will find that so many of what the world calls psychological disorders really center around this triad of worry, anxiety, and fear.

You have everything from social anxiety disorder, those who experience great anxiety in social settings. You have the issue of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, those who have experienced traumatic events in the past and who in some sense relive that past experience due to certain events that happen in the present.

You have the issue of obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD, those who seek to deal with their anxieties and their fears, their worries through repetitive behavior. They seek to control their lives or control a certain situation, and you have what the psychological world calls generalized anxiety disorder. Just a whole host of psychological symptoms and what the world calls disorders that really center around the triad of worry, anxiety, and fear, and as Ed Welch has said helpfully in his book "Running Scared" that the most common command, the most repeated command in the scripture is what God says to his people, "Do not fear and do not be afraid." He always attaches that commandment with a promise that the Lord has promised to be with us.

He has promised to provide for us and therefore we have every reason not to be afraid and not to live in fear. So we just have so much help and hope to offer on this subject. So whether you are counseling someone who is dealing with insomnia, just the inability to fall asleep due to anxieties and the stresses of life or possibly counseling someone who is involved with a business and who is just being driven to overwork and experiencing what Psalm 127 calls anxious toil, just this anxiety mixed with an overworked type of lifestyle that results many times in burnout and exhaustion or whether you are dealing with someone who lives in the fear of man.

Ed Welch has a great book out called "When People are Big and God is Small" dealing with the desire to be a people pleaser or a desire to live in fear of man. Just a whole broad section of counseling issues are addressed by worry, anxiety, and fear. And I do trust that you will be well equipped to handle this issue, that you will study the scriptures thoroughly as it relates to worry, anxiety, and fear, that you will study both the Old Testament and the New Testament teaching on this subject, and that you will be well equipped to help people walk with God through the trials of life.

The answer to worry, anxiety, and fear is not behavioral modification. It's not just telling people stop doing that or stop being afraid. The answer to worry, anxiety, and fear is to help people walk with their God through the issues of life. Help them walk with God their Father. Help them know the provisions of Christ their Savior.

Help them to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then they will experience what the Old Testament calls the shalom of God. Not just the absence of anxiety, but the presence of God's blessing and a wholeness of life that comes through the knowledge of God as revealed in the scriptures.

That's something that secular psychology cannot offer. We offer people a relationship with God through Christ our Savior. And so we offer the world what the secular world can never offer. So just a great topic, and we'll dive in in just a moment. But let me pray for us and ask the Lord to bless us in our study.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you indeed are the God of peace. We thank you that you have sent the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world to be the sacrifice for our sins. And we thank you that your Holy Spirit gives us peace, that the fruit of the Spirit is indeed the peace of God.

We thank you that as we trust in you and as we walk with you through the issues of life, that you indeed give us the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension. And we pray that we as counselors will be filled with your peace, and that we would be able to minister your peace to others.

Help us to come alongside those who are weighed down by life's anxieties. We think of so many in our churches who are just weighed down by the worries and the stresses of life, and we pray that you would help us to bring to them the hope that is found in your word.

And so we thank you for this time, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, let me go ahead and read the counseling exam question for you. This is counseling exam number six, and the question is, "Provide a biblical definition of anxiety and fear. Describe manifestations of anxiety and worry in both the inner and outer man.

Explain the biblical factors that drive anxiety and fear. Detail several biblical strategies to respond to anxiety and fear." So, you see the W-A-F triad right there in the question. Even the question itself is using the words anxiety, fear, and worry interchangeably. And so in your essay, you can go ahead and note that and use those terms interchangeably, and this question is addressing that triad of worry, anxiety, and fear.

You'll notice that there are four parts to this question. It breaks down nicely into a four-paragraph essay, if that's how you want to approach it. Give a definition. Describe the manifestations in both the inner and outer man, and then we'll talk about some of the biblical factors that drive anxiety and fear and end with some practical helps to ministering to those who are seeking to overcome anxiety and fear.

If you look at page one of your handout, I just noted there are some good resources that you can use in your study for this exam question. I know that you're not going to run out and get all of these resources, but I do want to commend them to you for further study, and I do think that as you work your way through the counseling ministry that you will want to do further research, further reading on the subject, and just deepen your understanding of worry, anxiety, and fear.

The first book you have there is Marshall and Mary Asher's The Christian's Guide to Psychological Terms, which I have recommended for your reading in year one. The Asher's have actually some really good definitions as it relates to this particular topic. If you look up the definition of panic attack in that resource, or if you look at the definition of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or if you look at the definition, I believe there's a section there on social anxiety disorder, you will find both the secular description of that disorder, and you'll find the biblical terms that are related to that issue, and they do have some helpful definitions there that you might want to quote and use in your essay exam, so just a great work that I would commend to you and would recommend that you have on your bookshelf.

Elyse Fitzpatrick's work, Overcoming Fear, Worry, Anxiety, Becoming a Woman of Faith and Confidence. Some of these resources, they are written for an audience of women, but that particular resource is really a helpful one and both men and women will benefit from that material. She has some really good resources there or some language there talking about how to put off unbiblical thoughts about the future that lead to anxiety and fear, and then putting on the thoughts which lead to peace and lead to confidence in the Lord.

So, I would recommend Elyse Fitzpatrick's work to you. John Piper has a chapter in his book, Future Grace, that's entitled Applying the Purifying Power of Faith in Future Grace vs. Anxiety. The thesis of that book is that you can apply the promises of God to specific sin issues and that the issue behind many sin issues is really an unbelief in the promises of God.

That's a thesis that we have sought to unpack in our year one training that I would love to unpack even further, but if you want an example of that, look at chapter 3 of Future Grace, and it just talks about how the promises of God can be applied to the issue of anxiety, and that's an approach that I would recommend that we follow as biblical counselors, that counselee is usually experiencing much anxiety because there is an unbelief in God's protection, provision, and promises.

Jesus said, "Why are you anxious?" in Matthew chapter 6, and then he said, "O ye of little faith." The issue that is driving much of our anxiety is really an unbelief in the promises of God, and Piper does a great job in unpacking that material. Stuart Scott's booklet, Anger, Anxiety, and Fear, is a good one to put into your counselee's hands.

It is brief, it is summarized material, it is short, and that is a very helpful work that we have used in our counseling ministry. Paul Tochkis just came out with this resource that we have just started using in our counseling ministry. It's called Anxiety, Knowing God's Peace, and it is a 31-day devotional centered around the issue of anxiety and fear.

PNR Publishing is doing a really good work coming out with these 31-day devotionals. They're meant to be read one reading per day, and I have not read this entire work myself, but I have put it in the hands of those who are struggling with anxiety and gotten just some really rave reviews about this 31-day devotional.

People's lives are being changed as they interact with the material in that devotional, and so I would recommend that resource to you and just a helpful work to put in the hands of those struggling with anxiety. Four books by Ed Welch. Ed Welch probably has done the most thorough thinking on the subject of worry, anxiety, and fear.

I really have come to appreciate his writings on this subject, Running Scared, which is an excellent work I would commend to you that you read, and really I would hope you would get the flavor or the tenor of the counseling ministry, what he calls the ethos of our ministry or the spirit of our ministry as we interact with those who are dealing with anxiety.

Just a very helpful work there, and then he has written a smaller work that's meant to be read for 50 days at a time, a brief reading for 50 days in a row. It's called a small book for the anxious heart, and that is a good homework assignment to give to counselees who are wrestling with anxiety.

Some book lists there. Our senior pastor at Kindred has come out with a booklet, Help, I'm Anxious. That is a very helpful resource to be used for homework in our counseling ministry. We have that on our counseling bookshelf, and then as I said before, anything by David Powelson as well is worth reading, worth digesting, and just helpful material.

He has a couple booklets out on the subject of worry, so just a wealth of material that's been put out there on this subject from the biblical counseling world, and I hope that many more good resources will be written on this subject. Let me move to page two of your handout, and just talk through a beginning introduction on this subject, and just note, as I said, that the Bible does abound with hope for those who are dealing with worry, anxiety, and fear.

Jay Adams has said, and we want to repeat, that our task in biblical counseling is to give people hope. We want people to have true hope, biblical hope, hope that is grounded upon the truth of God's word, not pie-in-the-sky thinking, not the sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun, not just optimistic thinking, but real hope that is grounded in the all-sufficient word of God, and we want to be counselors who abound with hope.

We have hope to offer to those who are anxious. Psalm 23, verse 4, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." That is a believer who overcame fear based upon an understanding and a knowledge of his shepherd. He says, "You are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me." I do want you to note that there is a simplicity to ministering to those with anxiety.

We want you to understand the breadth of all that scripture says. We want you to understand the breadth of all that's been written on this subject, but I also want to emphasize that ministering to those who are dealing with anxiety is not complicated. You want them to walk with their shepherd.

You want them to know the presence of Christ. You want them to know God's gracious provisions. You want them to intimately know their Savior and His love for them. There is a simplicity to this, of just helping them talk to God about their anxiety and fear, and to have them interact with the word of God, and to learn what God's word has to say about their problems.

David said, "I will fear no evil." Psalm 27, verse 1, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?" That's a verse that can be applied to social anxiety, or people pleasing, or what the secular world will call codependency, but the Bible would call an idolatry of man's approval.

"Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?" I love Isaiah 41, verse 14, "Fear not, you worm, Jacob, you men of Israel. I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord. Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel." You will note here that the Bible does not just say, "Stop being worried," or "Stop being afraid," but there is attached to that command a promise, "Fear not." Why?

God says, "I am the one who helps you." If you would only understand the one who is with you, you would understand you have no reason to be afraid or to be worried. This is the same language or the same line of reasoning that Jesus follows in Matthew 6, verse 25, where he says to his disciples, "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?" Jesus is reasoning with us.

He's not just telling us to stop being anxious or stop being worried, but he is reasoning with us from the lesser to the greater. You have a heavenly Father who is committed to provide for you. He even provides for the birds of the air. He even provides for the flowers in the fields.

Are you not of more value to him than they are? Because you have a heavenly Father who is committed to provide for you, you have no reason to be afraid, and you have no reason to be worried. And so I just want you to note that the commandment is always attached to a promise, and there is a tenderness here in how Jesus deals with his disciples.

You will notice the compassionate language of Luke 12 verse 32, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." That's a tender word of encouragement and comfort. "Oh, little flock, little sheep, fear not. You have a heavenly Father, and it is his pleasure to give to you not only everything that you need, but to give to you the kingdom." See the generosity of your Father who is in heaven.

I really pray that this type of language and perspective would be what you bring into your counseling sessions. It's really easy just to say to your counselee, "Well, repent," or "Don't you see that that's wrong?" or "Stop worrying, stop being afraid." But a seasoned biblical counselor will call out sin, to be sure, and will call for repentance, to be sure, but will also bring into that conversation the promises of God and the tenderness of the Father and bring into the conversation the blessings of God given to his children through the all-sufficient work of Jesus on the cross, and will plead with the counselee to abandon the orphan mentality.

You are not an orphan. You do not need to fend for yourself. You do not need to take care of everything on your own. You have a heavenly Father who is committed to provide for you, and therefore you ought not to be anxious or afraid. So we have much hope to offer to those who are struggling with life's problems.

Ed Welch writes, "It sounds that the king actually cares about us. He isn't ordering us to make bricks without straw. Instead, it sounds as if he wants his people to know peace." So even when seen as an authoritative command, this reveals something lovely about God. Unlike other kings, at least those who have despotic authority, God knows the concerns of those in his realm and commands things that are in their best interest.

Now, we note here that there are many issues that cause anxiety and worry for the believer. Now I'm going to bring you back to what we learned in year one, and you will recognize this from our year one training, hopefully, the three-tree diagram, which is a diagram that's been put out by the good people at CCEF.

And I know that you all love this diagram. We've used it in our self-counseling project, but you will note that we have used this diagram to make a distinction between heat issues and heart issues. And so the heat represents, the diagram is based upon Jeremiah 17, where it says that the believer will be like a tree who will not fear even when the heat comes.

And so the heat broadly is used conceptually to refer to the external circumstances that a believer faces in life. And we just use this diagram, if you remember, to note that we want to be thinking through heat issues versus heart issues. What is the external situation that the counselee is in?

And then what are the heart issues that are being brought out by that situation? So you will note here that believers do experience situations and circumstances in life, which bring about or draw out an anxious heart. Some of these heat issues include financial pressures. There are many who struggle with financial anxiety.

I mentioned Psalm 127, verse two, "It is vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil." That phrase, anxious toil, refers to a godless hype of activity, a striving. It is not just talking about the diligent worker that's described in the book of Proverbs that is working hard at his job because of a desire to honor God, but it's talking about this heart that feels that he or she has to take care of it all on their own.

And I'm alone in the world, and I've got to provide for myself, and I've got to do it all by myself, and there is no God who loves me and who's committed to care for me. And so it drives this anxious toil that usually results in overwork, usually results in exhaustion and a type of burnout.

Well, there are financial pressures that people face in life. There is physical illnesses. I want to recommend, I was talking to one of the counselors that I'm working with and just recommending Esther Smith's 31-Day Devotional on Chronic Illness and Physical Sickness. That is an excellent work put out by PNR Publishing that talks about the issues that people deal with as they walk through a chronic physical illness.

It's a very helpful work, but you will find that that is a heat issue that will also draw out a heart issue, a heart of fear, worry, and anxiety. And so we want to be equipped to minister carefully and compassionately to those who are dealing with a physical illness.

There's decisions about the future that needs to be made. There is the prospect of getting old and dying. There are just the daily responsibilities of life. Sometimes it's not the big issues in life which causes anxiety. It's just what's on my to-do list for today. Jesus said to Martha in Luke 10 41, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things." And Martha was trying to get a meal together.

She was trying to clean the house and she was worried and anxious about those things. Sometimes it's just getting things done today that is causing us anxiety. And so these are heat issues that deal with, that draw out the anxieties of life. And there are many types of anxiety that is caused in relation to each of these heat issues.

Now just keep that in mind. I'm going to throw a number of pictures your way. Hopefully you'll be able to pull them together in your mind. Some of this is going to be review. And I think this is going to be helpful if you can put all of these concepts together.

But let me move to page three of your handout there. And let's talk through manifestations of anxiety and worry in the inner and outer man. Now remember that man is both physical and spiritual. We did a whole essay on this in the theology exams where we talked about the dual nature of man.

Man is material and immaterial. He is physical and spiritual. Man has a body and man has also a soul. And so as we talk through inner and outer man, we're talking about the spiritual aspect of man and also the physical aspect of man. And we're always thinking through how does the two aspects of man relate to each other and go together.

Well, you will note that as you survey the secular literature on anxiety disorders, that there are many physical manifestations of an anxiety disorder. You will note that the DSM-IV and its treatment of anxiety disorders talks much about a person's physical manifestations of anxiety. Now we will note that the DSM-IV is helpful insofar as it makes observations about human behavior.

Secular psychology can't diagnose the root cause of that behavior, but secular psychology can make observations about this is how people behave when they are anxious. And so I think the DSM-IV is helpful insofar as it describes the physical manifestations of people who have anxiety. And here are some of the things that the secular literature notes.

There is an inability to relax. You have under generalized anxiety disorder, a persistent worrying or anxiety about a number of areas that are out of proportion to the impact of the events, inability to set aside or let go of a worry, inability to relax, feeling restless and feeling keyed up or on edge.

I think you can include in that many people have an inability to sleep at night. They have insomnia. They're possibly on sleep medications because they are up thinking through the issues of life. The mind is racing with anxious thoughts. You also have under physical manifestations, the feeling keyed up or on edge, we noted repetitive behaviors.

This would be under the classification of obsessive compulsive disorder. And the secular literature notes hand-washing, ordering, checking, aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation. Now, obsessive compulsive disorder, there is full-blown OCD. And then there is what we might call a mild form of OCD.

But this is repetitive behaviors that are designed in the counselee's mind to control a certain situation. And then you have panic attacks, which are characterized by palpitations or pounding heart. Oftentimes, a panic attack can feel like a heart attack because it deals with a person's accelerated heart rate. There is sweating, trembling or shaking, difficulty breathing, chest pain or discomfort.

A panic disorder, according to the secular literature, is characterized by recurrent panic attacks. But you do have physical manifestation there of an anxiety issue. You have PTSD, in which a person has been exposed to a traumatic event and persistently re-experiences that event. The person with PTSD can experience intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

Now, I can't speak to all the full manifestations of PTSD, but I use this example in my own life where I was on the freeway and got stuck in traffic and was rear-ended by a lady who had a trailer that had a couple of horses in it. And it totaled our van.

And we were thankfully not injured in that accident, but it was a scary moment of just being rear-ended on the freeway. And for about a month or two after that incident happened, whenever I drove that certain place in the freeway, I noticed that my body was tensing up and that my heart started pounding, even though the incident was past and was in the past.

I just took that as a mild form of when you go through something traumatic, and then you go through a situation where something reminds you of that incident, there can be a bodily response, a physical response to what you've experienced. And I think when you deal with the issue of the broader subject of PCSD, you are dealing with something that is much bigger, in many cases, much more traumatic than being rear-ended on the freeway and is something that you want to think through and be able to provide some help biblically.

Greg Gifford has a good work on PTSD from a biblical counseling perspective. I didn't note that on your bibliography, but I would encourage you to make use of Greg Gifford's work. I'm not sure what it's called, but he does have a work on PTSD. And then social anxiety disorders, specific phobias, I think you can note that all of those have physical manifestations, even though they are expressions of a heart issue.

And so man is physical, and man is also spiritual. We observe the physical manifestations of anxiety, fear, and worry, but that's not where we as biblical counselors have our focus. We want to understand how the physical is relating to the spiritual, but our task as biblical counselors is to address the heart issues.

We are those who care for souls, and so we want to be focused on the inner man. We want to note the outer man aspects of anxiety, fear, and worry, but we are tasked to focus on the inner man. And so what does the Bible say about the inner man?

What are the heart issues that are expressing themselves in these physical manifestations? Well, this is a review of year one material. We note that the inner man has thoughts, Matthew 6, verse 31. Jesus says, "Therefore do not be anxious, saying," now this is the internal monologue of someone who is experiencing anxiety about the future.

The internal monologue of the heart is, what shall we eat? What shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? These are the questions that are going through a person's heart that is resulting in anxiety, fear, and worry. One of the helpful assignments that you may want to give to a counselee who's dealing with anxiety is to journal their anxious thoughts, is just to write out what are the thoughts that are going through your mind in your most anxious moments.

Or maybe if you are on the verge of having a panic attack, what are the thoughts that are racing through your mind? Or when you are up at night and you can't sleep, what are the thoughts that you are dealing with? And writing them down can be helpful in just identifying the anxious thoughts that characterize a person's heart attitudes.

And in most cases, you will find that those anxious thoughts do not include the promises and the provisions of a faithful God. You also have an inner man desires. Anxiety and fear would reveal what you most desire. As David Powelson well notes that if you are anxious about financial concerns, then it reveals a desire for financial security.

Or if you're most anxious about physical illness, then it reveals a desire for physical health. This is really basic. I don't think I need to explain all of that to you, but anxiety would be the flip side of desire. And the heart is always characterized by desire. If I am up at night and I'm anxious about my children's education or my children's wellbeing, or what are they doing in life?

Or what are they going to do in the future? Then it reveals a desire for a certain future for my children. And so what you are most anxious about reveals what you most desire. And the heart issue of that we all face in our sanctification is submitting our heart's desires to the gracious authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But as you look at the number of ways that fear presents itself, you will find that the heart is always desiring a certain outcome or a certain thing. And that brings us to values. Again, this is a little bit of review of year one material, but the heart has treasures or values.

You will note what you tend to worship when you see what you are most anxious about. Sinfully, that is where you will find the idolatry of the heart saying to a certain thing or person or event, "You are my greatest treasure. You are worth living for." And so the thoughts and desires and the values of the heart are always expressing themselves in certain behavior.

Now you will note here, again, watch the interaction between physical and spiritual. The values of the heart, the immaterial man, the immaterial aspect of man, the values of a worshiping heart. Let's say, for example, if I most value and worship my physical health. So I'm spending all my time at the gym and I'm eating only vegetables and bran.

And there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want to do. But let's just say, for example, that my idolatry is my physical health. And so I'm obsessive compulsive about washing my hands, which by the way, in this time is not a bad thing to do. But you get the picture here that I develop these obsessive compulsive behaviors guarding my physical health.

And then because I'm most treasuring my physical health, then I'm up at night worried about what's going to happen in the future, worried about certain physical illnesses. And it actually impedes my physical health from being all that it could be because now I'm not sleeping, I'm anxious. And you will note here that the values and the desires and the thoughts of the heart express themselves in physical manifestations.

So what this essay question is asking you to do is to think through anxiety, fear, and worry in terms of inner and outer man. You will want to craft most likely a paragraph that talks about outer man manifestations of anxiety and fear, and then relate them to the heart issues, the thoughts and the desires and the values of the heart, which give rise to physical manifestations and expressions.

So just use that what's on the slide as a basic framework or as a basic template. We're always thinking through this physical and spiritual. What aspects are physical? What aspects are spiritual? And as I said in previous classes, we are not anti-medication. We are not against the idea of psychotropic drugs necessarily, although we have a concern that those things are over-prescribed.

Our agenda is not to do away with all psychotropic medications, but you do see the limitations of such an approach that deal with anxiety issues only from a physical perspective. Let's say that the issue is only physical and there must be an imbalance chemically that is causing all of these behaviors and gives only a physical response to what is perceived as a physical issue.

You do see the limitations of such an approach that that approach does not deal with the issues of a worshiping heart. And that is where we as biblical counselors can be helpful and that we can give real hope and help to those who are in need. So let me move on at this point and go to page four of your handout.

I want to talk a little bit about the biblical factors that drive anxiety and fear, and just note these for you. Some of these you will note are the dynamics of a worshiping heart. The heart is always worshiping either rightly or wrongly, but just talk through some biblical factors as it relates to this issue.

Letter A, a lack of trust in the sovereignty, wisdom, and love of God. What I've described as the orphan mentality. This is related to Psalm 56 verse 3 where the psalmist says, "When I'm afraid, I put my trust in you." So the opposite of fear is trust in the Lord.

Jerry Bridges does a great work on this where he talks about the whole idea of worry, of fear, and anxiety in relation to a person's trust in the Lord. I'm having a little trouble here with my slides, but okay, we'll get through this. I'm not a technical wizard here.

I'm having anxiety about my slides, but you'll all be gracious to me. I'll work up my handout here. We have a lack of trust in the sovereignty, wisdom, and love of God. I want to encourage you to get Jerry Bridges' Trust in God. He talks about this whole idea of the sovereignty of God, the wisdom of God, and the love of God really being the three truths that go together that give us reason to trust God.

So we're not just telling people, "Well, trust God. Just do it." We're reminding them of these beautiful truths that God is sovereign over every aspect of our lives, that he is in control of every circumstance in each of our lives, but he's not just sovereign and in control, but he's also loving, that he loves us with an infinite love, and therefore he orders the events of our lives for our good and for his glory, and that he is also wise.

That means he ordains the best ends, and then he also ordains the best means to those ends. He has a goal to which he is working all of human history towards, that he is moving your life and mine to a glorious conclusion, and that every event in our lives is meant to move us toward that goal.

The result of understanding the sovereignty, wisdom, and the love of God is that we can trust him. We can place our lives in his hands, and because we trust him, we are not afraid. We don't fear the future because we know that God is in control of every aspect of our lives, and so one of the biblical factors that drive anxiety and fear is just a lack of trusting God, wanting to take our lives in our own hands, which is a very scary thing to do because we are not God, and we cannot control all of the events of our lives.

Trying to control an uncontrollable world is a recipe for anxiety and fear, and so you often find that people who are really anxious are also in control. I am most anxious about my children when I'm trying to control every aspect of their lives. I am most at peace with my children's future when I trust God with my children and with their future.

Letter B, you have an inner monologue which rehearses unbiblical thoughts until they become the dominant theme in the heart. This is Psalm 42, verse 5, the psalmist speaking to himself and not allowing his internal monologue to go unchecked, but questioning himself, asking himself, "Why are you cast down on my soul?

Why are you in turmoil within me?" and then exhorting himself, "Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation, and my God." You will find if you assign counselees journal assignments that they are oftentimes rehearsing godless thoughts in their heart that, "I have to take care of myself.

I have to provide for myself. I have to do it all," and they have rehearsed these thoughts in their hearts to such a degree that it's become a dominant theme in their heart's monologue, and they need to learn to question themselves, to correct themselves, to speak to themselves, not listen to themselves, but that is a factor that does drive anxiety and fear.

Letter C is refusal to live in the present. Jesus said, "Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Have you ever noticed that, dear friends, that most of our anxieties concern the future, does not concern the issues of today, that today is very simple.

One day at a time, give us this day our daily bread. Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord's prayer, and yet most of our fears and anxieties relate to things that haven't happened yet, that probably will never happen yet, never happen in the future, but we've created in our minds a certain future that we project to be a worst-case scenario, and then we live in that scenario and experience fear and worry as it relates to what might happen.

We imagine the doctor's appointment, the worst-case scenario, and then we live in that possible future, which many cases does not come to pass. It's just helpful to know that that's a factor that drives anxiety, is the heart's desire to live in tomorrow, where God is always calling us to live one day at a time, sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

God gave manna to his people in the Old Testament one day at a time. You can't store it up. You can't save up for tomorrow or next year or next decade. You have to live trusting one day at a time. Ed Welch has talked about this, that worriers are false prophets.

They look into a future and they predict a future that does not come to pass, and then they live as if that future is true, and so we want to bring our counselees to live one day at a time. It takes humility to live one day at a time.

It takes a recognition of your own limitations to live one day at a time, trusting in God's provision for today. Pride always wants to have the answers for the next 10 years and to have those answers right now when God is always calling us to humbly walk with him, and then letter D related to that is a refusal to recognize personal limitations.

You know this from Psalm 131, where David says, "I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me." I wake up every Monday morning probably as you do. I have thoughts about the United States. I have thoughts about the government. I have thoughts about what the senator should do.

I have thoughts about the Supreme Court. I have thoughts about global trends and economics. I have opinions. I have perspectives. I have thoughts about what should happen nationally as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, what should happen in the church, and then I wake up on a Monday morning and I have to humble myself and say, you know, I just got to go to work and love my wife and love my kids and do the dishes tonight and take out the trash and just concern myself with the simple things in life.

It's not that I'm naive about what's going on in the world and what's going on in the nation, but there are things that are too great and too wonderful for me, and it's an act of humility just to recognize that I can't solve the world's problems. I'm not a senator.

I'm not a congressman. I don't belong on the Supreme Court. My world is much smaller than all of that, and even though I pray for all of those things to be done in a God-honoring way, there is a humble recognition that I need to occupy myself with my circle of responsibility, and David says that that's why my soul is like a weaned child and that I'm resting upon the care of the Lord because I have made a commitment not to occupy myself with things that are too great and too marvelous for me, and if you look at that language of things that are too great and too marvelous for me, you will find that the language of great and marvelous in the Old Testament is used in reference to the things which God does, to the issues that God concerns himself with.

David is saying, "I'm going to allow God to run the universe, and I'm not going to try to be God. I'm going to concern myself with what he has called me to be responsible for, and therefore, my soul can be free of anxiety because God has this world and the nation's history and the history of the world under his control, and he is working it out for his glory and for my good," and so just note some of those factors.

Use Paul Tripp's helpful circles of responsibility diagram that is found in his work Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands. That's helpful to use with a counselee, just what is your circle of responsibility? What has God called you to be responsible for, and then what is outside of your circle of responsibility?

What are the things that God has called you to trust him for? Just to note that when you move outside of your circle of responsibility, that is when your heart is going to experience anxiety because you are trying to concern yourself with things that only God can do, and you're going to have anxiety, worry, and fear in your heart.

Just a helpful thing to observe as we work through what are the factors driving fear and anxiety. Now, let me wrap this up by moving to the last page on page five with some practical words on how to help a counselee with anxiety and fear, and this is just from some of my own experiences in counseling as well as interacting with counselors in our ministry who have worked with people dealing with anxiety and fear.

I would say that we can help. We have the Bible. We have Christ. We have the Holy Spirit. The local church is the place you want to go to when you are dealing with anxiety and fear. We have help to offer, and even sometimes just giving a simple assignment as Philippians 4 verses 6 to 7 to pray with thanksgiving about everything and to not be anxious about anything, and a simple assignment such as giving to a counselee, write out the things that are causing you anxiety, and then a separate column, write out the things that you ought to be thankful for, and then what I want you to do this week is to pray each day down your thankfulness list, and you'll be obeying Philippians 4 verses 6 to 7 to pray with thanksgiving about everything, and then I also want you to everything on your anxiety list, I want you to saturate those things with prayer and to pray through each item on your list.

A simple assignment like that can do wonders in helping a counselee work through anxiety, and that is the power of biblical counseling, that we can give our counselees real hope and help from the Word of God, and so just some perspectives real practically on counseling those who are dealing with anxiety and worry.

Number one, I would encourage you to view the counseling opportunity as an opportunity to help the counselee experience God's grace. When someone comes in for counseling in other words, and they're saying I'm having panic attacks, or I'm on medication for anti-anxiety, taking anti-anxiety medications, or I can't sleep at night, or I'm having you know PTSD type of symptoms because I had a traumatic event in my past, it's easy to hear that type of experience and struggle and feel overwhelmed, or feel like I don't know if I can help as a biblical counselor.

I want to encourage you to look at those counseling opportunities as an opportunity to bring the counselee closer to the Lord, as an opportunity for God's grace to be put on display, because if you look at what the scripture says about anxiety and fear, God wants to draw near to the believer who has an anxious heart.

I think if you take the broad teaching of the Word of God on this subject, the number of times God addresses the anxious heart, the number of times that God talks to the person who is fearful about the future, the number of times God addresses the issue of worry, and then if you take all of that and look through the tenor of scripture, of all the promises that God gives to the person who is struggling with anxiety, I think we could summarize in this statement that God desires to minister to the anxious heart.

God desires that the anxious person experiences his peace, his provision, and his comfort. That's Jesus in the upper room with his disciples, that he wanted the disciples to experience the peace of God, and so he spoke words of comfort and peace to his disciples, and that's Jesus walking with the disciples through his three-year public ministry, oftentimes gently admonishing them, saying, "Oh ye of little faith, why are you afraid?

Why are you anxious?" That if you just knew the promises and the provision of God, you would understand that you have no reason to be worried or be afraid, and so just view this as an opportunity for God's grace to be put on display, and I think that God will give you opportunities to help counselees to overcome anxiety.

Number two, give hope. Emphasize the presence of Christ and his faithful provisions. Number three, you do want to become skilled at exposing the heart issues which are driving fear and anxiety, so just some practical questions. You want to find out walking through the heat issues versus the heart issues.

What are the external circumstances that are drawing out the counselee's anxious heart? You want to ask the questions, what is the counselee anxious about? What is the specific concern that is leading to fear and anxiety? How often does the counselee struggle with anxiety? What are the settings that cause anxiety and fear?

What is the intensity of the anxiety that's being experienced? Does it become more intense in certain times and issues versus other settings? Now, those are just some questions that you want to ask, and then drawing out the issues of the heart. What are the thoughts, the desires, and the treasures, the values that are being exposed by a counselee's situation or heat issues?

And just note that the number of times that Jesus identifies the issue of faith being the root issue that drives anxiety and fear. "Oh ye of little faith, oh you of little faith, oh you of little faith, why did you doubt," Jesus said. That's one word in the Greek, by the way.

It's "little faiths." It could be translated. It's a term of both affirmation and correction at the same time. You have faith, and that faith is real, but that faith is little and it needs to grow. And oftentimes, our anxieties reveal where we have placed our trust, and it reveals the true state or the true status of our faith.

And so, as Robert Jones writes, "Worries and fears are simply concerns that become inordinate. They cross the line. They become sinful because of unbelief and idolatry." And John Piper says, "Well, that Jesus says that the root of anxiety is inadequate faith in our Father's future grace. As unbelief gets the upper hand in our hearts, one of the effects is anxiety.

The root cause of anxiety is a failure to trust all that God has promised to be for us in Jesus." A last helpful work that I would recommend, I believe it's Adam Clark's Book of Promises. It's an older work, but it's a work that I have put into counselees' hands who struggle with anxiety.

I believe it's Clark's Book of Promises, C-L-A-R-K-E, and just a number of promises found in the Word of God that you can just have your counselee read through that and study through that and just realize that God has promised to give provision in whatever the issue is that they're having anxiety over.

And then number four, lastly, let me encourage you to get practical. "The battle to overcome anxiety and fear must be fought in the trenches of everyday life." And so, we call this, this is the battle at the dishwasher or the battle at the kitchen where you're doing your dishes or some counselors call this the stoplight battle.

This is the battle for the mind and the heart when you are at a stoplight and you're waiting for the stoplight to turn green. What are the thoughts which are flooding your mind and causing you anxiety? What do you think about when you don't need to think about anything?

And there are certain places and situations in life where you are not having to have your mind occupied and that's when anxious thoughts flood in. And so, some of our counselors give very practical assignments, writing out the promises of God on index cards and then placing them at those certain situations.

An index card at your kitchen sink where you are tempted to have anxious thoughts and you can quickly glance at a certain promise of God like Hebrews 13 verse 5 and 6 that the Lord has promised never to leave me or forsake me. Well, you can place that on an index card next to your kitchen and as you do the dishes, you can be rehearsing that promise in your mind instead of the anxious thoughts about the future.

And you can help your counselee to do that as well or even placing the index card on the dashboard of your car so that when you are at the stoplight, I mean, you want to be watching the stoplight, but you can be rehearsing a certain verse as you wait for the light to turn green.

And in that way, do a real battle for sanctification in the everyday situations of life. As a counselor, if you are not seeing the change that you want to see in your counselee, then you want to get more specific about your counseling, your homework assignments. It takes work to design homework that is that specific.

And that's why I appreciate some of the counselors who have given me these recommendations. They've really thought through the issue of homework. How do you design homework to help the counselee do battle for their sanctification in real practical situations? And it's not like you can do battle for that one day and then coast off that victory the rest of the week.

You need to engage in that battle on a daily basis. And just helping your counselee work through that is very conducive to a profitable counseling relationship. A thankfulness journal, being very specific, I've noticed that counselees who struggle with anxiety, many of them can quote Philippians 4, 6, and 7 to pray about everything and be thankful for everything, but not to be anxious about anything.

They can quote that. But when you ask them the question, are you actually praying that way? They are not praying that way. Because if they did pray that way on a daily basis, then the peace of God would guard their hearts and their minds in Christ Jesus. And so just good homework assignments, again, that are designed to keep the counselee accountable.

Are you actually praying about everything on your anxiety list? Are you actually giving thanks to God for everything on your thankfulness list? Those are helpful assignments to give to a counselee. Engaging in service opportunities for others. Oftentimes, counselees are overly occupied with their own world. They need to engage in the concerns and the cares of other people.

They need to, in a godly sense, be anxious for other people's concerns. It's difficult to be overly anxious about yourself when you are engaged in prayer for 10 other people and intensely engaged in interceding for other people. That's helpful in just overcoming your own anxiety. Scripture memory. And then I've noted the circles of responsibility assignment, noting what is in your own circle of responsibility versus what is in God's circle of responsibility.

So I hope that's helpful. There's much more that can be said, but just noting that in the end, there's a breadth of material to study and digest on this subject. But in the end, counseling with someone who is struggling with anxiety, it can be a very simple focus, and I would encourage you to start there.

What you want to do is you want to bring the heart to worship Christ, to experience Christ's grace, to understand Christ's provisions and promises. And you can do that, and I can do that because we have the Word of God. We are biblical counselors, and we are able to give hope and help in this area.

So may the Lord bless you this week as you study on the subject and as you write on this topic. I encourage you to dig deep, and if you do so, you will build a great foundation for future counseling ministry. And then I would encourage you to take this material and be confident.

Be humbly confident in your ability to take God's Word and give it to someone else so that an anxious heart can be flooded with the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. And I trust that God will give you grace for that. So may the Lord bless you. Thank you again for joining us tonight on this webinar.

We will be back next Sunday at 5 o'clock p.m. Pacific time, and we're going to be talking through the issue of how to conclude a counseling relationship. Some of those relationships go really well, and you want to know how to conclude good counseling relationships. You also want to know how to conclude counseling relationships when they aren't going so well,