ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING Part 2: Obsessed with Safety

ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING Part 2: Obsessed with Safety

March 10, 2024

Philippians 4:6 (NIV) Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Philippians 4:7 (NIV) And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

4 Reasons We Experience Anxiety

1. We’re uncertain.
2. We’re unsafe.
3. We’re unhealthy.
4. We’re unaccompanied.

2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV) For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

When You’re Obsessed with Safety

Numbers 13:1-2 (NIV) 1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.”

You choose your focus.

Are you fighting or ?

Numbers 13:26 (NIV) They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land.

Numbers 13:27 (NIV) They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.

Numbers 13:28 (NIV) But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.

Numbers 13:31 (NIV) “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”

Numbers 13:32 (NIV) And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.

Numbers 13:33 (NIV) We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

We get stuck in .

Numbers 14:1 (NIV) That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.

Numbers 14:2 (NIV) All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness!

Numbers 14:3 (NIV) Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder…

We become hypervigilant against

Numbers 14:3 (NIV) …Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”

Numbers 14:4 (NIV) And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

We attempt to by anticipating and avoiding risks.

Operating from a Different Spirit

Numbers 14:23 (NIV) No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.

Numbers 14:24 (NIV) But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it…

Numbers 14:30 (NIV) Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

1. Identify holding you back.

Romans 8:15 (NIV) The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again.

2. Replace fears with .

Psalm 91:1 (NIV) Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Psalm 91:1 (NIV) I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

Psalm 91:3 (NIV) Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.

Psalm 91:4 (NIV) He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

Psalm 91:5 (NIV) You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,

Psalm 91:6 (NIV) nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.

Psalm 91:7 (NIV) A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

Psalm 91:8 (NIV) You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

Psalm 91:9 (NIV) If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling,

Psalm 91:10 (NIV) no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.

Psalm 91:11 (NIV) For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

Psalm 91:12 (NIV) they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Psalm 91:13 (NIV) You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

Psalm 91:14 (NIV) “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

Psalm 91:15 (NIV) He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

Psalm 91:16 (NIV) With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

3. Become obsessed with .

Joshua 1:7 (NIV) “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

Joshua 1:8 (NIV) Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Joshua 1:9 (NIV) Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

4. Take to confront and overcome your fears.

Joshua 3:15 (NIV) Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,

Joshua 3:16 (NIV) the water from upstream stopped flowing…So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.