Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Anxious for Nothing, Part 4: When You Just Can’t Decide

Episode Date: August 25, 2019

You weren’t created to exist in a constant state of anxiety. It drains your joy and leaves you stressed, burned out, and exhausted. Your purpose isn’t living in fear. Step boldly into the peace you’ll find when you’re Anxious for Nothing. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Right now, let's go to our senior pastor Craig Rochelle for this week's message. Hey, I love that you've joined us today at all of our Life Church locations for another week, studying our message series called Anxious for Nothing. Who's a little bit ready to hear from God's word today in all of our churches?

I am incredibly thankful. In the first week, and every single week, we started with a very powerful portion of scripture from the book of Philippians in chapter four. The first week we stood in honor of God's Word. I'd love it if we'd close out in the message series today doing the exact same thing. And all of our churches, would you mind just standing to your feet in honor of God's word today? Let me give you the context.

Philippians Chapter 4. The Apostle Paul, more than anything else, believed that if he could get to Rome to preach the gospel, this would be the most strategic move to reach people around the world. Unfortunately, through a different series of events, he made it to Rome, but not as a preacher. Instead, he was there as a prisoner. Locked up, 24 hours a day under house arrest. While at that moment, he penned a letter to his friends, the believers in Philippi, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,

and that letter is now what we know as the book of Philippians. If there is anybody who could have battled with anxiety, it was the Apostle Paul as a prisoner, awaiting trial not knowing what would happen to him. Would his life be ended early? If anybody could have been anxious, it was the Apostle Paul. And this is what he said to his dear friends in Philippi. He said,

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all because the Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts. and your minds in Christ Jesus. The peace of God will guard your minds. Some of you right now, you may be trying to make a decision.

And the weight of the decision is weighing on you. And you say, I don't have a peace of mind. My mind is racing. I feel overwhelmed. I feel an angst. I feel a heaviness. I feel pressure. I feel afraid.

In fact, based on my research, I found that one of the biggest forms of anxiety is what people would call decision-making anxiety. What do I do next? I don't want to get it wrong. I'm afraid of making an irreversibly bad decision, and that's why the title for today's message is this, when you just can't decide. Our father today, I pray for those who have decisions to make, or those who would live under the weight of anxiety of a anxiety.

decision one day to make. We pray, God, that as we present our request to you, that you would open up heaven and give us a peace that goes beyond our human ability to understand, direct our steps, God, that we could please you and all that we do. We pray this in the name of the one who gave it all for us, our Lord and our Savior Jesus. And everybody said, amen and amen. Hey, why don't you high-five a few people around you and say, you look at you. amazing today. You look amazing. I see you over there kissing on the fifth row. I saw that. Saw a little smooch-smooch going on. Did you just meet? Like, you look amazing. Oh, thank you. I don't know. Welcome to church where you might be blessed in ways you had no idea.

I wonder, did you just meet? Or like, have you been together for a while? Those of you who have decisions to make, I wonder how often you're like me where you feel a little bit of anxiety about the decisions you need to make. Decision making often feels very complicated. Anybody relate to that? Should I stay in this job or should I take another job? Should I live in this city or move to a different city? Should I go back to school to further my education, which would be an investment and take some time? but it might help propel my career further later on.

And if I do go to school, do I go to the school of my choice, which is really, really expensive, or do I go to the junior college, which is closer, and the education might not be as good, and that might hold me back, but at least I won't be in debt, and I don't really want to be in debt, and should I stay in this house that I'm renting,

or should I try to buy a house, or should I keep this car that I've been driving, and try to nurse it along and hope it doesn't die, and maybe it'll build my faith and help me be closer to do. Jesus, or should I invest in a better car, and hopefully that would be a wise decision, and should I continue to date this guy who just won't seem to commit, and all my friends call him Mr. no commit, or should I cut my losses, and I hope the cute guy at my work that has a life

search bumper sticker. We're here from heaven and ask me out, I just don't know what to do. It often feels so complicated. I've been working with a counselor dealing with my anxiety. If you're new with us, like, oh my gosh, our pastor's getting counseling for his anxiety. Yes and yes. Welcome to the real club. I don't always glow in the dark.

I'm still a regular person. And I had been dealing with anxiety. The term I gave it was content anxiety, trying to produce content, which I believe would honor God and speak to people. And so I've been working with a counselor on it. And we had a breakthrough recently, and I'll kind of try to tell you the story of why it's a breakthrough in understanding. I'll tell you again about last week, and again, I won't bore you after the series about my week, but I'm just kind of unpacking what I'm learning and going through. So a normal week for me is four office days.

I'm in the office, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Amy and I try to take Friday off, and then I generally preach on Saturday and on Sunday. So four office days, I have the normal load to get done. This week, I had two travel days in Chicago, so I only had two office days to do everything. In that time, I had a directional team leader meeting. I had to meet with the, I got to meet with our new staff members. I had two podcast interviews to shoot. And with all that, in only two days, I had to prepare this weekend's message plus three talks for Chicago,

plus nail down the fall message series. And I felt anxiety. Content anxiety. This is too much. Oh, pastor, you've been preaching on this for four weeks. You're still dealing with anxiety. Yes. That's just kind of where I live.

Okay. So I'm working with my counselor, and a couple of weeks ago, we kind of had a breakthrough idea. He said, you really are putting too much pressure on yourself. There's more in you. You need to trust what God's put in you. And then he said, if I gave you 10 minutes to prepare and you could choose anything you wanted to speak on, and you had to speak in front of 100,000 people, he said, you are so experienced, you could actually do a good job, 10 minutes preparation on anything you wanted.

And I said, no, I couldn't. And I pushed back. If you gave me 10 minutes to choose anything to get ready, I couldn't do it because I would spend those 10 minutes unable to decide what it would be to speak on. If, though, you gave me a subject, a text, a theme, an idea, and 10 minutes, I actually could probably put something relatively meaningful together and it was a breakthrough.

It's not the content preparation that's giving me as much anxiety is, it's the fear of not choosing the right thing, it's the decision-making process that's been giving me anxiety. This may be exactly where some of you live. It's complicated. In fact, the emerging generation, those of you that are high school and college age, Gen Z, some are saying this is the most stressed age group in the history of the world.

They call it the age of anxiety because there are so many complications. In fact, I want to try to answer the question. Why are we so anxious so often around decision-making? And I'll give you two reasons, although there would be many more. Why is it so complicated? Number one, the bottom line is we have too many choices. They call it the paradox of choices. In fact, we tend to think if we have more options, it's going to be easier,

but it's simply not true. It's a little bit like if you are scrolling on Amazon or Netflix, and there's an unlimited member of choices of shows to watch. It's hard to make a decision. But if you get on an international flight and there's only seven movies, you want to watch four of them. The limited choices drive you. It's a paradox of choices,

and we live in an age with unlimited opportunities. We can go anywhere and do anything, and that gives us a sense of anxiety. In fact, this week I was researching the paradox of choices, and I read article after article after article that quoted the same source that said children make about 5,000 decisions a day. Five thousand. Adults, though, make about 35,000 decisions a day. It's no wonder we're so stressed out. Then I read about four other articles that argued against those statistics and said they were inaccurate.

And I couldn't decide which one to believe. The bottom line is whether it's 35,000 or 5,000, we're making so many choices. The paradox of choices often creates, saying, anxiety. Preach on anything you want, that gives me anxiety. Give me a target and it relieves anxiety. Why do we feel so anxious? One is because there's so many choices. The second reason is very simple. We're afraid of making a costly mistake. We're afraid of missing out. To put it in spiritual terms, we don't want to miss God's will. What do we feel? Pressure to get it just right. Culture says when it comes to marriage, you've got to find the one. Your spiritual journal, your reading says, pursue your purpose.

Then your preacher says, let's live for God's will. And at the front of your mind, you're always worried, what if I missed the one? What if I don't find my purpose? And what if I'm out of God's will? I mean, what if that one special one is three rows ahead of you right now? And this is your only moment. You saw when she was worshiping Jesus, she had no ring finger on her left praise hand, and this is your moment.

And if you miss out, you're doomed for a life being miserable, worshiping all by yourself. What if I miss the one? And so we often fear, I don't want to let somebody down. I don't want to make the wrong choice. I don't want to let God down. I don't want to make an irreversibly bad decision. So we hesitate, we stall, we procrastinate, we become indecisive.

I was working with a young staff member who was very, very indecisive. So I wanted to help him see his issue. and so I asked him, I said, hey, ma'am, do you think you battle with indecisiveness? God is my witness. He looked back at me and said, well, yes and no. I'm not sure. Indecision is a decision, and it's the decision that so many people are making today. It's just so complicated.

What I want to do today is I want to try to uncomplicate it. I'm going to try to tell you don't complicate it. If you'd like some tools, very real specific tools on decision making, I'm not going to cover those today, but I did in a free leadership podcast episode number 18. If you'd like to just go listen to that, is real specific tools, five secrets of superior decision makers. We're not going to do that today. Today we're going to look at one very simple spiritual principle, and I'm going to try to tell you, don't complicate it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to lead up to this principle.

I'm going to build a foundation from a very powerful story, and then we're going to look at this one simple principle. Don't complicate it. We're going to look at a story in Acts chapter 15, and in Acts 15, it's very interesting. Some of the leaders of the church were dealing with complicated issues. We had Paul, we had Barnabas, we had James, who met up in Jerusalem to deal with some of the controversies.

In other words, if you're a Christian, could you eat certain types of meat that some traditions would forbid? then the really complicated question was this. If you were a Gentile, would you have to be circumcised to, I can't believe I just did that motion, but, you know, it's just like, would you have to be circumcised in order to be a follower of Jesus? Which if I can just say with my hands behind my back, it's kind of funny to me, if this were a membership requirement today,

because men is difficult enough to get you to be baptized. Could you imagine me standing before you and say, hey, you want to join the church and be a follower of Jesus? You've got to be circumcised. Come forward right now. I'll call on the name of Jesus. Jesus, okay? I'm just saying, notice no hand signal. I did that earlier and we won't do it again.

So here they were trying to make these weighty theological decisions, doctrinal decisions that determine someone's eternal destiny. and these are the early church leaders making these incredibly weighty decisions. I want you to watch as we read their conclusions and every time you see the words seemed good, I want you to say them aloud. What are we going to do? Acts 1522.

Then it what? Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders and the whole church to choose men from among them and sin to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. It what? Say it aloud. It seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to sin with our beloved Barnabas and Paul.

For it what? It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than the essentials. In other words, it seemed right to simplify things and not to raise the barrier. to invite people to follow Christ, it seemed good. What do you do if you don't know what to do? What do you do if Scripture doesn't speak directly to the decision that you're trying to make? I could preach a message saying,

just do what seems good. There's one problem. In the Old Testament, there's a verse that says this. There is a way that seems right to a man, but his end is the way of death. It seems right, but it leads to a very bad spot. Why could both of these be true? Let's start with the Old Testament.

There's a way that seems right to a man, but at the end it leads to death. If you're taking notes, this is the reason why. If you're around the wrong people, listening to the wrong voices, and living for the wrong values, what seems right will often be wrong. I want to say it again because this is so important.

If you're in the wrong crowd, if you're listening to people whose opinions are different from that of God's truth, if you're consistently following worldly values instead of spiritual values, and you're surrounded with people that are not close to God, then oftentimes what seems right will actually lead to something that is incredibly wrong.

I wonder how many of you found yourself in the wrong crowd, around the wrong influences, listening to the wrong voices, and you did something that seemed right. And later on, he said, that was the wrong thing. There's a way that seems right to a man, but at the end, it leads to the way of death. But here in the New Testament, we have some of the spiritual leaders saying it seemed right, and therefore we built the foundation of the church on something that just seemed right. How could Paul and James and Barnabas?

make such weighty decisions on something that just seemed right. Well, earlier, we read three different keys, and we just read right on by them. In fact, the most important portions of Scripture of this story, we just passed on by, most likely without most people even noticing. I want to look again at the very same verses, and this time I want to focus on something besides Is it just seeming right? How could they do what seems right? This is how.

Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders. Now, get this part, with the whole church to choose some men. In other words, this wasn't something that seemed right to one person. This seemed right to the whole family of God that was gathering together. Read on. It seemed good to us having become of one mind. Another version says of one accord. In other words, the whole church agreed and we were unified. Then scripture says, for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, not just me, but to all of us.

In other words, this is so important. There is a massive difference between something that seems right to a man or to a woman that in the ends leads to death. a massive difference between something that seems right to one and something that seems right to a community, a faith-filled, mountain-moving, devil-kicking, spirit-filled followers of Jesus who have been seeking God's word and following the voice of his spirit. Don't miss this. They were able to act on what seems right

because the whole church agreed. because they were of one accord, because it seemed right to the Holy Spirit and to us. And this is why what I'm about to tell you is one of the most important things we'll say all year long. You do not go to church. The church is not a building. It's never been a building. It's not a destination. The church has always been and will always be a people.

It's not a building to which you go. It's an identity of life. which you embrace. We don't go to church. We are the church. And the church is more than a one-hour meeting every now and then on the weekend when you don't have anything else going. What do you want to do this weekend? Well, a football team down in town and kids are in school so we can't go to the lake and nobody's got soccer and the weather is not nice enough to do anything, but it's not raining so bad. We can stay home so well. We might be. we'll go church.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not a place we go. It is who we are. Well, I'm just looking for a church that meets my needs. I just want to find a church that meets my needs. I just got to find church makes my needs. That's the most selfish and unbiblical statement around. The church is not a place that meets our needs.

We are the church, and we meet the needs of the world. Why is it? That's so often. We feel anxiety. It's because we're trying to follow Christ and trying to please God outside the context of the institution that he created to serve us. His body, the body of Christ. It's a family.

It's a body. And we are incomplete without the other portions of the body. What do we do for one another? When I talk about life group, this isn't a program like we're trying to get you like, hey, we got him in a life group. No, this is a life group. This is a family of people. Whenever you start to stray, because we all do.

Everybody else, no, no, come back, come back here. Whenever we hurt, what do we do? Someone else prays for us. Whenever someone else hurts, we pray for them. Whenever there's a need, we meet these needs together. We are a family. It seemed good to us and our whole family. This wasn't a decision made in isolation based on my

feelings, my intuition, this is the family of God gathering together and recognizing. We believe this is God's direction. That's the difference. It seems right to a person and it can lead to death. But when it seems right to a community, we can trust God on a whole different level. Don't complicate it. Don't complicate it. In fact, let me take you back through the previous weeks and just kind of review where we've been. If you've been here with us, all four weeks you would recognize. some of this. Week one. If it is big enough to worry about, it is big enough to pray about. If it's big enough to worry about, it's big enough to pray about. What is anxiety? It's a signal alerting us. It's time to pray. In the church, we recognize we don't always have the power to control,

but we always have the power to surrender. Last week, because of who God is, we praise him. Not just for what he does, but because of who he is. And a perspective of praise changes everything. It may not take the anxiety away, but it does change your perspective. One thought. One thought. How do we make the decision?

it feels so waiting. I don't want to do the wrong thing. I'm scared to death to miss it. What if I make a decision and I can never get it back? What if this is the one place? One thing. With a posture of prayer and a perspective of praise,

we will seek God and do what seems right. With a posture of prayer, this isn't me deciding, this is us seeking God. With a perspective of praise, this is us coming together and recognizing God is always good and he's always with us. This isn't me seeking God. This is us, his body. Then we will just do what seems right.

It's not an unspiritual thing to do. It's an incredibly spiritual thing to do. It's a little bit like whenever you're driving and your GPS is telling you, take the next right. Who knows what I'm talking about? Our voice is a female British voice. It's the one Amy shows. She's very polite. And she says, take the next right.

And what always freaks me out is sometimes there's like a next right that's like right there. And then there's a next right that's just beyond it. Who knows what I'm talking about? Like, which one? Which one is the next one? So I always say, Amy, which one? And then she tells me, and the reason I ask her is because when it's the wrong one, I'll have somebody else to blame. That's just bad marriage advice.

Do not listen to your pastor and do not do that. Do not pass go or you will not collect $200. I just, that's what's funny. And I always panic. I always take the first one. Then what do I take the wrong one? What do I take the wrong one? What if this isn't the right one?

Paul could have said I didn't take the right one. I wanted to be in Rome as a preacher, but I'm here as a prisoner. And then remember last week? He said, hey, but I want you to know that what has happened to me, this what felt like a wrong turn, what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. Oh, maybe I got off at where I didn't want to get off, but my God did something that I couldn't do on my own.

And that's why Paul was the one who said in Romans 828, He said, and we know, not I know, not I hope, not we pray, but we know that our God works in all things. In everything, our God is still working to bring about good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. In other words, one wrong turn isn't going to keep you off God's path. It's not going to take you back to his destination. You may just hear that female British voice say, rerouting, rerouting is taking. is taking you another path. Some of you, you may have made a wrong turn,

and you're going on another path. Some of you've had more scenic routes than any 10 people put together, but the voice of the spirit is rerouting is still taking you there, and the good news is that our good God has a way of bringing good things even out of wrong turns.

That's how good he is. That's how good he is. I should have never dated him, No, you shouldn't have. The fact that his middle name was Satan was a good indicator that you shouldn't have dated him. But now you understand what a godly man should look like. And when God brings you one who cherishes you and honors you,

you'll recognize it and you'll be grateful. I should have never trusted that person. I got burned so bad. Oh, it hurts so bad. But now you're learning to forgive. You're becoming more like Jesus. I should have never done that. It's such a big mistake.

It costs me so much. And oh, you understand God's grace like you never have before. He's good enough to work through our wrong turns. My life's story, my right destination was based on a lot of wrong turns. Wrong friends. Wrong environment. Wrong entertainment. Wrong girls.

I became the wrong guy. Ended up in the wrong places. And a lot of wrong turns. led me to seek the right person whose name was Jesus, who forgave my sins, who made me new, who transformed my heart, who changed the direction of my life. And oh, there was a scenic detour, but it didn't stop me from getting to the destination. If there's anyone here who's ever messed up or parted too hard, hey, I can actually relate to you. It wasn't a waste, it was a wrong turn that now God can use in his ways.

He's that good. He's that good. complicated, I'm complicated. The posture of prayer, a perspective of praise, surrounded by God's people, we will seek God and do what seems right.

And this is the story of how I ended up here preaching on this now. If you weren't with us in earlier weeks, it was the first week of June, and I had an unusual breakdown of anxiety. couldn't make a decision about what to preach later on. Shortness of breath.

And I know some of you're going, well, that's not that big a deal. Preacher, boy, I got real problems. Yes, I understand. More power to you. Your problems are bigger than mine. That one, for whatever reason, it just took me down to an irrational place of not being able to function, not being able to catch my breath. Thank God. Thank God I wasn't alone.

I had my church family. The first thing Amy did is have our heart. small community, our life group, pray for me. My bride prayed for me. And she said, hey, Pastor Steven's been begging you to come see him. Take a day and go see Pastor Stephen Ferdick. You do it once a year, twice a year, go spend a day with him. And so I did it because it just seemed right. And then we sat down. I said, I'm in trouble. I've got this anxiety. And he said, why don't you call someone and get help? And it seemed right. Then he said, and let's just go ahead and settle what you're preaching on in August.

You're preaching on anxiety, and you're going to call it anxious for nothing, because we all know that your best messages are born out of your struggles when you encounter the power of God's word. And in that moment, that just seemed right. So I called two very dear friends from my church family and my community who know a lot of national psychologists that work in a certain area. I said, give me the two best performance psychologists. I called them both and interviewed them both, and one of them just seemed right. So we started talking, and he said, you're not as bad as you think.

You've got this one area, but you've got all these other good things. He said, don't just focus on what's wrong, but also focus on what's right. That seemed right. And then he said, let's not put so much pressure on getting it just perfect, because the Holy Spirit works even when you're not perfect. And instead, let's just trust your experience plus God's presence. That will be enough. And that seems right.

And then we recognize it's not just the content, but it's actually the decision making. And so we're going to change how we make decisions. Our next move is he's going to surround me with what he calls wingmen, wingmen, my people that got my back. One of them is obviously Amy. Others are people that work in my office. None is another pastor on our staff. One will be a pastor outside the staff.

And one is a friend who's just a friend that has the ability to get up in my face to protect me from me because I'm often dangerous to me. And when I take on too much, they're going to help me pull back and we're going to create a different plan. And that just seems right. And I know that this message series has not been for everybody, but it has been for some of you, because I've heard from you and I've seen it in your eyes, and I feel it in our conversations. And if it took me going through something to learn God's word in a way that would

give you hope, that that just seems right to me with a posture of prayer and a perspective of praise, we will seek God and do what seems right. And we will rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all because you are near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, with prayer. and petition, we present our requests to you, oh God. Peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds. So, Father, today we cast our cares upon you. For those of you battling decision, making anxiety, any type of anxiety, fear, a weight, a heaviness, and angst, and you want to cast it upon God. Would you lift up your hands right now?

just all over the place. Just lift them up, just lift them up, lift them up. Father, even before we ask for direction, we ask for your family. Surround us, God. May we take the time to be planted in your church as your church. Not solo Christians,

but part of your family. Surround us, God, with people loving you, seeking you. So together, the posture of prayer and a perspective of praise. We can be of one accord, of one mind. Our whole life group agrees. This isn't a decision made in isolation, but this is the decision made in community. It seems the Holy Spirit agrees, and so do we. This is the next step. And we trust you, God, because you're always good. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, there

are those of you, you may recognize you don't have. a community like that. You may even recognize more so. You don't have a relationship with God like that. What's the problem? There's a verse in scripture that says, each of us have gone astray. We've gone our own way.

What does that mean? We've all sinned. We've all messed up. We've all dishonored God. The good news is this. God in his love and mercy, he became one of us. He sent his son, Jesus,

who was without sin. perfect in every way. As the innocent sacrifice, Jesus gave his life for us on a cross and God raised it from the dead. Why did God do this? Because Jesus made a way for our sins to be forgiven. Anyone, and this includes you, doesn't matter what you've done, doesn't matter how dark your life feels. Anyone who calls on the name that is above every name, that name of Jesus, there's something about that name. Anyone who calls on that name would be saved, would be forgiven. would be made new to all of our churches. Those of you watching online, those of you listening to a podcast, you recognize this is

your moment. You've got a decision to make life as it is, or turn from your sin and turn toward him. It's a decision. It's a decision. It's a decision. Make the decision. How's it gone on your own? It's time to say yes.

Jesus, take my life. You don't have the power to control everything, but you can surrender. Decide the day to surrender your life completely to him. All of our churches, those of you who say, yes, I need his grace. By faith, I decide to give my life to him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now. All over the place. Lift them up high.

Right up over here, right up there. God bless you guys. Others of you today say yes. Right back over here. Others today. Call on this name. Yes, Jesus. I surrender to you.

Church online, you click right below me. And as we have people, all of our churches crying out on the name of Jesus, would you mind just standing to your feet at all the different locations today in honor of those. who are meeting the one who gave it all. Just pray aloud. Pray Heavenly Father. Forgive my sins.

Jesus save me and make me new. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you. Walk in your ways. Surrounded by your people to always do your will. My life is not my own. I give it to you. In Jesus' name I pray. Could somebody give our God praise and Thanksgiving and honor today?

Welcome those born into God's family. Thanks again for joining us here at Life Church. You know, it's our heart's mission to help you grow and take your next steps and your relationship with Christ. And we've a great way to help you do that. Just go to life.church slash next. And there you can find all kinds of resources to help you as you take your next steps and your faith journey.

Again, thanks again for joining us this week. We'll see you next time.