Finances Got You Down? 6 Keys to Conquer Anxiety in Your Life

Hey, this is James Pelton wanted to record a video today when I woke up this morning. I was just very anxious about a lot of things in life. You have relationship issues that you're working through family issues and a big part of it is financial issues and they just cause a lot of stress a lot of anxiety most mornings when I wake up. That's how I feel is I'm just thinking about everything going on and I just get a little overwhelmed sometimes, you know, it's even kind of a panic feeling and I realized this morning as I was kind of working through this panic anxiety stress, you know, I do a lot of videos about passive income about investments about crypto about side hustles, but I think what a lot of people actually need is help with their heart. There's things going on in their heart that they need to work through. So let me know down in the comments. If you ever feel this way if you get really anxious stressed out things like that. So when you're feeling this way feeling this strong anxiety this strong stress, there's a few different ways that you can go about handling it a lot of times what we do is humans is we you know, we're uncomfortable were stressed out. So we lash out at the people around us. I can get stressed out about finances. And then what I do sometimes is I'll text we have a bunch of students living with us or I text my wife and I say hey you need a rain in your spending and sometimes I'm cranky about it because again, I'm feeling stressed out anxious and I take that out on other people another way that sometimes I'm tempted to handle especially financial stress is my mind just starts going at a million miles an hour. How could I fix this? What could I do to get out of this stress get out of this anxiety and this is where you end up with a lot of people who you lie in bed at night, you know, again, let me know in the comments this ever happened to you lie in bed at night. Just thinking through some of your problems and you're just racking your brain thinking of okay. How could I solve this? Could I do this? Could I do this another thing that I've done? I've seen other people do is when you're stressed out you have anxiety you go to self-help books. So you find the latest book at the library. That's about here's how to handle stress. Here's how you can live stress-free. Here's how you can have peace which we're going to talk about here in a little bit. I've done all these things. So I've lashed out at people spent hours. Just trying to think through problems myself. I've read all the self-help books, but what I found is that there's one self-help. I'm going to use that in quotes. There's one self-help book that actually helps you deal with your anxiety and can take it away fill you with peace and I trust this book ahead of all others because I believe it was written by the God who actually created us trying to get information about something. It's usually best to go to the maker of that. That's why I do a amaze if I want to know how a project works how a product works will then bring on the people who made that project made that product and you'll get the best information usually about how that's supposed to function how it's supposed to work. So when it comes to the human heart and anxiety and stress and what's going on internally if I'm looking for the best info, I think you go to the creator who I believe is God and more specifically Jesus Christ John 1 3 talking about Jesus. It says all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. So Jesus created my heart and I believe he'll have the best information on how to deal with the things that are going on in my heart. So I want to go to God's word. How do we deal with anxiety? So I looked Matthew chapter 6. This is Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. You might be familiar with the Sermon on the Mount. Let's see. He starts out blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth probably the most famous sermon that's ever been preached but in the Sermon on the Mount 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. So again, Jesus tells us hey, don't be anxious and you might think well, that's easier said than done Jesus. How do we do that? But Jesus doesn't just say doesn't just say hey, don't worry about your life, but he actually gives and we're going to go through these there's six truth six realities that Jesus points out that the goal of those if you believe those truths you believe those realities the result is you will not be anxious about your life. And again, that's something I desperately want. I hate the feeling of anxiety. I hate that feeling when I want the peace that God and Jesus promises to his people. So let's go through quickly. I'm not going to this is not a full sermon. Okay, I'm sitting down. I'm not at a pulpit not a preacher, but I just want to share these six truths that have helped my heart. They've helped deal with the anxiety in my heart and hopefully they're helpful for you as well. So the six truths the first one is here in verse 25. Jesus says don't be anxious about your life. And the first reason he gives is not life more than food and the body more than clothing. So if you think about the things that you are worried about the things that are causing you anxiety right now, there is more to life than the things that we are worried about. So one thing that I do is I start my day by thanking God for the things that I do have rather than just letting my mind constantly go over the things that I don't have or the things that I think are not right. There's an old hymn count your blessings name them one by one and you'll be surprised what the Lord has done. And so I've done that I wake up and I start thanking God. Okay, you've taken care of me in the past. Look at this. You've given me a house. I have food. I'm not hungry right now. There's a lot of people in the world in the history of the world who've been hungry. I'm not hungry. I have clothes on you've taken care of me up to this point. So you thank God for your spouse for your kids for the way God's taking care of you to focus more on the things that you do have rather than the things that you don't have is the first recommendation that I'll make that's number one. There is more to life than the things that you are worried about. Number two is in verse 26. Jesus says look at the birds of the air. They neither so nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? So the second thing Jesus says to get rid of anxiety in us is he says he Jesus always likes to use life things around you. He like we love pictures and things like that, but he's out on the mountain. This was 2,000 years ago, but they had birds back then as they do today and Jesus pointed to a bird and he said hey, I want you to look at a bird. Okay, they are singing. They're happy apparently. They're not entrepreneurial. They're not sitting around worrying and trying to think through all their problems, but God feeds them. He takes care of them. They're not smart. They're not clever, but God feeds them. Our heavenly father feeds them. He says are you not of more value than they? So if God who created all things and has all power if he takes care of birds, we know it's in his nature. It's in his character to take care of things. But if he loves to take care of birds who he's not their father, how much more will he take care of us? We're his children. So if you have children, I want you to think about your children and just think about I was looking at my son the other day and I thought you know, what everything in me wants to take care of my child. There's nothing in me that wants bad things for my child or once I don't look at my child say, oh, I hope he has to go through this. I want to take care of him and we have a heavenly father who loves us more than we even love our children. If he takes care of the birds, we take care of our children. How much more will he take care of us? Because are you not of more value than they? So sorry animal rights people. I love animals as well, but we are more valuable than animals and God takes care of the birds. He will take care of you as well. Number three is in verse 27 and I love this one. This one's more of a practical one, but he says which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life. So God's going to take care of you. He takes care of the birds, but worrying is not even helpful. It's not that worrying even gets you any closer to your goal. No one has ever gotten out of problems by worrying about the problems and doesn't even help a little bit. No one by being anxious can even add a single hour to their life. You're going to die when you're going to die and you can't worry your way. In fact, worrying if anything, it's going to decrease your life. They've shown that stress and the anxiety and worry makes you live less not longer. That's kind of Jesus's third point is that it doesn't even accomplish anything. So don't be anxious about your life. So when you find yourself worrying, so when you find yourself worrying, I want to encourage you to stop. There's better things that you could do with your time and you might ask, well, what could I do with my time instead? So Paul says Philippians chapter 4 verse 6 7. He says do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God. So Paul says take the time that you spend worrying and instead use it to pray. Let your requests be made known to God. Ask God say, hey, I'm worried about this. Can you take care of this for me? I'm worried about this. Can you take care of this for me? Let your requests be made known to God and the result of that if you stop worrying and instead pray he says in the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And that is something that I want desperately. I want peace which surpasses all understanding. So it's a piece. You can't even explain to people where it's at this tranquility in your soul. The word peace has the idea of like a body of water and there's two ways. This body of water can be it can be choppy like you throw a rock into it. There's all these waves and things going around. It's choppy water the opposite that would be anxiety. That'd be stress. The opposite of that is tranquility. It's the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension. And if you instead of worrying about things you take them to God with prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving that peace will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus guard is like a soldier that peace will be in your heart just guarding it your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus something I want desperately. So I'm so thankful that God's shown us how to get this. So number four Jesus goes on and I'm thankful for Jesus. He doesn't just say hey do this and then leave you to it. He gives you the tools you need to not be worried about your life. He says here's how you do it. Here's what you think about he says in verse 28. This is number four. He says and why are you anxious about clothing consider the lilies of the field how they grow they neither toil nor spin yet. I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. So again Jesus pointed to the birds and he had an example from them then he points to I'm sure there's flowers on this mountain where Jesus is preaching he says hey consider the lilies of the field. They do even less than the birds do at least the birds are out catching worms but consider the flowers they don't do anything they just grow but they are more beautiful than Solomon Solomon was the one of the greatest kings of Israel who had the most wealth of any of the kings and Jesus says a simple flower that God is taking care of has more than the richest King who's ever lived. So then Jesus says if God does that for the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow's thrown into the oven. How long do plants live for I'm in Nebraska. So we have really distinct seasons. I'll put it that way but when winter comes every single flower dies. So Jesus's point is if God makes flowers that beautiful. He takes care of them that well, they don't have anything to do with it. He just takes care of them and these are just temporary things. They don't even last for a year, but God does this for them. How much more will he not clothe you? Oh you of little faith. So flowers are temporary God takes care of them. You are eternal. You're his children. How much more will he take care of you? I love first Peter chapter 5. It says humble yourself under the mighty hand of God so that the proper time he might exalt you. So God loves humility. God loves when people think lowly of themselves when they realize hey, I can't control things only God can control things. He is great. He is powerful. I can't really do that much God is looking for humble people. So he says humble yourself. You might say, okay, how do we do that verse 7 tells you how to do that? I don't know how much you're into grammar, but this is a participle casting ends in ing. It's a participle, which means this is explaining how to do what he said to do. So he said humble yourself. Here's how you humble yourself. You humble yourself by casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. So again, we have anxieties two ways. We can try to handle them ourself. We can say no, I have the power to fix this anxiety to fix this problem in my life and God calls that sometimes people call that. Oh, yeah, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps or whatever God calls that pride. Okay. He says no, don't do that. Don't try to think that you can control your life. You can handle the things in your life. That's pride. You can't that's the reality the greatest men who've ever lived. They've accomplished this and that then they get sick and they die. You are not powerful enough to handle the things that are going on in your life. So instead humble yourself by casting your anxieties on him. So you take them off of your heart. You say God, I can't handle this. You please handle it. And the reason we can do this is because he cares for you. So again, God's character praise the Lord. We have a God who cares about his creation cares about the birds. He cares about the flowers and he cares even more about his children. I have a 10 year old daughter and she's very aware of how much things cost and things like that and she'll come to me and she'll say things like dad. We can't eat there. That's way too expensive $25 for seafood buffet. That's way too expensive and I try to tell her hey Ella, you don't need it's not a 10 year old daughter's job to worry about the fine family finances. Okay, your mom and I will take care of that. That's not something that you need to even think about but the same is true with us in God. It's not my job to take care of all the things in my life to fix all the problems to fix all the things that I'm worried about to make sure that there's nothing that can ever happen to me in my life. It's my job to humble myself cast my anxieties on God and say you are the God who created all things you uphold all things by the word of your power. You are omnipotent have control of all things. You have all wisdom. You are omniscient. You know all things I'm going to cast my cares upon you because you care for me and I'm going to trust that you will take care of me fifth thing Jesus says verse 31. He says therefore do not be anxious saying what shall we eat? What shall we drink? What should we wear for the Gentiles seek after all these things and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all so really what Jesus says here is Hey, don't be anxious because that's how people who don't believe in God function when we're worried being worried is a symptom of not trusting God again. If you believe God's the creator that he cares about you that he's all powerful. There wouldn't really be a reason for us to worry. The problem is we don't always believe those things. I don't remember back from your Sunday school days, but there's a Sunday school story, which I believe is true. But Jesus was on a boat on the Sea of Galilee with his disciples and Jesus was taking a nap because he was a human I take naps because I saw Jesus taking naps. Yeah, I know that naps are good, but Jesus is taking a nap and this big storm comes on the Sea of Galilee and the disciples start freaking out. Okay, they're looking at the boats going up and down. I get seasick just thinking about it, but they start freaking out. They wake up Jesus they shake him and they say hey, we're about to die. Why are you sleeping and the first thing Jesus says? Why are you afraid you of little faith? Then he spoke to the wind. He spoke to the waves and they became calm. So the disciples are freaking out, but there's no reason to because again, there's nothing they can do. They can't do anything to stop the wind. They can't do anything to stop the waves. All they're worrying was for nothing. But then they did what you should actually do, which is they went to Jesus. They woke him up and said, please help us and Jesus says you just need to believe and then he showed his power that he's in control. If you're in the middle of a huge storm, Jesus can speak to the storm and calm it down in your life. And the sixth thing that Jesus says is he says but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. So again, if we're not supposed to spend our time worrying or being anxious, what are we supposed to be doing? Verse 33. He says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. So I believe that someday Jesus is coming back to Earth Acts chapter 1. We see Jesus after he dies and rose again. That's what we celebrated at Easter. He goes up into heaven. The disciples are saying they're looking saying this is strange and an angel's there and tells them the same way Jesus went up someday. He will come back and when he comes back, he's going to set up his kingdom. He's going to remove all the problems all the things that are wrong in the world. Jesus is going to come back and he's going to fix all of them. And I believe he's going to reign forever and ever with his children. So instead of worrying about the things of this life that God promises, he's going to take care of he says instead look for that kingdom put your eyes on the future first Peter 1 13. This was written by Peter who Jesus was speaking to on the Sermon on the Mount, but he says therefore preparing your minds for action and being sober minded set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So as a believer in Jesus Christ, our hope is a hundred percent set on the day. He's coming back. There's nothing in this life that our hope is set on. It's all temporary here, but we focus on that day the day Jesus Christ is coming back. We focus on preparing for that day. We focus on staying away from sin in our life that robs us of our joy robs us of our peace. We focus on telling other people. There's a lot of people in this world suffering with anxiety. They don't have the peace of God and we have access to that. So Jesus says focus on that focus on getting the word out to people focus on the kingdom of God and his righteousness and the result will be all the things that you worry about will be taken care of and Jesus concludes in verse 34. He says therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself sufficient for the day is its own trouble. So again, if you think of a common theme of most of the things if not all the Things that you're worried about they're all in the future right right now. You're fine. You have food you have clothing you have shelter you have a computer or you have a phone you're watching YouTube. You're doing great. What we're anxious about tends to be what about tomorrow? What about this this debt that I have coming up? What about this project just rug pulled am I going to have enough to cover my family's expenses if that happens or if this happens God will take care of you. I've seen it time and time in my life. In fact, I sometimes I feel stupid. Are you silly? I tell my kids don't use don't say stupid but sometimes I feel silly that God is taking care of me so well up to this point, but then I still worry about maybe he won't going forward. Maybe he won't do this when I was younger first married very very stressed out anxious about finances. I'm like houses are so expensive. How am I ever going to be able to afford a house for me and my family worried about so many things but then God took care of it. He got me a good job. Then I was worried about this certain situation. They need a lot of money. I'd like to be able to help them out, but I can't do it and I was worried anxious about that God allowed my business to Thrive able to provide for some people that I wanted to provide for it. I sold my business and how God how are you going to take care of me? I don't have an income now. What am I going to do? He brought in investing and YouTube and defy and all these things when the defy market was up and we were in the bull market money pouring in and then we reach a bear market and again anxiety starts coming back up. Okay, I'm not making $6,000 a day from drip anymore. How am I going to pay my bills? I've got a lot of people relying on me for a lot of things. What am I going to do and just fully transparent? God is taking care of me. He's used war bots and the 4x bots and some of the different NFTs. He's used those things to take care of me. I've still been able to pay all my bills and I know that God will be faithful going forward. I'm confident that he's going to continue to take care of me no matter what happens. So I hope that's helpful for you a quick caveat here though. This is only true for God's children Romans chapter 8 verse 28 says we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. So God causes all things to work together for good but not for everyone. It's for his children to those who love God and those who are called according to his purpose. So God is not everyone's father. He's only father to his children and he only takes care of his children in this full way. He only works all things together for good for his children and we become his child by believing in Jesus John chapter 1 verse 12 says to all who did receive him talking about Jesus to all who received Jesus who believed in his name. He gave the right to become children of God. So we're not children of God by default by default were separated from God because of our sin because we've done wrong things. But if we acknowledge our sin we say God I know I'm a sinner. I know I've done wrong things Isaiah 53 6 all we like sheep have gone astray. We've each turned to his own way. We're all guilty of that. We've tried to live life on our own terms and say I'm going to do this. This is what I want. This is what I'm going after that sin and that separates us from God. But God sent his son Jesus to the earth and he did not do that. He didn't go his own way. He followed God completely but then he still was punished died on the cross again. We celebrated this on Good Friday. He died on the cross and paid the penalty as if he had gone astray like the rest of us have. So the one person who doesn't deserve punishment for his sins got it. And then he promises anyone who believes in me John 3 16 will not perish but have everlasting life and once you put your faith in Jesus Christ you become his child. There's nothing that can harm you Psalm 91 even says he won't allow your foot to hit a rock unless it's for your good unless there's some benefit to it again. This doesn't mean that we go through this super easy life where we don't have any problems or any trials in the same way. I'm making my kids they homeschool, but I'm making them do school right now. Hey, that's difficult for them, but I do it because I love them. I have big plans for them and school is a part of their plan something that's difficult in their life is for their good. Sometimes they don't understand that then they we do this to God too. We don't understand it's for our good. And so they say why do I have to do school and we do that too. We go through trials. Why do I have to go through this? But if you're God's child, he is taking care of you completely what I want for myself. I pray this for me for my wife for my family for the people living with me my extended family my friends and all of you guys Psalm 4 verse 8 says in peace. I will both lie down and sleep for you alone. Oh Lord make me dwell in safety. Thank you so much for watching and listening to me ramble a little bit about things on my heart. Please leave down in the comments. Let me know. What is the number one thing you're most anxious about and I'll go through all the comments and I will pray for them myself. I'm also going to leave a link to just it's a 10 minute meeting that you can schedule and if you feel like you need just to talk through something or you want to just pray together. I'm happy to do that. I'll leave a link you can schedule that and we can hop on and we can pray with you and just talk through what's going on in your life would love to do that for you. So thank you guys so much for your support. Appreciate all of you and hope you have a great rest of the day. Thank you.