When I was a teenager, cell phones were starting to become the big deal they are today. Cell phones and smartphones were a giant status symbol, so, naturally, I desperately needed a smartphone. I could do some practical things with them, but most of my motivation was about the impression I would leave when my peers knew I had a smartphone and an iPhone, nonetheless. I set about eagerly saving for it and figuring out how to pay the monthly bill. Once I had secured the money, I proudly ordered the phone and began showing it to my friends every chance I got. Only then did I realize a problem, if I dropped this block of fragile metal and glass, all the prestige I thought I had gained would be gone in one wrong move. Simply putting the phone down in the wrong place at the wrong time would mean catastrophe. There was no possible way that I could afford to replace it if it broke. This realization meant I had to obsess over its care. I was experiencing what Jesus said would happen to earthly treasures in Matthew 6:19-20. Moth and rust were destroying my phone. Moth and rust were destroying my worldly reputation built on a worldly treasure. When I was a teen, I would not have described this experience as anxiety, but anxiety would have been the appropriate description. Anxiety is usually experienced as a fear that worldly circumstances will go poorly and should be understood biblically as the result of striving after earthly treasure. Those who want to help people struggling with anxiety should seek to guide them to instead strive after eternal treasures.
The intent of the illustration of my phone is not to oversimplify what can be a very intricate and persistent struggle for many Christians. Anxiety over a broken phone is one thing, and it is another thing to be anxious over a pregnancy when a mom has experienced miscarriage after miscarriage. However, a teenager's genuine anxiety over his phone or a mom's expected anxiety over having yet another miscarriage is rooted in the same sin of hoping in what is temporal and not striving after what is everlasting. Likewise, the solution to both situations is to find hope in what is unchanging and eternal, namely God and his kingdom.
I will make a necessary clarification about using the word anxiety throughout this paper. Because of the rise of mindfulness and mental health concerns in American culture, the understood meaning of the word ‘anxiety’ is for someone to be under a condition that is functionally debilitating to at least some degree.[1] This usage is proper, but there is another sense in which anxiety is equivalent to using the word concern. In the ESV translation of 1 Corinthians 7:33, when Paul instructs on marriage, he writes, "But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife…” Paul is not suggesting that the alternative to singleness is a sinfully anxious marriage. Instead, Paul uses the word synonymously with how we would understand the word concern. Do not think that every time the word anxiety appears, sin is necessarily involved.[2] Nonetheless, for this paper, I will use the word as most would understand it today, and that understanding does come with implications of sin.
The Experience of Anxiety
Anxiety often develops over concern for a need. However, true and perceived needs initially appear to be two separate categories. A teenager’s belief that she must dress a particular way to be accepted by her friends is not a genuine need, but it does seem very real to the teenager. Unlike the teen, a father struggling to afford food for his children does have a real need. Yet, the experience of anxiety for the person who has a real need and the person who has a manufactured need is often similar. Both situations can constantly be in the back of someone’s mind. Both cases can be overwhelming. Both instances can make it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. An obsession over a perceived or actual need can often produce similar emotional responses. Moreover, no such distinction between these needs can be found in Scripture.
Why is the result of real and perceived needs often so similar? In Matthew 6:25a, Jesus’ uses a helpful phrase that reveals these two categories are one. Jesus says, “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.” The phrase ‘about our life’ helps clarify this issue. When we are anxious about either real or perceived needs, we are fundamentally anxious about our life. The anxious person sees his situation and believes it will not go well for him. The teenage girl sees she does not have the extravagant clothes her friends have and is anxious about her life. The penniless dad sees the empty refrigerator and is concerned about his life. Their sin is believing they know with certainty the best way for their life to go and becoming consumed with concern that life will end up not going that way.
A person consumed with anxiety about his life will most likely not stop at being anxious but will cave to other sins due to anxiety. Charles Spurgeon writes, “[A]nxious cares very frequently lead to other sins, sometimes to overt acts of transgression. The tradesman who is not able to leave his business with God may be tempted to indulge in the tricks of trade.”[3] Moreover, as more sins wedge into the anxious person’s life, those other new sins will likely build more barricades to escaping anxiety. Desperate to make ends meet, an anxious father cuts corners at work, sinning against his customers, who will probably find him out. He is now anxious about not having food to feed his family, he has lied or cheated or stolen, and he is now also anxious about being found out.
David Garland also provides a helpful clarification on interpreting Matthew 6:25 and following, saying, “The last teaching concerning money issues (6:25–34) does not bid one to be indifferent toward life. It cautions against becoming so frantic about material concerns or an uncertain tomorrow that one is too distraught to function.”[4] There is no command in Scripture to pretend life has no challenges. Having no food in the house is a serious and legitimate problem that needs a solution. Nevertheless, when an anxious person recognizes a real challenge in his life, instead of seeking a solution, he sins. Rather than searching for a job, the anxious person might get discouraged and lazy and sink deeper into dysfunction, the exact opposite of what is needed in a time of legitimate need.
Although anxiety arises over numerous unique situations, a common anxiety that almost everyone has experienced is anxiety over their work. Consider Martha in Luke 10:40. In one sense, Martha is not wrong to be concerned with her work of serving food. There is an actual need for someone to gather what is necessary for a meal, prepare the meal, and serve the meal. Someone must do those tasks, or there would be no food to eat, and humans indeed need to eat at times. However, Jesus rebukes Martha for being anxious even when real needs are present. “Martha was too stressed out about earthly things,” writes Trent Butler, a long-time writer and editor for Holman Bible Publishers and LifeWay. He continues, “Her life was out of focus, dedicated to fulfilling the world’s expectations rather than Jesus’.”[5] Work, whether in a career or the home, can bring the illusion of importance and necessity. It can be effortless to excuse this anxiety because of this supposed importance, yet Jesus does not make any such exception.
Because of her anxiety, Martha allowed her desires to get in the way of what was better, and the anxious person does the same. Jesus’s rebuke of Martha in Luke 10:41-42 reads, “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.’” As Martha did, the anxious person may also commit sins of omission as he faces the pressure of his work and fails to choose and experience what is good. Someone who sins like this does so because he does not see his desperate need for what Jesus calls good. He ultimately believes his work, friends, possessions, or family are better managed by himself. He does not trust God. [6] Moreover, just as Martha was unable to both sit and listen to Jesus and prepare the food, the anxious person is not capable of doing both. Perhaps his Bible reading falters, or he does not have time for prayer or is no longer concerned with making it to church.
Guided by what Jesus says to Martha, if you are struggling with anxiety, you should regularly ask yourself about the priorities in your life. Do you find yourself drawn to the one necessary thing? Do you turn inward when life gets stressful, or do you turn to prayer? Do you have memory verses that come to mind when you feel anxious, or do you turn on a TV show? Do you excuse your church attendance because you must get something done around the house or at the office? Do you expect God to care for you perfectly when you see a need in your life? Indeed, an honest and objective answer to these questions is necessary for them to help identify issues but answering these questions can reveal if Christians need to make changes in their lives. As much as Christians feel the weight of anxiety, they can and will experience the relief of realigning their priorities to seeking the treasures of the kingdom of God and knowing that if God arrays the lilies of the field in glory, he will care for his children.
Biblical Considerations of Anxiety
In 1 Peter 5:6, Peter appeals to the anxious to cast their burdens on God. Peter writes, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” If anxiety is relieved by being humble, then being anxious is the result of pride. Rather than being confident in our self-sufficiency, Christians must have humble faith. Steven Lee, a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, writes, "Faith is believing what God says even when the circumstances seem to say otherwise. Faith is seeing God’s invisible grace as you’re confronted with a real and present danger.”[7] This humble faith believes what God says because it knows and believes that God cares for his children. This faith knows there are real challenges in the world and in life, but such faith does not stop there but turns to God who is faithful and provides the strength needed for life.[8] This faith is the turning point for the anxious Christian.
When someone can cast his burdens onto God, it is because he recognizes the troubles of this world are insignificant compared to the care God provides now and, importantly, into eternity in his kingdom. Moreover, he understands the truth that Jesus speaks in Matthew 6:24, directly between the two previous references to Matthew 6 used above. Matthew 6:24 reads, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” It is not just coincidence that Jesus’ disparagement of worldly treasures and his command not to be anxious are joined together by this truth. The result of lusting after treasures of this world is anxiety because those treasures crumble away with rust and moths devour them. Jesus teaches us that there is no in-between. We either go on an earthly treasure hunt, or we are under God's everlasting care and provision.
As the Bible teaches, Christians believe God cares for them. This truth can be challenging to grasp when we also consider the nature of God and how powerful, great, and awesome he is. However, just as much as God is those things, God also is a God who cares for us. It is who he is to care for us. Augustine wrote about God’s care for us, saying, "It was not by our care that our body was brought to its present stature; so that we may know that if we desired to add one cubit to it, we should not be able. Leave then the care of clothing that body to Him who made it to grow to its present stature." [9] It is not just that he cares for us but that he wholly cares for us. God’s care for us is not to add to our care what is lacking but to do all the work of caring for us. Augustine rightly acknowledges that our set of abilities does not include the ability to care for our lives. We are more like the birds of the air than we think. The birds can do nothing to care for themselves, just as we can do nothing to care for ourselves. We should not live in a delusion, thinking that this implies we should do nothing at all, but we should know that any care we receive depends entirely on God bringing together all things for our good.
An example of such a place where we may need to act while still maintaining an understanding of God’s care is in consideration of medication to handle medically diagnosed anxiety. The scope of this paper does not allow enough bandwidth to discuss the issue of medication except to say that God’s grace towards his children includes doctors and researchers who have dedicated their lives over many generations to understanding the human mind. A result of this work is some understanding of imbalances that can occur within the body and mind. Michael Emlet, in his book Descriptions and Prescriptions, writes: "[S]cientific discovery explores God’s world in all its astounding complexity and seeks to alleviate some of the misery we experience as fallen creatures in a fallen world. As such, we should receive medications gratefully and humbly, but not forgetting the One who has given the necessary gifting and wisdom to scientists and physicians to discover such remedies."[10] To cast our anxieties on God does not require denying medication but a wise embrace of it. Part of God’s grace and care for us comes through such means.
The anxious person needs to remember that Christians have a purpose as they trust God for their lives. There is a treasure to be found! R.C. Sproul writes, “This is the time to make the seeking of the kingdom of God the main business of our lives. We cannot afford to be casual about it, for what Christ requires is a headlong commitment, a commitment of abandonment to be at the feet of Christ.”[11] It can be easy to read Matthew 6:19-21 and focus on the treasure of earth being destroyed by moth and rust but diminish the great hope this passage also gives. There is a treasure, and it is a treasure that moth and rust will not be able to ruin. Christians must live to find this treasure and do so with abandonment. The man in the parable of the hidden treasure certainly understands this. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44). Christians need to do more than applaud such a life but live such a life, and when they do, they will find the treasure they seek.
Christians were created to seek a treasure of an eternity spent with the One who made them and designed them to desire this treasure. This eternity will be without even an inkling of anxiety because the flesh at war with us now, producing the anxiety, will be overcome. In the present age, where we still battle with the flesh, we can hope for this future. James Montgomery Boice writes: “Is God our Father? Then we shall know that we belong to him forever. We shall know that while we are being led, taught and educated for life’s tasks, nothing shall interfere with his purpose for us in Christ. We shall look forward to the time when we shall see him and be like him, for we shall see him as he is."[12] Even during the most severe bouts of life that tempt us to anxiety, we can know that God is our Father, and we have a purpose in Christ as we look forward to our heavenly home. Nothing else can reorient a Christian life away from sin and anxiety than allowing that truth to sink in.
What does life look like when it is about hunting for eternal treasure rather than earthly treasure? It is a life defined by humility and desperation to love God. Lamentations 3:22-24 is the attitude of someone who has had victory over anxiety. The passage reads, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’” A rich, deep satisfaction in God is definitional of a Christian immersed in this truth, and it is the opposite of a Christian consumed by anxiety. This passage also does not assume we have reached perfection. There is still a need for new mercies every morning, and there will likely be days when the Christian falls to the sin of anxiety yet again, but that is no longer definitional of the Christian.
Speaking the Gospel
A shift from being anxious to hoping in God can only happen through Jesus Christ on the cross. Because of sin's destructive nature, mankind will seek only the treasure of this world. Mankind cannot see anything other than this treasure and blindly pursues it. Adam sinned against God in the garden and destined humanity to punishment for its sin. That sin separated us from the hope of the treasures of God (Rom 5:12). Except for Jesus Christ, who, while we were still dead in our sins, died for us and shed sufficient blood, and gave us reconciliation with God (Rom 5:8). Through that reconciliation, we have received the knowledge of the kingdom of God and the wonderful treasure found in it (1 Tim 2:1-6). The knowledge of the kingdom of God is so beautiful and compelling to God’s children that they have no option but to turn from the moths and rust they held, to throw that away, and pursue the ultimate treasure of God.
Thanks be to God that he gave us the church to ground these truths. Without these truths entrusted to the church's ministry, we would have no hope. Jesus established the church for our care and good (Matt 16:18). He built the entire church and sustained it over thousands of years so that you could be cared for and taught how to put away your anxiety. There is no other institution given the authority the church is given. Therefore, cling to the church.
The first ministry of the church that will help us fight anxiety is preaching. In Acts 17:22-34, when Paul preaches the gospel to the people in Athens at the Areopagus, he preaches to them about one of their anxieties. Specifically, he uses their altar to the unknown god to engage them and answer a need even they knew they had. The people of Athens were anxious they had missed a god, and to ensure they did not face the wrath of some unhappy and forgotten god, they built this altar. Paul answers their need through his preaching. Likewise, this same thing is done in a faithful church every weekend. The pastor knows his people, including their anxieties, and diligently works through the power of the Scriptures to warn them of their idols and teach them how to pursue the kingdom's treasures. Prepare to listen to preaching, take notes when listening to preaching, and expect to live differently after listening to preaching. The Spirit establishes this work, which will be found only behind the pulpit.
Another ministry of the church is the counseling office. Whatever formality level exists at a local church, the counseling office should be considered a haven for those battling anxiety. Just as pastors know their people for preparing sermons, pastors know their people and aid in the counseling office. “Proclaiming Christ requires pastors to go to the dark places in people’s lives-those off-putting problems that are simply easier to ignore than to address,” writes Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju.[13] As intimidating as a counseling session might seem, for Christians who are losing their fight with anxiety, the biblical instruction of their pastor is the grace of God to them in their fight. Christians need Christ proclaimed into their lives, and they must embrace the personal ministry of the word no matter how messy it is. Christians find treasure much more quickly if two people search for it together, so go and find that help.
Finally, the church's community and godly accountability are another of God's generous gifts to all his children and those fighting anxiety. Paul David Tripp writes, “He calls us to stand with people as they step out in faith, obedience, and courage. This is the ministry of accountability.”[14] Christians are guilty of their sins individually, but Christians fight for faithfulness against their sin together with others. The fight against anxiety should not be alone but with brothers and sisters in Christ who know, love, and cherish each other. Do not neglect your small group if you struggle with anxiety, and build up the courage to confess your sins to them so they can help you.
God has created us to want treasure, so we hunt for it. We have found this world's treasures, which have some shine and do impress for a moment. We quickly realize it takes much work to hold on to this treasure. Perhaps it is a smartphone, and we drop it. Perhaps it is a career, and we are fired. Perhaps it is a friendship, and they abandon us. Rust and moths destroy our treasure, and as it does, we fill with anxiety. However, by the mercy of God, we can hunt for a different type of treasure. This treasure does not fade or slip away. This treasure is everlasting. This treasure shines brightly. This treasure we can find is the kingdom of God, where anxiety is no more.
[1] Chad Brand, et al., “Anxiety,” in Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 78. [2] Robert D Jones, Kristin L Kellen and Rob Green, The Gospel for Disordered Lives: An Introduction to Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling (Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic), 274. [3] Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: 1 Peter, ed. Elliot Ritzema and Jessi Strong, Spurgeon Commentary Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 1 Pe 5:7. [4] David E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel, Reading the New Testament Series (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2001), 82. [5] Trent C. Butler, Luke, vol. 3, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 174. [6] Timothy Lane, and Paul David Tripp, How People Change, 2nd ed. (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2008), 132. [7] Steven Lee, “Anxious About Nothing,” Desiring God, last modified January 26, 2021, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/anxious-about-nothing#modal-704-e33oscz0. [8] Jones, Kellen and Green, The Gospel for Disordered Lives, 277. [9] Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Matthew, ed. John Henry Newman, vol. 1 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841), 254. [10] Michael R. Emlet, Descriptions and Prescriptions: A Biblical Perspective on Psychiatric Diagnoses and Medications(Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2017), 79. [11] R. C. Sproul, A Walk with God: An Exposition of Luke (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1999), 231. [12] James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 448. [13] Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju, The Pastor and Counseling: The Basics of Shepherding Members in Need (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 32. [14] Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change(Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Pub, 2002), 268.
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