The Cure For Spiritual Anxiety | When Heaven Meets Tuesday | Pastor Derick Amsler

We are in this series starting today called When Heaven Meets Tuesday. When Heaven Meets Tuesday. What does what you're doing right now have anything to do with your Tuesday living? Let's start here. Guys.

Look, let's just be honest about it. We all have strengths and weaknesses, right? We love to talk about, brag about and showcase and post about on Instagram, Tick Tock and the Facebook about our strengths. Right? I don't know anybody who's overly posting about their weaknesses.

Right? Right. I'm not either, so I'm not even hating the game, but come on. We are a mixed bag of abilities and weaknesses.

We all know somebody in our life who's extremely gifted in one area of life, like at, at, at, at work. They are a boss. They are a. They are. I got a friend in my life.

I got a friend in my life who is a surgeon. Like, like, very good at what he does. My man can't make scrambled eggs to save his life. It's like, how did you make scrambled eggs that taste like regret and disappointment? Like, how do you do that?

What ingredients are you using? Personal. I don't even use ingredients. We know, we know it tastes like rubber from your tires or something. We all have strengths.

We all have weaknesses. For me, my weakness is technology. Like. Like, I'm just at the age now where I just blame everything on my age. Well, when I was a kid, we didn't have all this.

It's just, I can't do, I can't do. I can't do electronics. I'll just be honest. There's people in my life that God has put in my life just so I can connect to WI fi. I firmly believe it.

If you are on a life saving device that requires Bluetooth and you ask me for help, I'm just gonna start planning your funeral message. That's what it is, Pastor. Just connect to WI Fi. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We have gathered here to remember the life of Fred.

It's just, it's not there. I'm so bad at it. A while back, I was. I was. I was trying to connect my laptop to my printer and it was just.

It wasn't working. And so I was late for something. I didn't have time to go to Geek Squad and Best Buy and call anybody from the church for assistance. So I called my dad to let you know how bad I am. My dad lives in Guatemala, y'.

All. So I called somebody out of the country. Can you help me with this? I said, dad, I can't get my computer to connect to my printer. And he says.

He says, well, have you introduced the two?

I don't even know what that means. Printer, laptop, laptop, printer. By the power invested in me as an ordained minister, would you please make me a paper baby? Like. Like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with questions like this.

He says. He says, well, you gotta introduce the two. He walks me through it. Nothing's working. Come to find out, my laptop is on one WI fi network and the printer is on a different WI fi network.

You say, pastor, what does that mean? I have no idea. I'm just telling you what he told me. We couldn't get anything accomplished because there's two devices living in the same house sitting right next to each other that were operating on two different operating systems. I have discovered in my own life, and maybe you have as well, that sometimes it is easy for our lives to be operating on two different networks.

Can I be real raw and vulnerable with you just for a minute? There's been seasons, long seasons, very long seasons in my life where my faith life was different than my nervous system.

As in, I compartmentalize my life and my emotions in two different boxes, even though both are housed in the same unit. So my faith said, this is good to believe in Jesus. My nervous system said, maybe he can't control this issue. I need to be in charge of this. I would overly control that, which my faith told me God is already in control.

My faith told me I need faith in God for when I die.

My nervous system said I need to be in control for deadlines. God will provide all my needs. But I'm going to stress out on Tuesday about bills.

God is the author of the family unit. And when my kids were born, I dedicated my own children to God. God, they're your property first. Before you gave them to me, Steward, I trust you with my kids. And then I stress out over their future.

There's nothing wrong with what we're thinking about over here. But if our nervous system never catches up to the proclamation of our faith, we will live in this spiritual downward spiral of what I call spiritual anxiety, where then we begin to use the disciplines of our faith as medication to numb a soul that has not yet been healed. We will begin to use spiritual disciplines like prayer and reading the Bible and connect groups and relationships and serving and giving as little spiritual trinkets and spiritual charms that make us feel good about ourselves without ever getting down to the root issue of why am I so anxious on the inside? God doesn't Want to numb your anxiety. He wants you to relocate your identity and give you a sense of stability, a sense of security, a sense of confidence where he doesn't just change your behavior, he changes your understanding of what it feels like to belong to Christ.

To begin with. One last time, tell the person next to you, I'm so glad you made it to church today. Come on, let them know.

The problem that we wrestle with as humans is that this is not a new diversification in our soul. For thousands of years, humanity has wrestled with this. How can I get my faith and my belief in God to align with my nervous system and my nervous system to align with what I actually believe in God. Welcome to the city of Ephesus. The city of Ephesus was a major important city in the ancient world, especially to that of Rome.

It would be in terms of cultural influence, our New York City in terms of power. It would be our Washington D.C. in terms of societal influence. This would be valley. This is if. If you wanted to be somebody, if you wanted to network with somebody, and if you wanted to have something, you had to have connections to Ephesus.

Ephesus was the port city into Asia Minor. If you wanted to to find power in the ancient world, you had to either be somebody or know somebody with power in the city of Ephesus. That is the tension in the text. In order to understand the tension of what they're dealing with and what we're dealing with, we need to first know what is the cultural expectations of the city. Ephesus was known for having three very important structures in all of Asia Minor.

The first structure was actually one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. We would call it the Temple of Artemis. It looks like this. She was known for being the pagan God or the goddess of security, prosperity and safety. So people from around the ancient world would travel by animal, by chariot, by foot to come to Ephesus to pay homage or worship or praise to the temple of Artemis.

Please protect me and my family, provide for me and my crops. Give me a sense of safety against the enemy. All of life hung in this relationship. Can you appease the gods? If you can appease the gods, perhaps the God would provide for you and be prosperous to you.

If you would keep on walking past the temple of Artemis, you would show up at the end of the street here to the library of Celsus. Celsus was an elite general in, in and around Asia Minor. Conquered many of foe and so they named the library because it was believed that he was more Intelligent, he was more conniving, he was more manipulative. He was a greater strategist than all of the other generals. They named the library after him.

And it was one of the ancient wonders of Asia Minor as well. Believing that the more you know and you can outmaneuver your enemies, the more educated you were, philosophical you were. It would create elite identity about who you are. The library was all about self sufficiency and a connectivity to power. If you kept on walking down this street, it would fork in the road, you would take the right.

You would end up at one of the major coliseums of Rome. And that was called the Great Theater of the Ephesians. It would house 20,000 people. This theater wasn't just for entertainment. It was primarily used for political loyalties.

It was where executions would take place when people would get out of pocket. And it was used as a point of public decisions and enforcement. By the way, if you, if you're reading your Bible through this year, when you get to Acts chapter 19, the apostle Paul has created an uproar in the city. He's actually preaching against the temple of Artemis and he's telling people, save your money. You're buying trinkets and tokens and charms, praying to something that was created by man.

Don't waste your time, your breath or your or your finances trying to pay homage to something that man built when you can actually go straight to the God on top who created man themselves. It created such an uproar that people in the city came and started burning their religious charms and it started to disrupt the Ephesians or the economy in Ephesus. They stormed this stadium and 20,000 people, the Bible says, begin to shout, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Drums begin to beat Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Years later, Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians and he says, no.

Greater is God of the heavens, Great is Hardimaeus of the Ephesians. Great is God of the heavens. What makes this letter to the Ephesians so unique is that Paul is not writing defending Christianity. He's not challenging the atheist and he's not trying to convince the agnostics. He's writing full on genuine, authentic believers in Jesus as the son of God, the one who died for our sins on the cross and who have put their faith, trust and life in his hands.

He's writing to genuine believers that say, I love God and yet my nervous system can't catch up. So I come to church on Sunday and I get re energized that my life belongs to him and he's got the whole world in his hands. But midweek, I better take control back. What do we do with this dichotomy, this paradox of our soul that says, I believe, but I also have an unbelief. I'm in it.

I'm giving him my life. My life must be managed by the Artemaeus of the Ephesians. More stability, more comfort, more savings, more sense of belonging, more respect. What do I do with my life when my unbelief hasn't caught up with my belonging in him? Paul sits down and he writes a letter to these anxious Christians living in a world that says, more, more, more, more.

Drive, drive, drive, drive. Bigger, bigger, bigger, better, better, better. And he says, ephesians, chapter one. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in every way. Watch this.

The first word he used here for blessings means praise or worship, like praise God. The second time he uses blessing, it's a different Greek word. And it's where we get our English word eulogy. Eulogy is something that you do typically at a funeral. It's where you speak well of someone so you declare value over their life.

So watch this. Praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has declared value over us through Christ Jesus in a city that has been training its citizens for decades. Prove, push, prove, push, perform more. Paul says, you know, you don't have to do that, right? Your value, your worth, your identity is not in their validation or affirmation.

It's actually in the creator of your very life. And that name is Jesus. Watch this. Who has spoken well over us in Christ? The reason why it's hard for us to accept this text is because you want to argue with it the same way I want to refute it.

That is, the text says God has spoken well over us, but I know he ain't speaking well over me. The reason why we have a hard time believing that God is not speaking well over us is because we don't speak well to ourself about ourself. And let's be honest about it, the reason why we don't speak well about ourselves to ourself is because we know we don't deserve to be spoken well. Of course, right? Like, we're so much aware of our timeline, our choices, our distractions, our dilemmas, our motives, our thoughts.

We know that God's not speaking well over us after all. Look at the nuances of my life. But that's where the wrestle is in the. In the text. It doesn't say that.

He's speaking well over our timeline, and he's not that. He's speaking well over every decision in our past. He's speaking well over his kids. Parents know what I'm talking about. You can be disappointed in something your kids did, but at the end of the day, they steal your kids.

And you're gonna speak well of them. Not necessarily what they did. What they did needs to be corrected. But at the end of the day, they mine. They my kids.

I love them. Paul is saying, God so loves you. He's been talking about you behind your back. And God doesn't talk in shame tones. God doesn't talk through guilt, using guilt as a manipulative factor.

God's not a narcissist trying to. He's a loving father. The Bible says, who looks at you with compassion and grace. And though your sins are many, you're still his baby. What Paul is saying is, if you ever want your nervous system to catch up to your sense of belonging in Christ, remind yourself before you address your behavior.

Remember your belonging. I am his and he is mine. When we remind ourselves of our be belonging to him, eventually the behavior will catch up. Notice what he says in the very next verse. Watch this.

Watch this. He is. He's intensifying what he's talking about. He wants to stress them just a little bit so they'll lean into the tension and discover a new reality that they've been avoiding. Watch this.

The very next verse. He. God chose us in him before the foundations of the world. The word chose here in, in the original language means authoritative decision. It was used to talk about a king who would walk through the streets and he would exercise an authoritative decision.

You, that location, that throne, that music, that food. And it would immediately be done because of the one who was giving voice to the request. It was an authoritative decision. But this is also a play on words. The word authority.

You already know this. The prefix to the word authority is the word author. Because when you author something, you are the authority of that in which you are authoring. Author authority. You see what Paul's doing.

God has authority over your life because he authored your life. And so the affirmation, the validation your sense of belonging is searching for is never gonna come through greater behavioral modification. It comes from understanding who your author is. And the author and the perfecter of your faith has been thinking about you. He's been speaking well over you.

And he invites you us to pursue him not as A struggling employee trying to earn a promotion through the eyes of the boss, but from a son or daughter. Let me just go to my dad. It's a sense of belonging that overrides an anxiety or an anxious spirit that comes through. Comes through anxious behavior. Now, just so we're talking about everything clearly here.

What Paul's not talking about. What he's not talking about is a willful sinning. Just because God speaks well of you, right? This isn't about a denial of sin. It's about a relocation of your identity.

If my belief is in Christ, then I don't want to go back and continue a life of sin because after all, I've been adopted into this particular family with Jesus. This is about a relocation of our identity. That you are not standing in your worst moment.

You're not standing in your past. I want to tell somebody, stop living there if you are no longer living there. A while back, I bought my son new shoes. And parents know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you got to sit down and have the talk with your kids when you buy them new clothes.

Now, look, this isn't play. This is for when we go to church and people think we got money. Okay? Okay. These are new shoes.

You only put these on when we get inside the building. It's one of those things. Well, of course, that lasted for like two hours before we're just, you know, walking through the mean streets of Martinsburg. And my. My son, there's never been a puddle on planet Earth that has not enticed him.

Let fun and frolic freely flow. You know, he loves jumping in these things. Things. We're going. I just have a talk with him.

Hey, buddy, you're wearing new shoes. Please be careful. Don't jump in any puddles. Try to stay out of the mud in the snow, too. That would be helpful.

All that's wrapped in keep your keepers shoes. Nice. And we're walking. It's like 30 minutes later and. And his voice just stops.

I keep walking, I turn around and there he is, frozen in a puddle. Because he just realized what he.

And at that point, what are you going to do? Right? It's already done. So, buddy, too late now. Let's just go home and clean the shoes.

Let's go home and clean the shoes.

So many times we limit what God wants to do in our life because we're so frustrated or disappointed in ourself about the puddle we find ourselves in that we now create permanency in a puddle rather than letting that be a temporary relapse. God is saying, I loved you when you were in the puddle, but I love you too much to leave you in the puddle. Let's get out of the puddle. Let's get ourselves cleaned up, and let's go home.

The problem is, many of us, we live our life like we're still trying to be picked by a God who already selected us. Pick me. Pick me. So we try harder. We live with anxiety in our soul, stressed out.

Can I trust God with my kids? Can I trust God with my finances? Can I trust God with my afterlife? Can I trust God with this diagnosis? Can I trust him?

I don't know. I don't know. God, please, God, if I do more, maybe he'll answer me favorably. And we're trying to earn his grace through trinkets and tokens and medallions and charms of religiosity rather than just understanding we already belong to him.

Notice then what Paul says, He says, in love, he predestined us for adoption. So remember, Paul begins the letter, you belong to Christ. And he's been talking about you. He's been speaking well of you. What has he been saying then, about you?

He's saying that he chose you. Now he's saying he adopted you. Which means. Which means your relationship with Christ isn't probation, it's ownership. He's taking responsibility for you.

He loves you. He's invited you into his. Into his family. Paul's writing to people who live under constant spiritual anxiety. Is Artemaeus mad?

Is Artemaeus mad? And God says. Paul says, greater is the God of heavens than Artemis of the Ephesians. His emotions are not. Are not.

Are not bipolar. He's steady. He's secure. Watch now how Paul turns up. Turns up the volume to the group reading this letter.

In the first century, he says in him, in Jesus, we have redemption through his blood. So God's been talking about you behind your back. What's he been saying? He's saying, I chose you. I adopted you.

Now I'm gonna redeem you. How many of you love flea markets and garage sales? Anybody? Come on, where's my people? Where's my people?

I'm gonna have a. I'm gonna have a connect group, and all we do is go buy each other's junk. That's what we're gonna do. I love it. I love garage sales. I love.

I love flea markets. Years ago, I was at a flea market in Charlestown, and one of the vendors had a large stop sign for like, a highway or something, and it was hooked up to an internal box that would change the lights through the base of music. So the music would be boom, boom. Got to boom. And the light went red, yellow, green, red, green, red, yellow, green.

And I thought to myself, where has this been my entire life? I don't even know how I've been living without this. Who doesn't want one of those things, right? Apparently my wife. But I bought it.

And I'm like, what am I even doing with this? Like, where is it going to go in the house? It never made it in. But here's how it went down. I find it.

I wanted it. I asked the guy, hey, how much is this light? And he says, It's 10 bucks. So as soon as he says that, I said, I'll take it. This other dude walks up and he says, hey, how much is the light?

And he said, this guy already bought it. He says, for how much? He said, $10. He says, I'll give you 15 for it. The guy looks at me and says, he said, he'll give me 15 for it.

I think I already said I bought it. And that's when I learned a valuable lesson. The word of flea market vendors in Harper's Ferry mean absolutely nothing. I just. Anyways, he says, I'll give you 15.

So I said, I'll give you 20. He says, I'll give you 25. I said to myself, self, don't do it. Don't. At this point, I.

At this point, I don't even want the thing anymore. But because he tried to screw me over, now I'm gonna try to bid up as high as I can doing it. It's probably not gonna work out, but I gotta try. I said. I said, I'll give you 40.

Thinking he's gonna come back and say, I'll give you 50. And then I walk away. He goes, $40 for that? I don't want it. You can have it.

Throw out ten dollars. I'm spending forty bucks on this.

The word redemption is the buyback. There was a negotiation that took place, but somebody outbidded the other side. What Paul is saying is you have a spiritual adversary for your soul, Somebody that wants to keep you in those puddles of life. Somebody that wants to blind you from the reality that God loves you enough to adopt you. You have a spiritual adversary who wants to manipulate the truth that is designed to set you free.

You have a spiritual adversary who wants to get between you and a full knowledge of knowing who God is and who you are in Christ. But a negotiation took place, and Your adversary got outbidded when Jesus hung himself on a cross and said, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden. And I, Jesus, the authority, the perfecter of the faith, will give you rest. Jesus, just say it. I redeemed you.

Our anxiety increases when we feel like all of life depends on me. Paul says, all of life belongs to him. And when you get your behavior out of the way and you, you, you, you operate from a sense of belonging, not performing. Anxiety finds its proper place as your identity finds its. Notice what Paul then says.

He says, God's been talking about you. And he's saying, I chose you. I adopted you. I redeemed you. And then he says, in Christ, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

The word sealed here comes from our English word down payment. What is a down payment? A deposit. It's a current investment with a guarantee I'm going to come back and pay in full. So until we all meet Jesus face to face around that throne, there has been a down payment that is made.

And that is the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us. Do you see what Paul's doing here? What he's really doing? He's actually retraining their mental reflex when they get stressed, he's retraining their reflex when they get stressed to remind themselves their first default can't be, what do I need to do? Behavior.

It's to remind themselves, who do I belong to? Who am I in Christ? They've been trained to ask questions like this, who will secure me, who will protect me? And how will this work out for me? Great is Artemaeus of the Ephesians.

Paul says, no, you actually find those three things in Christ. Greater is God of the heavens. So now let's live up to our title. How does all of this impact our Tuesday living? Ephesus was famous for three structures.

You'll remember them. The library, the stadium and the temple. One represents security, reputation and self sufficiency. Paul says, let me remind you who you belong to and who you are. Two practical takeaways from all of this.

Number one, when you feel like your soul is anxious and your worries increase and you have what I call 2:17 questions, those are questions that keep you up at 2:17 in the morning. Like, maybe if I rerun the numbers again, the calculator will say something different. Maybe if I could replay the conversation again, I'll come up with a better comeback for them tomorrow. Maybe if I investigated how I can control just a little bit more, I would be more at peace. Paul says no, no, no, no.

The only thing that's going to give you 217 piece is by doing this. Write this down if you're taking notes. Number one, change your first sentence. Notice how Paul does that in the letter. Change your first sentence.

When our anxiety begins to increase, we tend to ask questions like what if, how am I going to? Or I need to fix this. Paul says just change it to because of who I am in Christ, because who Christ is in me, because I am chosen, adopted and sealed by the power, the protection, the peace, the well being of a good God in heaven. Now, what must I do? Watch this.

The real question isn't how do I calm down. The real question is where am I standing? See, this sermon is not about eliminating anxiety. The message from Paul is about relocating our identity so anxiety doesn't disappear because life somehow got stable. Anxiety loses its power and its grip when we remember where we stand upon Christ.

The solid rock I stand, all other ground is ephesus. Secondly, Paul would encourage us to do this. Number one, change your first sentence. Number two, identify your structure. Identify your structure.

This is where the whole message comes together, right? The library was about competence, security and reputation. When you're filled with anxiety, what structure are you stressed out about? Well, how do I know when I feel weak, where do I run? Or to who do I run to if it's not Christ?

When I feel afraid, what am I trying to overly control? And because it's out of my control, it's causing anxiety in me. When I feel exposed, when I feel disrespected, when I feel devalued, what do I do to defend myself? Is my anxiety streaming from one of these structures? Or can I remind myself my belonging is in Christ who chose me, adopted me and redeemed me, and sealed me for a purpose greater than my temporary life?

Once you see it, you can relocate yourself. And once you relocate yourself, you can be a person who the Bible says is marked by peace.

Stand up with me across this place.

If your soul is a tornado, if your peace has had a relapse, good news for you, you're not broken. You just need to relocate. You just need to relocate. Move away from the puddles. Find yourself on the firm foundation.

Who is Jesus?

God, I thank you for your grace and your mercy that has no bounds and no limitations. There's no expiration dates to your good goodness and your kindness over our life. Lord, thank you that when we lose our way and we struggle with our nervous system a time or two that you do not discard us, nor do you grow angry with us. But like a loving shepherd chasing after a lost sheep, you come and you find us and you embrace us and you carry us home.

But Lord, we don't want this just to be religious theory or dogma or church theology. We want this to be experiential. So in a way that you and only you can, good God that you are, would you be a wonderful counselor and a mighty God and everlasting father? Would you be a prince of peace? Would you help us locate quickly before a downward spiral what structure we're trying to live from rather than a person we need to return to help us with the relocation of our nervous system from behavior to belonging.

We just want to be with you. Would you grant your people a peace this week that would surpass all their understanding and refuel them and refill them with a joy that is unspeakable and full of the glory of God? As we leave this place may we encounter you again on a random Tuesday in Jesus name and everybody said Amen. Amen. God bless.