271: Matt Tuckson - Faith and Anxiety

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to Good Chris Selfie and talks. I’m Levi. And I’m Chris, and I’m Brian. Thank you for joining us this week on this podcast. We select one Talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. We post a new episode at the start of each week. With a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you’re about to listen to.

2. 0:33

   And now, let’s talk more about this week’s talk. Hello and welcome back. This is Brother Chris. I wanted to start real quick before we get into the talk which we are going to be listening to from a series that Brother Matt Tuckson gave earlier this year at a 25 and older conference up in Ontario, which is really, really excellent. But before I get into telling you why I picked this class and why I picked the series, I also wanted to do a programming note similar to what Levi did a few weeks ago. And that is that we have a new host joining the podcast. Some of you may know him.

3. 1:19

   Fun fact, he has been a speaker on the podcast every season except for this one. We’re in the middle of the sixth season and in our first one, and that is brother Jason Hensley. Some of you may have heard his talks or may know him from doing the Magnify Him Together podcast where he does an end of the week encouragement as well. He leads the Heritage School here down in Southern California as well, so we’re really excited to have brother Jason joining us.

4. 1:45

   I know that he, Levi and I have been friends for many, many years and always stay connected and it was super exciting that he was interested and willing. And as you will hear from him next week that he is excited to be able to join the podcast and join in on the rotation. Brother Brian will still be in the mix, as you heard he did his class last week.

5. 2:07

   And so he’ll still be sprinkling in here and there as he’s able to. And so he’ll still be presents on the podcast as well. But we’re excited to be able to add Brother Jason in. So you got a month of old school with just Levi and I alternating back and forth and then we’ll now be able to go back to our regularly scheduled programming of every three weeks. We’re excited to have Jason on.

6. 2:28

   I hope that you enjoy his first talk that he has picked. It’s going to be great to to have him on board with the podcast. With that, I will do just a quick introduction into Brother Matt Texan’s class. This was sent in as a recommendation. The title of this first class is Faith and Anxiety and is actually the overall subject for the four classes that he gave.

7. 2:48

   There were three classes with an exhortation in the middle. And what I really appreciated about this class is Brother Matt One. He is speaking from a place of experience. So he is speaking from a place of struggle that he has in his own life and he’s had to work through, which I always find to be really valuable when hearing from a speaker that they have first hand experience in whatever topic they are teaching about.

8. 3:12

   And that he takes a really practical look at sort of the struggles you can face when you have anxiety and how that can impact your faith. In the same way that any struggle that you might have in your life with any sort of temptation or sin can have an impact, but anxiety has this way of. Impacting you in ways that other temptations and sins might not otherwise do.

9. 3:33

   So I really appreciated this. The sister that wrote in to recommend this really gave an excellent recommendation. She also suggested that the first class was a great place to start, which hopefully in most class series it is. So I hope that you really enjoy this. I found it to be a really powerful one and even just approaching it in his way of looking at how the different stages of struggling with something can impact you and where at what stage we should be focusing our efforts.

10. 3:59

    I found to be really really encouraging. All four of the classes are excellent. We will have them up on the good Christadelphian Talks extended podcast feed and then in the second class he mentions A handout. Now the second class isn’t going to be on the podcast but I will make sure to have it LinkedIn the good Christadelphian talks extended feed.

11. 4:16

    So if you want to look at the handout he represents there, I would highly encourage take a look at it and you give it a listen. This entire series I’d recommend because he does a very good kind of systematic looking at each step. That I found to be really encouraging and a good reminder for myself and just general walk. And then also I think it is a good reminder for you to be able to do if you or somebody you know struggles with some of these same types of things.

12. 4:40

    As always, thank you for the recommendations and suggestions. We really, really appreciate them and I hope that you enjoy the first class from brother Matt Tuckson on his series entitled Faith and Anxiety. So this week and my ultimate goal, I’ll give you a one liner. What is my goal for this weekend is to show you the agency that you have in this battle so that you have some amount of power, have some amount of influence over this battle. It’s not something that’s happening to you, you’re you actually get to participate in it. You get to actually fight the battle of anxiety actively to show you what can you do, get really practical and what are the steps to do with anxiety.

13. 5:20

    We have a lot to cover to get into that. Before I enter our series, I want to do a few discliners. Anxiety has a wide range. We have a little nervous about giving a talk to I’m super panic attack can’t function. You know, normal things don’t really happen to my brain because I can’t function right now.

14. 5:42

    There’s a whole range, right? And the the lessons I’m going to be talking about, the principles I talk about, they do apply to the whole range. So they’re going to apply very differently and they’re going to look very different depending on where in this range you kind of fall. And we’ll we’ll talk about the nuances somewhat in the series.

15. 6:00

    One thing I’m not going to get too detailed on to is like the medical side of anxiety of like when to take medication and not and things like that. I do want to be very clear. I’m pro medication for the extreme cases of anxiety. I take it myself sometimes. I have a prescription for it.

16. 6:14

    I use it every now and then, but I’m just not going to be getting into where’s that line and the nuance. My point of that simply to say I think it should be on the table of discussion. It’s actually going to be on the table of discussion on our discussion groups. So I look forward to this hearing that from you all.

17. 6:27

    But I’m not going to really getting that nuance of when you take medication, what are you not. I will talk about how I view it in kind of a moral framework later on, but I’m not going to be getting into the details of like, well by this point you should go see a doctor.

18. 6:39

    That’s not really what the class is about. The other disclaimer I want to do work before we get into our intro is the phrase easier said than done is going to be extremely applicable to the series. I can’t really talk about anxiety, which is something that you might battle with your whole life in four hours and do it justice. It’s just not a way to do that.

19. 7:00

    On top of that, I’m going to be approaching this on a very kind of logical thought out process. And anxiety is an extremely emotional situation and it can come off really unapathetic when I’m like, all right, here’s how you logic your way through this. When I’m dealing with this really kind of volatile emotion.

20. 7:17

    And so my that’s not my intention. I’m going to make that very clear. My intention is not to say, well, just think your way through it, but we are going to be approaching this from a very logical biblical point of view. It’s not my intention. I understand that’s best not easiest have been done.

21. 7:31

    I’m going to reiterate that a few times. But I understand the challenge of anxiety. I understand it’s an emotional thing, and I understand easier said than done is going to be really applicable. There’s just not a way I can change that and still go through this in a kind of logical, analytical way, which is what I think we need to do when we’re not in the state of anxiety.

22. 7:47

    We need to be thinking of it in that kind of logical, analytical way. When we get into anxiety, it’s a different story. All right, So with this disclaimer is out of the way, we’re going to go ahead and intro our class or at least intro our series. So class one is going to be Go ahead I.

23. 8:04

    Forgot about your reading, so I’m going to end up reading it later, so no worries. So class one is faith and anxiety. That’s for this class. What motivated this class was essentially kind of both being in. For those who don’t know, I was in mainstream Christianity for a while, so both being in mainstream Christianity as well as not Christadelphia.

24. 8:24

    I’ve heard two different stories, largely when it comes to anxiety. One is that it’s 100% about faith, and if you don’t, if you have anxiety, the other reason you have anxiety is because you don’t believe hard enough, you don’t have enough faith. You need to pray more, you need to believe harder. That’s the solution to anxiety, and it’s entirely focused on that.

25. 8:42

    Anxiety equals bad faith, and it’s just that kind of blunt and simple and kind of extreme. Then there’s the reaction to that, which is that anxiety is entirely a medical problem. There’s nothing about faith. It’s like the mental equivalent to breaking a bone. You need to go to the doctor for it, and that’s how you deal with your anxieties through medication. It’s through therapy and things like that. It’s not about faith.

26. 9:03

    The Bible doesn’t agree with really either of those. And so we’re going to be digging into what is the relationship between faith and anxiety. The Bible just connect the two. So what is it? How do I think about it? And then on top of that, if there’s a connection between faith and anxiety, how does guilt work with it?

27. 9:20

    How do I feel guilty when I have anxiety? Should I feel guilty? Should I not? Those kinds of questions, because I know guilt and anxiety are heavily associated with in a faith context. So we’re going to try to be dealing with when should I feel guilty, when shouldn’t I, and how do I think through that class? One really is about understanding how I should view anxiety in a moral framework.

28. 9:39

    Essentially is the goal of class one. Class 2 is to be the processing of anxiety. Now that I understand how I view it, how to think about it, what is anxiety inside of a moral framework? What do I do about it? That’s going to be Class 2. We’re going to be going through a couple steps of dealing with anxiety or dealing with kind of the biblical framework of how to deal with anxiety. We’re going to be looking through mostly David’s life and see how he deals with it multiple different stages in his life, and he deals with it in a very similar pattern. He has a pattern of how he processes anxiety. So we’re going to go through that pattern and we’re going to see what does he do.

29. 10:11

    We’re going to think about how that might apply to our lives. In some ways, when we get to our expectation, we’re going to be dealing with Christ’s battle with anxiety because he deals with it as well, and he deals with it in a very similar way how David deals with it. And so we’re going to be looking at how Christ deals with anxiety, how he processes his own anxiety, and we’re going to go ahead and think about how does that apply to us. And the cool thing about Christ’s story is you actually see that it gets easier as you process it, more as you put the steps into practice.

30. 10:38

    The battle actually gets easier. Doesn’t mean it goes away, but it does get easier. And so we’ll see that in Christ’s battle. And then our last class is kind of a tangently related idea, which is we’re looking at a case of anxiety. So specifically, I had a conversation with gnomes, actually, about what is a common thing of people struggle with with anxiety.

31. 10:58

    And she said having purpose, feeling purpose, feeling fulfilled. So we’re going to be looking at that and kind of use that as a use case of what do you do if you have that anxiety? How do you deal with it? What does it look like? What is our purpose? How do I examine my purpose? So we’ll be doing that in Class 4. As you can tell, we’ve got a lot to cover, so we’re going to be digging into this and we’re to start with reading Matthew Chapter 6, verses 16 to 34.

32. 11:32

    Again, that’s Matthew chapter 6 verses 16 to 34. OK, starting at verse 16, whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance, so they will be sorry. They neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you when you fast and hold your head and wash your face, so that in fasting, when you will not be noticed by men, but by your father, who is in secret, and your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, where thieves do not break in nor steal.

33. 12:28

    For where your treasure is, that your heart will be. Also the eyes is the lamp of the body, And then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be a full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. Within the light that is in you is darkness. How great is that darkness?

34. 12:46

    No one can serve 2 masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he’ll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food in the body, more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns.

35. 13:11

    And here your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who are you by being who? Who of you by being worried, can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that not even Solomon, all of his glory, clothes themselves like one of these. But if God said, close the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow, and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, really not much more clothe you, you have little faith. Do not worry them.

36. 13:45

    Saying what? What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? For clothing for the Gentiles equally seek all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you will. You need all these things. But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has some trouble.

37. 14:09

    All right, so this this section is really jarring when you read it. And the reason it’s jarring because of verse 30. I’m just going to reread that one. But if God so close the glass of the field which which today is live and tomorrow some of the oven really not much more close you owe you of little faith.

38. 14:37

    Jesus is telling people I don’t want us to put ourselves in that scenario. Jesus is telling people who are anxious over base needs food and clothing that if you’re worried about that oh ye have little faith that’s jarring. Like if I was in that scenario, like, Jesus chill. Like there are a lot to be anxious about that that makes sense. Like that’s my that I’d be really like, we need to be OK with this.

39. 15:03

    Let’s have some kind of empathy here. But Jesus doesn’t approach it that way. It says, O ye of little faith. And so that sparks the question, why? Why do these people have little faith for having this anxiety, for having this word And how do we look at that? How do we approach that?

40. 15:21

    But first note, he doesn’t say of you have no faith. I think it’s really important. Being anxious or having anxiety in the scenario doesn’t tell Jesus they’re faithless people. No, they have faith. They just have room for improvement or something to work on within their faith. And that’s a very important difference. It’s not that these people are faithless because of anxiety.

41. 15:41

    Anxiety doesn’t mean you’re some terrible person who doesn’t believe, but it doesn’t mean there’s opportunities to work. There’s room for improvement within one’s faith. And so we’ll look at kind of what is that work, what is that room for improvement? And lucky for us, Christ leaves a great hint at the start of verse 25.

42. 15:58

    Verse 25 starts with Therefore I tell you, whenever you see that word or hear that word, therefore or wherefore those kinds of language means, read what I just said. That’s the reason I’m saying what I’m saying because of what I just said. So the reason that Jesus can say do not be anxious about your life is because of what he says and what we’ve read before. Verse 25 S in verses 16 to 24.

43. 16:25

    So we’re just going to start back in verse 16 and work through what is Jesus saying here? And then we’ll think about how does that relate to anxiety. So in verse 16 I’ll just read the 1st 3 verses.

44. 16:37

    And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their face and they’re fast. That their fasting may be seen by others. Surely I say to you, they’ve received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your father, who is in secret, and your father, who sees in secrets, will award you. So let’s face the section seems to be telling you how to fast. That’s not really what it’s getting at. It’s not really getting at.

45. 17:07

    This is how you should go about fasting for the point. The real point is that we should value God’s point of view, God’s opinion of us, more than man’s opinion of us, and that this is just an example of how these people are valuing man’s opinion over God’s opinion By saying I care more that people recognize me fasting than I care necessarily if God is looking at me fasting. What I’m focusing on is, are people recognizing me? And So what this is getting at is essentially an idea of values.

46. 17:37

    Do you value God’s point of view or God’s opinion or man’s opinion of you? What do you value more? What’s more important to you? So it seems like it’s about fasting. It’s not really, it’s actually about values. What is more important to you, God’s point of view or man’s? If we continue with 19 to 24, we’ll see a similar theme. In verse 19 it says do not earth 19 to 24. Do not lay up for yourselves.

47. 17:59

    Treasure on earth or moth and rust destroyed, where thieves break in and steal the lay up for yourselves. Treasure in heaven where neither Roth nor Rust destroyed. Or if thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is, there your heart will be. Also, the eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, the whole body will be full of light.

48. 18:19

    But if your eye is bad, your whole body is full of darkness. And if then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? No one can serve 2 masters, for you either will hate the one or love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

49. 18:31

    You cannot serve God and money. And again, at first this seems to be saying, OK, what should I value more as far as money goes? As soon as you’re talking about money. But again, that’s not really the focus. It’s not really about money, it’s about internal values. Do you value things on earth or do you value things in heaven?

50. 18:50

    Do you value things of God or do you value literal money? We know this because he says lay up yourselves treasures in heaven. It’s not saying there’s some Stock Exchange in heaven that I should go invest in. He’s talking about what you care about, where your heart is or where your treasure is. Sorry, that is where your heart will be. Also, he’s saying, do you care about the things? What do you value?

51. 19:10

    What’s important to you? The things on earth where moths and what destroys. Do you steal or do you care and value things in heaven? The eternal again it’s talking about values. Both sections are trying to get us to change how we evaluate things. How we go from evaluating things from kind of man’s point of view. I care what’s right in front of me. I care about how people view me.

52. 19:33

    I care about money and my basic needs. This is what I care about kind of God’s point of view. I care about the eternal. I care about God’s opinion of me. I care about what’s everlasting, not the temporary. It’s trying to get us to change how we evaluate things. This brings us to a concept that I like to call value systems. Essentially, it’s this idea of how do you value things, How do you find things important.

53. 19:56

    It’s similar to the idea of priorities. And then on top of that, it’s how do they interact with each other? So not just do I value something, but do I value it more or less than something else? And then as situations happen in my life, do these values change? Do I value other things more or less? This is essentially a value system that you have that’s constantly changing.

54. 20:14

    When you get in situations, what you care about may change a little bit because that situation is happening to you. And so that’s kind of what we’re looking at is value systems is essentially this idea of what is important to you in a specific moment. And again, that might change as different moments happen. And this doesn’t just have to do with religious beliefs. It’s not just God versus man.

55. 20:34

    It might be today I really care about if I’m on time but tomorrow I don’t. But very different things can can fall in this value system. It’s not just religious things are important things that’s kind of the whole range of everything going on in life. And what this sections that we’ve read up to now we’re trying to say evaluate things so that the eternal so that the everlasting so that God’s point of view is up in the top of that value system.

56. 21:00

    It’s very high in your priority list and that the temporary, the the man’s point of view and all those things are a bit lower in that in that value system and what you find important. And Jesus uses this to say this is the reason they can say do not be anxious for your life, huh?

57. 21:21

    OK Why? And I think this makes a lot of sense because what Jesus is getting at is that the reason these people are anxious is because there’s actually something off in that moment of anxiety with their values, with what’s important to them. This is something that was told to me. I used to go to therapy for anxiety, and this was something that, although it came from a humanistic point of view, when you kind of put your God filter on, you can turn it into a really cool lesson.

58. 21:49

    And that is that our anxieties come from essentially deep and personal cares. When you’re anxious about something because you care a lot about something related to that anxiety. It might not be directly that anxiety or that thing that’s in front of you, but it’s something related to it and you care a lot about it.

59. 22:08

    So for example, if I had social anxiety, it means I have a strong care for something related to social situations. It might not be that I care about social situations, but I might be that I care about being respected, that there’s a threat to that respect. If I’m in a social situation, it might be that I care about being approved of, or it might be that I care about not being embarrassed.

60. 22:28

    You know, I’ve had a really bad event in my life where I was embarrassed in my life. I don’t want that to happen again. And there’s a chance that might happen in a social scenario. And these cares, these deep cares, push this anxiety at the top of my list of my value system. Now all of a sudden, when I’m afraid of this embarrassment, not being embarrassed now matters more to me than anything else because I’m anxious about it. It’s causing me to to have physical reactions where I care about this, whatever this thing is that’s causing me anxiety, it goes to the top of my values in that moment. It’s not a thought out priority.

61. 23:03

    It’s not a priority where I thought, written out my priorities and gone. This is how I would order them. It’s not a planned value system. It’s one that happens in the moment because you’re anxious and it comes from human nature. It’s not something that you’ve thought out, planned and said no, I’m going to care about this more.

62. 23:18

    It’s something that’s happening to you. You can choose to value that more at the moment. Your anxiety is kind of telling you this thing. Whatever you’re anxious about is the most important thing. It’s all you should think about. It’s more important than anything else, and that’s why we get so worried. Physical reactions to the idea and what Jesus is doing in the section is he’s saying these people there’s something off of their values if they’re anxious even about things that are as needed as food and clothing. And the reason is because God is going to take care of them. God has said he will take care of them, and he explains this in verses 26 and 30.

63. 23:55

    Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap when we’re gathering to barns, Yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And then 30 But if God clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, will not much more clothe you? Essentially, Jesus is saying that there’s God who values us as people more than he values grass and birds. He values us so much that he gave his only Son for us. And if he values us this much, it takes care of other things that he values less than he’ll take care of you. And if we truly believed that, if that’s an actual true belief to the point where it impacts our feelings moment to moment, well then we wouldn’t be anxious because we would internally have accepted that that’s a true statement and that their concern of not having food wouldn’t be there. Now, like I said, easier said than done. This is giving us insight into the relationship between faith and anxiety, but we haven’t really gotten to how do we deal with that yet.

64. 24:57

    The thing is, anxiety essentially makes us value things way more than we should. And it’s because it’s it’s part of our human nature. But we’ll look into in a bit. We’re not quite there, but we’re going to look into how anxiety is essentially A temptation. It it causes us to miss value things, miss evaluate things because it’s telling us.

65. 25:15

    It’s lying to us and saying whatever it is that we’re interested about. Social situations. Anything else? I’ll tell my personal story here in a minute. It tells us to value it as the highest thing, but then we think through what is God value that thing at the top. Really, it shouldn’t be there.

66. 25:31

    But in the moment, our anxiety is telling us that is the most important thing. That’s the biggest, most important thing to you in this moment. That is essentially what anxiety is doing. And that’s why there’s a relationship between anxiety and faith. It’s not that anxiety and faith are just connected one to one. It’s that there’s this thing in the middle of values and the values is the connector between faith and anxiety. The reason anxiety messes with our faith, it’s being that changes our values.

67. 25:57

    It changes what you care about, changes what’s at the top of the list. And like I said, this changes a lot. If you’re anxious, this thing that you’re anxious about move to the top of the list. When you’re later not anxious, it’s not that high, it’s much lower because these things change. These are moment to moment. I’m not talking about your your planned out priorities. When you sit down and you you do a chart and you say what’s more important to me and how do I structure my life. I’m talking about your moment to moment values, the moment to moment of what’s important to you. And anxiety essentially tells you change those values. That thing that you’re anxious about needs to be at the top. In my personal story, I really experienced this. So a bit of background.

68. 26:33

    My parents got divorced when I was 13, and the way they got divorced really kind of messed me up a bit. See, they they got divorced in a way where one day, happy family, my mom, my dad were seemed fine. Dad would come home from work, they’d get hugged, maybe a heck on the cheek.

69. 26:53

    Seemed fine, no arguments. Never had any clue that anything was going on. Next day, like I told, yeah, we’re we’re having a divorce. And what that did to me is essentially goes gotcha. So a relationship can break up at the drop of a hat like just like that, that we can do it from perfect great relationship to it’s over just like that.

70. 27:13

    And that’s what that’s what it became an ingrained belief, right. That’s what I kind of took with from that. And then in my future relationships for years, I felt like that the first instance, anything would go even remotely wrong. An argument even. Like, usually the the person I’d be dating would be generally a happy person and they had like a bad day. It wasn’t even, like a problem with me. It was just like they just seemed off. Oh my goodness, is this happening to me? Is this the the drop of the hat?

71. 27:38

    Is this the end of the relationship? Panic, panic, panic, panic, anxiety. And what that did for me is essentially say, making this relationship stick together is the top of the list. It’s more important than anything else. It’s more important than is this relationship good for me, it’s more important than should I actually be dating this person?

72. 27:58

    It’s more important to then do I even like this person? It was more important than anything else. I needed to make sure that relationship slept together because panic, panic, panic, panic. That’s what was going on in my head. And as I mentioned, I went to the Thera Confess for a while and again, this is 1 potential danger of going to the therapy and there’s a lot of value that comes from it.

73. 28:20

    I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s great, highly recommend if you need it. But one danger is that you get a lot of humanism kind of thrown in the in the mix. So you have to have a God filter on. But one of the things that they had said, and they asked me one time that really just made me step back, was, do you actually want to be in this relationship talking about a specific issue that I was dealing with at the time?

74. 28:39

    The the relationship was really bad at communication. The person didn’t really talk to me a whole lot. That was causing me a lot of anxiety because my priority was to make this work. My priority was have had it not happened what my parents happened. Don’t avoid that situation of all costs. Most important, the relationship wasn’t a good relationship for me. We actually didn’t need to be together. We weren’t a good fit.

75. 29:00

    But I couldn’t think through that because I was anxious about keeping it together. And so that was my priority. And that’s the problem with anxiety. So why anxiety messes with faith? Because I wasn’t thinking through. Is this relationship a good relationship to mimic Christ in the Ecclesia? I wasn’t thinking through. Is this relationship a good relationship to raise kids in?

76. 29:17

    The truth, I wasn’t thinking through. Is this relationship something that’s going to help me be more like Christ and help her be more like Christ? Those thoughts were not in my brain when I was freaking out about. Is this something that I, you know, something going wrong? Panic, panic, panic. When I sit back and think about it, those are at the top of my list. But in the moment of anxiety, those drop, keep it together, goes to the top.

77. 29:42

    And that’s why that’s the relationship between anxiety and faith. That’s the problem of anxiety and why Christ can say, oh, you have a little faith. Because in that moment I’m saying faith takes a back, step back, step, the back seat and my anxiety takes the front. Anxiety becomes the the, the focus. That’s why anxiety relates to faith.

78. 30:02

    That’s the reason that Jesus can say, owe you a little faith when dealing with anxiety. Now, that might seem harsh, but it’s not that different than other temptations, not that different than anger or lust. And I think that’s why Jesus puts the section of anxiety in the Sermon of the Mount after talking about anger and lust. And so there’s actually a lot of crossover of how we should think about temptation, or how we should think about anxiety with how we should think about anger and lust. They they do very similar things. Anger, essentially.

79. 30:38

    When I get angry about something is my human nature telling me whatever I’m angry about is worth being angry about, but I’m justified in being angry about it. It’s telling me that it’s important enough that I should be mad about it, and I’m important enough that it’s worth getting mad about it. It’s some it’s lying to me in some way. It’s telling me something is that is actually bad. Well, it’s telling me it’s good.

80. 30:59

    Lost is very similar. It’s my human nature telling me this bad thing that I shouldn’t want is actually something you should want. It’s my human nature telling me that I should evaluate things differently than how God evaluates things. Zion is the same. Zion says evaluate things differently than how God evaluates things. Evaluate things in a way that’s that’s wrong, that’s incorrect. But I’m going to make you do it.

81. 31:24

    I’ll make it the most important, and I’m going to tempt you to do it. And This is why I say anxiety assembly by temptation. And so when we look at it in that vein, the question becomes, how do we think about guilt? How do we think about guilt in the context of anxiety?

82. 31:39

    I think this is important because when we say that faith and anxiety are related and that having anxiety suggests there’s issues in our faith, well that makes me feel really guilty. When I have anxiety, that makes me feel like, well, I didn’t choose this, I didn’t want to have anxiety. I didn’t ask for it. Yeah.

83. 31:57

    Apparently when I have it, I have a faith problem. That’s not fair. And now I’m a bad person because I have anxiety. You start going through this kind of rabbit hole of pot. And so I want to make sure that we have a really proper understanding of how guilt works with this because I don’t want people to walk away from here and going And he said that that I I’m, I’m of little faith if I have anxiety, I must be a terrible person.

84. 32:19

    And that’s the take away from the weekend. That would be terrible. And so that’s not the take away. And we’re to look at how do I deal with guilt when it comes to anxiety. So if anxiety is a temptation, I think it’s really valuable to think about other temptations and how guilt work with them and then apply those ideas into anxiety and say so. It probably works the same way with anxiety if anxiety is a temptation.

85. 32:41

    And so in doing that, we’re going to read 3 sections and we’re going to see what can we take away from them. Section one is going to be Matthew 5, verses 21 and 22.

86. 32:52

    So Matthew 5 verses 21 and 22, you have heard that it was said of those of old you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable of judgement. But I say to you that who? Anyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. Whoever says you fool will be liable to Hellfire. And then we’re going to be a little bit further down, verses 27 to 30.

87. 33:26

    You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

88. 33:43

    And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that one that you lose one of your members and your whole body is thrown into hell. And the last section don’t. You don’t need to flip there because it’s just one verse. But it’s Ephesians 4, verse 26. Be angry and do not sin.

89. 34:00

    You don’t let the sun go down on your anger. So we’re going to take these three sections and go, what can we take about take away from them when it comes to guilt and sin, verse, temptation, all these ideas, what we should, how should we be thinking about it and kind of a moral framework.

90. 34:16

    And we’ll apply those ideas to anxiety. So first thing is that anger based off what we read in Ephesians, in and of itself, it’s not a sin, not a sin to be angry, but it is a temptation. It’s not something that initially demands repentance. However, it is something that should lead us to want to change, want to get out of that spot of anger. It’s not something that we should feel guilty in and of itself, but given us a temptation, we need to work out of it.

91. 34:45

    Staying in anger is not good. Jesus very clearly says in the first section that being angry and stewing an anger, not good. Even little acts of anger. You didn’t kill the guy, but you said you fool, you talk behind their back. Those are still sins. So acting on it, even in my ways is a sin. However, just having anger in and of itself, not a sin. It’s a temptation, but it’s something that leads to sin. It’s bad, but it’s not something that you should feel guilty for or like you’ve transgressed about. Similar with lust.

92. 35:17

    We cannot do it. We cannot sit in it. We cannot just look at someone and say, hey, I didn’t do anything, I just looked. We need to work our way out of the temptation. We need to not just go. I’m tempted. I’m not sinning, so I’m fine. It’s not tempted that’s close to sinning.

93. 35:32

    I need to get out of this. You haven’t transgressed, but you are on a state of temptation. We really get this idea when Jesus says that if your eye offends thee to pluck it out or or pull it out, Name your version. Essentially. He’s not saying you’re sinning. That’s bad. Repent. What he’s saying is you have a temptation that leads to sin. We need to take that out.

94. 35:54

    And he’s not saying stop sinning. He’s actually saying work on the temptation. This is a clear, really important point. He doesn’t say don’t fit adultery. He doesn’t say don’t murder. He says work on the temptation before you get there. OK, so does that mean for us? Right, That means when we’re angry, we actually need to stop before we get to the murder part.

95. 36:14

    We need to stop and go, OK, I’m in a state of temptation. It’s my responsibility to work on this temptation at the temptation level before it gets to the transgression level. I have to deal with it now, while I’m just in a temptation state before I can get even have the chance to get to the transgression state. I shouldn’t feel guilty about being in temptation. That happens.

96. 36:34

    It’s part of human nature, but I need to deal with it while it’s happening. Since we figure out whatever is causing the temptation of anger or lust and deal with it. Work on it on a temptation level. Don’t wait for it to get to the transgression level. Deal with it in a temptation level.

97. 36:50

    Deal with it with anger and lust, not murder. In adultery, yes, obviously. Don’t do those other things. Don’t do murder. Don’t do adultery. But press point. Curious to say, deal with it before it gets there. Work on it earlier. Work on it when it’s just a temptation. So let’s apply some of these thoughts over to anxiety.

98. 37:09

    So tell us that having anxiety in and of itself shouldn’t make you feel guilty. You shouldn’t feel guilty because you have anxiety. That’s the accused of feeling guilty because you have human nature. You didn’t choose that. That’s given to you. I was handed to you on at birth. You had human nature. You didn’t choose it. You didn’t want it.

99. 37:27

    You still don’t want it. That’s a part of what we’re trying to do, is to change it. But you have it. You have human nature. It’s going to make you feel anxious sometimes. It’s going to make you want to change your priority. Sometimes it’s going to want to make you mis evaluate things sometimes, and you shouldn’t feel guilty because of that. It’s temptation, and we have human nature. However, it’s not something we’re supposed to be OK with. Sitting in that statement outside of just the like, it’s uncomfortable.

100. 37:51

     Like anxiety is not fun to be in. We also shouldn’t want to. From a moral perspective, there’s a reason to get out of anxiety from a moral point of view. Because when we’re in anxiety, we are tempted and somewhat doing mis evaluating what is important and how important it is. We are changing what is on the top of our value list.

101. 38:09

     When I was anxious in my relationships, what was most important to me wasn’t what should have been most important to me. And so I’m tempted to then act on that, then do something about that. For me, I was tempted to stay in relationships that were actively leading me away from God. That’s not a good thing, but I was definitely tempted to do it because I had anxiety making me forget about everything else. So you’re in this state of anxiety. It’s a temptation, and we need to deal with that on a temptation level before it gets to transgression. This also means similar to how saying mean words when you’re or when you’re angry, or looking upon a woman when you’re lustful.

102. 38:45

     These are minor transgressions, and similarly, acting on our anxieties can lead to transgression, and that’s kind of hard to a hard pill to swallow sometimes. For example, if I have social anxiety and someone in my meeting needs help and I say no because I’m socially anxious because I’m valuing my safety, for example, of feeling, you know, I’m nervous about the social interaction, about being embarrassed, that’s more important to me than helping my brother or sister. And so I’m not going to help them because I’m I’m, I’m nervous about that.

103. 39:16

     I would argue that’s a transgression. That is something that we should feel a minor amount of guilt about. That’s an aspect of guilt about because you’ve acted upon your MIS evaluation in the same way that with anger, when I’ve mis evaluated how important something is and I get angry about it and I punch the guy because he stepped on my toe, that is, that is me mis evaluating the situation well when I just chose to stay home because I was anxious about this, being embarrassed in this, in this conversation, that was more important to me than helping my brother or sister. I’ve mis evaluated the situation. I’ve mis evaluated my priorities of God’s priorities. I’d argue that’s a transgression. However, this is really important. Feeling guilty about a transgression shouldn’t. There’s actually a usefulness to that. There’s a useful thing to being guilty about a transgression. I’m supposed to remind you that, hey, change this, this isn’t what you want.

104. 40:09

     It’s not just to make you feel like wallow in self pity, which is what we often can do with guilt. It’s just supposed to say, hey, you don’t actually want this. This is kind of your conscience. The the bit of the spirit saying you don’t want to go down this path. You didn’t want to act that way. It’s a guilt that’s actually useful. And the point of that, in recognizing that guilt, that’s the role of guilt, is to say that when you’ve said, OK, well, I want to work on this on a temptation level, I’m going to start putting into practice principles to make it so that I can deal with my anxiety in a way that is stops me from transgressing, stops me from making those choices. I’m going to do it in a way that is righteous. I’m going to try my best and I I will still struggle with anxiety or anger or lust or any of these other things, but I’m going to make it so that I don’t transgress. I’m going to do my best to stop that, that you should stop feeling guilty because that’s the point of guilt. The point of guilt was to get you there. Once you’re there, you shouldn’t feel guilty about having anxiety.

105. 41:02

     That’s part of human nature. That’s a that’s a battle that you’re going to have until the Kingdom comes. That’s a battle that you’re going to deal with forever, not forever. Sorry for this life, sorry, but that’s about it. You’re going to deal with for this life because that’s part of our our lot in life is that you have human nature and we all struggle with different things.

106. 41:20

     Some else are going to struggle with anxiety, some more, some less, some less are going to struggle with anger, some more or less. And the whole mixing variety of temptations we all struggle with with different levels. Some of us, I will argue, can actually get to a point where you don’t deal with anxiety anymore.

107. 41:35

     Some of us won’t. Some of us will get to a point where it’s a little bit easier, but it’s not necessarily gone. That’s how temptation works. But what we do have a responsibility to do, when we view it in the light of anxiety and we view it in the light of lust, we have this.

108. 41:50

     We have a responsibility to work on it in the state of temptation, in the anxiety. It’s not just as long as I don’t act on it, I’m good. That’s the same as saying as long as I don’t commit murder, I’m good, or as long as I don’t commit adultery, I’m good. Or in the less extreme cases, as long as I don’t say the bad words I’m good, or as long as I don’t look upon a woman, I’m good.

109. 42:11

     But that’s not what Jesus says. He says, no, no, no. Deal with it when it’s a temptation. So we have a responsibility to deal with it when it’s a temptation. And that’s what next class is going to be about when we get there is, well, how do I deal with it? You told me to deal with it.

110. 42:24

     I got a responsibility to what do I do about it? How do I actually deal with it? And that’s what we end up doing in our next class. So just to kind of summarize what we’ve talked about so far, I want to first start with the kind of guilt framework. I want to work our way backwards. So the guilt framework we talked about was essentially that anxiety is a temptation, the way you viewed loss, the way you viewed anger, or any other temptation. You should view anxiety in a very similar way because it’s your human nature essentially lying to you at how important different things are.

111. 42:52

     It’s telling you to MIS evaluate how you view things, and then it’s telling you to act on those MIS evaluations. It’s saying that thing that’s really important to you. Yeah, make sure that stays important and do like things in your life based off that level of importance. For me, that was again, in relationships.

112. 43:06

     Make sure this relationship that’s from a biblical point of view, from a spiritual point of view, bad. But make sure it sticks together because it’s the most important thing to you in this moment. Anxiety tells you to miss evaluate things and that is why it’s a temptation. And we should view guilt in the same context where you shouldn’t feel guilty because you’re tempted by something but you should work on it while it’s a temptation.

113. 43:26

     That’s the point that you work on it. You don’t work on it When it’s a sin, that’s when you should feel guilty. You work on it when it’s a temptation. However, sins are going to happen, and when you feel guilty because you’ve acted on anxiety or you’ve acted on anger or luster anything else, guilt should be there until you decide to work on the temptation and then repent and say I’m going to change and then you should let that guilt go because the purpose of that guilt has been fulfilled. Guilt is a useful tool, but once it’s fulfilled its usefulness, get rid of it.

114. 43:57

     It’s not useful anymore. You shouldn’t feel guilty for having anxiety. We’re going to be in this battle for a long time. That’s just how anxiety works. That’s how temptation works. But when we transgress, guilt is there. It’s useful to tell us to get back in the battle, get back to work on this transgression or on this temptation, and then we let it go because the guilt isn’t useful anymore. And that’s I think the spot that we, a lot of people, me included, in cases, mess up.

115. 44:21

     We hold on to that guilt. We associate the guilt of the temptation and say, well, I’m tempted by this thing. I have anxiety, I have anger, I have lust and therefore I’m bad. I should feel guilty. Not quite. We should feel guilty when we transgress. But the the guilt is useful to say get back in the battle on the on the temptation level and then moving back to the how does anxiety and faith seem to relate?

116. 44:44

     It relates by the connection of values. Essentially. When we are anxious about something, we are internally saying whatever it is we’re anxious about, whatever aspect that we’re anxious about. That is the most important thing. It goes to the top of our list more important than things that God would say should be the most important.

117. 44:59

     And that’s why it relates to faith. It relates to faith not because you know, anxious bad or your beliefs changed or anything like that. It goes, it relates to faith because it changes how you evaluate things in life. It changes. What do you find important and how important are they? Changes your priority list. In the moment, we know that.

118. 45:16

     It doesn’t change your big picture priority list if you were to go home and write it out and think about it. But in that moment of anxiety, you’re not thinking about that list. You’re thinking about whatever is the thing that’s the top of your values, whatever is the thing that’s threatening to you at that top of the top of the value system. Next class, what we’re going to do is we’re going to work on. So what do I do about this?

119. 45:39

     Cool. I understand it. I understand when I should feel guilty, when I shouldn’t and why anxiety is a problem and how it relates to faith and all those kinds of great things. What do I do about it? And that’s really, I’m really looking forward to that class because that’s the class where I’m really hoping to empower you all. I want to give you guys agency and show this is what I can actually do in this battle.

120. 46:00

     Give you clear steps and say that’s what I can actually do because it’s really hard to say or really easy for me to say. Hey guys, work on your anxiety, work on your anger to work on this stuff. What does that actually mean? I want to give you guys real practical things from scripture and then also from my own personal experiences that say this is how you can actually take steps in that direction and then and have power to really transform your mind.

121. 46:22

     So that’s be the goal of the next class. I really look forward to that. Thank you for listening to the good ’cause Adelphian Talks Podcast. We hope this talk helped you in your walk and brightened your day. If you would like to hear more, please subscribe for new episodes. We are on all major podcast platforms and also on YouTube if you enjoyed this particular talk.

122. 46:56

     Please share it with someone else who you think might enjoy it too. For show notes on the talk you just listened to, visit [email protected] or check out the Show Notes section of your podcast player. Please share your thoughts on the talk from this week on our Facebook or Instagram pages where we are at good Christadelphian talks, or leave a comment on our YouTube channel where these talks are posted as well.

123. 47:19

     If you enjoy listening to the talks that we post and here one that you think we should share, please tell us about it. You can send a suggestion using the Contact Us tab on our website or message us on any of our social media accounts. Thank you for listening. God bless and talk to you next week.