Truth Unites - How to Overcome Anxiety (Sermon on Isaiah 26:3)

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Gavin Ortlund shares a sermon on Isaiah 26:3 about finding peace in God and overcoming anxiety.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

This video is about finding peace in God when you have anxiety. I hope you experience it as if God himself were breathing peace upon you by the end of the video. That's my goal is to help you feel something of that. And I want to talk about a verse in the Bible that talks about perfect peace. What is that? We'll find out. You can see the verse on the screen, though. Several years ago, there was a submarine that was being tested, and it had to be submerged

for several days. I'll never forget reading about this story. It's such a great image. during the testing time while the submarine is underwater, there's this horrific storm. And when the submarine returns to the harbor, people are curious. This was early in the early days of submarines being developed. The captain was asked, how did you survive the storm? We were worried about you under there, and the captain said, what storm?

They had been so far down in an area of the sea that sailors call the cushion of the sea that basically what's happening on the surface doesn't get there at all. doesn't affect you at all. And I believe there's a similar dynamic in our own emotional and spiritual and mental health. There's a place beneath the storms of life where we can find peace with God. I'm preaching, I'm going to do a little sermon video on this because I think, I just hear about this so much. I think we have an epidemic of anxiety in our culture, and many of us struggle with this in acute and personal ways. Partly it's the world around us. The world feels crazy right now, but it's also because of personal factors.

I read an article about what causes anxiety for college students this week, and it talked about three big factors, finances, academics, and family dynamics. But what also struck me about the article is just how big of a factor anxiety is in our lives. It can affect your grades and your friendships and even your physical health. Anxiety can make you sleep differently, go to the bathroom differently, think differently, changes your brain chemistry. It's such a significant struggle. And all of us will face it.

You know, I don't think of the question of whether we struggle with anxiety. All of us will feel some kind of anxiety at some times. It's just a question of what do we do with that. And it's incredibly unpleasant. I mean, I was trying to think of images for what anxiety feels like. And I would describe anxiety. Well, how do you describe anxiety? You know, if you're talking to a robot who's never been anxious, how do you explain it?

It's like a, I call it an unpleasant, fluttering feeling. think about what you feel like if you've ever drank too much coffee. When I first started drinking coffee, I remember drinking too much one time and feeling anxious. Or right before you're about to do public speaking, the way that feels in your body when you're so nervous. Or for me, what my biggest struggle, I'll put up this picture when I did a Google search for the word anxiety. Because I can relate to this because sometimes for me it's just mental clutter when I have too many things going through my head and it's very unpleasant. Now, let me say this right up front. Anxiety is a complicated problem, and sometimes we need to get medical help or we need to talk to a counselor.

Our bodies and our minds are very complicated. Sometimes we need help from a professional. So nothing I'm saying here is a replacement to that. But in addition to that, when that is necessary, and for most of us, in the ordinary garden variety buffetings of life and the anxieties we face, we need to know what God has to say about it. and the refuge we can find. And I'm so excited to, I have so much joy as I make this video because it's such a wonderful thing to offer to people. It's just astonishing to think God has peace.

God can breathe peace upon you. Did you know that the phrase, do not be afraid, or fear not, or something like that, appears in the Bible about 365 times, one for every day of the year. That's approximate. God has a lot to say about our anxiety and about our fear, and this is happy, you know. He doesn't actually want us to be anxious. He calls us out of that. And I want to hold out in particular the word peace for us as an alternative to anxiety.

We're going to unpack this word. To start with, just think of Jesus. I love how many times after his resurrection, he says to the disciples, peace be with you. Here's an example of three times in the space of seven verses. In the first part of this passage in John 20, he repeats it twice. Now, you just wonder, what is going on in Christ's heart when he says, this, that this is the first thing he says. He's not mad at them for their failures and their fears and abandoning him. He communicates peace to them. He wants them to have relief from anxiety.

And what a happy thought that Jesus wants the same thing for you and for me. And, you know, think of a time when you felt calmness and tranquility. Think of a pond where there's no ripples because there's no wind. It's just completely calm. That is what Jesus wants for us. Think of the submarine way down deep in the cushion of the sea, not affected by the storms on the surface. That is what God wants for us. So how do we experience that? Well, let's learn two things from this amazing passage in the book of Isaiah.

We'll just focus in on this one verse. First, we'll learn what peace is and then what trust is. First, what is peace? Take a look at Isaiah 263 here. It says, you will keep, or you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is. stayed on you because he trusts in you. And just to, we're not going to go super deep here, but there's some amazing little intricacies that we can unpack that can help us. The verse here speaks of perfect peace. Now the word for peace in Hebrew is the word shalom. And think of it

like this. The word shalom is more than just the absence of a negative. It's the presence of a positive. This word communicates more than the English word peace. It's more than just the absence of conflict. The word shalom means tranquility and flourishing and wholeness and welfare. Think of a brand new car running perfectly smoothly down the road. Or think of a professional athlete when he's in the zone, just hitting all of the shots, he just gets in this, you know what it's like to be in the zone. Think of the way you feel when you wake up in the morning after a really good night's sleep. Okay? Flourishing. well-being. And the phrase here is perfect peace, but that's a translation from the Hebrew,

which is just the word shalom repeated twice for emphasis. Sometimes in Hebrew you'll get a word repeated for emphasis, like holy, holy, holy is the Lord. It says here, peace, peace, shalom, shalom. You can see what I underlined. You keep him in shalom, shalom. So you might think of this as a kind of all-encompassing peace. Perfect peace is a good way to translate it. Think of this piece that's like a shield around you, enveloping you. Now, what's interesting about the context here is that Isaiah 26, in the broader context, is about a, I guess I could say, the broader context of Isaiah 26 is a prophecy about calamitous judgment coming upon the world. And so the imagery of the previous verses here, starting off chapter 26, is of a city with these strong walls into which the righteous people

of God can enter so that they can dwell securely in that city, safe behind the refuge of the walls, amidst the storms of judgment that are coming all around upon the world. So the people of God say, we have a strong city, and they can open up the gates and go into the city. They're protected from what is happening outside the city walls. So the point is, the idea here in this passage is not just peace, but perfect peace and perfect peace amidst the storms. Salvation amidst judgment. Storms without, but you can go into the city. Think of the submarine way down in the cushion of the sea. The storms are raging, but it doesn't affect you. And the basic question to ask is, is that the peace that we experience from God? Because we can. Maybe you've experienced that

before. Some of you watching this may be a believer in Jesus. Some of you watching this may kind of find the whole idea of Jesus and God and religion kind of crazy. Maybe you are a believer, but you've not experienced this. Maybe, though, you've seen it in someone else. Have you ever known someone who's a non-anxious presence? You're looking at their life, and you're looking at all the storms that are going on, and you're saying, how are you so calm? You know, how are you so relaxed?

Sometimes we don't think of calmness as a spiritual quality, but honestly, people who are walking with the Lord often convey this kind of calmness. Jesus himself, I think, the resurrected Jesus, constantly saying to the disciples, peace be with you. This is the promise of Isaiah 263. God can give us peace. Perfect peace amidst the storm as we trust in him. I'm just put that out to say, do you have that? Would you like that? This week I was looking at pictures of the eye of a hurricane. I'll put up a picture of the eye of Hurricane Florence back in 2018. It's so fascinating that as crazy as a hurricane can be, the eye of the hurricane is a place of total peace. It's not just like a little less intense.

There's this strong cutoff from the hurricane, the craziness to the eye of the hurricane. In fact, you can go on YouTube and watch videos of planes flying through the eye of the hurricane. So, you know, and it'll have a camera. It's kind of fascinating. You know, crazy. You can't see anything. The storm is raging. You see wind. You see debris flying. It's dark. It's kind of. chaotic, and then all of a sudden just like that, the plane is in the eye of the hurricane, and you can see the wall in a big circle around you, and it's just totally calm. The sun is shining. You'd think it was just the completely fine weather, you know, and then you hit the other wall

and you're back into the hurricane. And you can see that, you know, the thick walls are sometimes 100 miles an hour, wind, and so forth, but inside total peace, total calmness. I love that as an image of peace amidst the storm, and this is what God is offering. He's saying, I can give you peace, peace, whatever are the storms that are raging around you. What I love about this verse is that it is a promise. Peace is part of what God gives to us in the gospel. This is not something that we earn or that we deserve or that we work unto and attain at a certain point of spiritual development.

It's not something that we can sort of merit on a day where we're doing better in our relationship with God. just as when we trust in Christ we receive forgiveness, so the Holy Spirit freely gives us his peace as we trust in Jesus. Jesus achieved peace with God through his death on the cross. All other peace flows out of that. That's the macro peace. When you trust in Jesus, you have peace with God, and God himself is peaceful, God is not anxious, and he can give peace, not as something that is achieved, but something that is received. Think of peace as a need-based scholarship, not a merit-based scholarship. You don't have to be worthy of it. All you have to do is just come before the Lord and ask for it. Say, Lord, help me. I need your peace, you know. You've got stuff at work going on. There's a

performance review, or you're in school, and there's a quiz or a test or whatever it might be, the deadline that's hanging over you. Maybe there's people attacking you. And you know what? It's like those dark feelings of anxiety when you see that person or when you log on to X or you bump into this person and you know that person just genuinely is malicious. They're just a bad faith, harsh person who's just they want to tear me to shreds, that kind of feeling provokes these feelings of anxiety. Enemies and people can do that. You're worried about your finances. You're worried about your future. You're worried about your grandkids. We all know what that's like. You're looking at your Google calendar or whatever. You're looking at it. You're saying, I don't know how much.

how this is going to work out. We all know those feelings, and the invitation of this passage is simply to come before the Lord and ask and say, God, give me your peace amidst the storm. And you simply open up your heart, and you say, God, give me this. And it's like he's breathing on you. He can give that. Now, some of us might say, okay, how do we actually do that? We might say, I'm trying, but I, you know, I don't feel that yet. Let's talk about how we receive that. So kind of the other side of this verse, second part of this sermon, is about trust. How do we receive God's peace? And the inside of this passage is that peace comes to us as we trust in the Lord. But I love how it's put here. Note how I underlined it here, whose mind is stayed on you. Okay, I like this word stayed. You could translate this

phrase as to the one whose mind is steadfast on God or upheld on God or sustained on God. It's this idea of continual reliance, a constant focus of vision upon God. Think of a pitcher on the pitching mound at a baseball game. He's looking at home plate. He knows he's got to make the pitch. And so he's looking straight there and he's just tuning out the noise of the stadium all around him and nothing can take his gaze off of where he's going to throw the ball. This reminds me of Peter walking on the water. You remember of this, of course, Peter's fine as long as he's looking at Jesus. His mind is stayed on Jesus. But then he starts to sink when he starts to look elsewhere and notice the waves and wind around him because his vision is no longer stayed on Christ.

and this is the same with us. We experience peace, we receive peace as we continually look to the Lord, set our gaze upon him. In each different circumstance and experience of life, we look to him, we trust in his promises, we ask for his strength, we hope in his future work like the second coming of Christ, we rely on his help moment by moment, we remember his faithfulness. honestly, Christianity sort of, you know, so much of it boils down to this sort of basic existential reality of moment by moment just being mindful of God looking to the Lord. If it's not too cheesy to put it like this, you're sort of reaching out in your soul to God, looking unto his help. And sometimes I find

it can help to have little rhythms in the day to work on this where you're waking up each morning and you take some time maybe to physically kneel down and just say, God, thank you for another day. because the physical posture can help our hearts, especially as we do it almost liturgically as a daily thing. Or maybe there's a particular circumstance you go into on a regular basis that causes you anxiety. You know, when you're about to get to work or whatever it might be, and you have a particular prayer that you can pray or a particular promise of scripture that you can look to and keep your mind stayed upon that as you're facing that. Or maybe it's just at, you know, 5 p.m. That's always a time of low blood sugar. and fatigue. And you kind of, for me, I have to kind of ask the Lord to give me strength to go and love on my kids before we all eat dinner and we all feel a little better. And so you're just

looking to the Lord and saying, God, give me strength right now. At the end of your day, you commit yourself to God as you're falling asleep. This continual looking to the Lord, staying your mind upon him. And, you know, this is just an invitation in any different circumstance that we're in. The storm that's raging outside can be, can it can look like so many different things. There's so many different kinds of trials and tribulations that cause anxiety in this world. And we shouldn't be surprised by that because our Lord promised us in this world you will have trouble. It can be stress at work. You know, I was just talking with a friend recently, but just the verse in Genesis about the toil of work. And that's part of the curse. Life is not easy,

You know, life is a burden. And you work hard and there's stress involved with that. Finances in a time of inflation. It's stressful. Uncertainties about our kids. Boy, I worry about my kids all the time. There's so many different kinds of storms that can come at us. But the idea is we're going into the city, whatever's outside the city walls.

We're going down in the submarine, down to the cushion of the sea. Whatever's going on on the surface. We're going into the eye of the hurricane, whatever's swirling around outside. we're staying our mind upon God in the midst of whatever's going around and supernaturally, just as Jesus rose from the dead, God, the Holy Spirit, can communicate peace, peace to your heart. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing this world can throw at you that can rob you of that peace. I wouldn't believe this if I hadn't seen it, but I've known some godly Christians and I've seen how they walk through the trials and tribulations of life, or you read the stories of the martyrs.

And that's what we can experience as well. God can give us the same peace. There's a story of a woman who lay dying and she was grieving and saying goodbye to her family. And the nurses eventually noticed and commented on how calm and at peace she was. And eventually one of them plucked up the courage when she was alone with her and asked,

ma'am, they say that your time is soon. And the woman said, I know, I can feel it. and the nurse asked, are you afraid to die? And the woman said, no, it will be like going home. And the nurse asked, how have you accomplished such peace? And the woman said these words, I have not accomplished peace. I am resting in the peace, which Jesus already accomplished when he died on the cross. Now think about that word resting.

That's it. That's your mind is stayed upon. you're not achieving something. You're looking to the Lord and you're receiving from him his very own peace. And this is a great reminder. Peace is not something we conjure up within or generate by our own skill or wisdom. It is not something we merit or work for. It's not like, well, if I have enough faith, then I can achieve peace. Rather, this is something we receive from God in the same heart posture that we receive our very salvation because of what Jesus has accomplished for us, through which all the blessings of God flow to us, through what he did on the cross.

Now, let's clarify that this is not a formula and that we can be trusting in God and doing everything right on our side, and that doesn't mean that all the anxiety will immediately go away. Even Jesus, who was perfect, was crushed with anxiety in the Garden of Gathsemini. So I don't want anyone to think that I struggle with anxiety, therefore I must be a bad Christian or not have enough faith, that's not true. Again, there's so many factors. There can be biological factors that are totally outside your control, hence why we're leaving this door open that some of us need to get additional help, maybe from a doctor, for example. But what God invites us into, and this is the happy thought, is to look beyond ourselves and beyond our own experiences to what is

true of us in Christ. So let me use a phrase my dad uses a lot, and that's the exteriority of our salvation, meaning our salvation does not come from within us. It comes from outside of us. It is located in Jesus. That's all of our salvation, and that includes peace. So if you've trusted in Jesus, you are united to Him. You are His and He is yours. What is most true about you is that you belong to Him. The place you belong most is in heaven where He has been raised and ascended. That's who you most fundamentally are. Your union with Christ is the most true thing about you, and that is secure and fixed, no matter what happens in this world. So part of this, you know, staying our mind upon the Lord is coming back to the Lord and saying, God, I feel so much anxiety,

I feel totally tossed about by the storms. I've, you know, I'm not okay in myself. Help me to focus on Jesus. Help me to set my mind, to stay my mind on what is true of me in Christ and to stay my mind on Christ himself. Here's the final image for this, because this is a happy thought, you know, when all else fails and whatever else is going on, just directing our minds to Christ. This is a wonderful resource in the midst of the storms of the world right now. Some of you, as you hear this sermon, may be thinking of things to do, and already that can kind of, you know, that's good, but we want to do that again. We don't want that to make us more anxious. the things to do flow out of looking to Jesus.

Because we might be thinking about, okay, my rhythms and my daily schedule, I want to start, you know, bowing before Christ each morning when I wake up, or it might be thinking about a specific promise of Scripture on which we can stay our mind when the anxiety is assaulting us. Some of us may be thinking of other things like practicing Sabbath rest. That's a huge thing I'm learning about is how important it is to slow down and rest, and I'm going to be doing it over the next few weeks. but whatever the particular takeaway or sort of homework assignment we might have from the Holy Spirit,

here's the final image that can help us. Okay, here it is. This is so happy to think about. How much peace do you think is in the heart of Christ himself? Earlier we talked about Jesus saying, peace be with you to the disciples. Well, we can't give to someone else what we don't have. A lot of times the first thing you say to somebody reveals what's in your heart, right? you know, it just, what comes out of your mouth reveals within your heart. Jesus is, as we saw,

constantly saying to the disciple, peace be with you, peace be with you. And I love this thought that the resurrected Jesus is overflowing with peace. He is not anxious. He is not fearful or worried. He is abounding in peace. And here's the image. I'll put up a picture of the disciples in the boat in Mark 4. You know this story, perhaps. They are terrified by the storms around them. They're saying, we're going to perish, we're going to die. They think things are over. It says that waves are breaking into the boat, and Jesus is sleeping. I mean, that's just amazing to think about how did he stay asleep.

He must have been very tired from a busy day of ministry or something like that, just exhausted. And they wake him up and they're saying, don't you care that we're dying? Now look what it says. Jesus rebukes the wind and says these words, peace be still. The wind ceases and there is a great calm. Don't you wish you could have seen what that calm looks like? And I love the fact that Jesus rebukes the storm. He doesn't just make the storm calm like the X-Men character Storm does raising her arms or something like that.

He actually speaks. And he speaks the word peace and he gives a rebuke. And here's my question for you to consider. What do you think is the look on Jesus's face when he gives this rebuke? what is his tone of voice how does this how is he communicating at this moment and just this happy thought this is not a real complicated sermon in a way but it's just simple but it's happy i love the thought that christ the man of peace who is overflowing with with peace can speak peace and rebuke the storm that is true of literal storms like in mark four and that is true of the storms that can swirl around in our hearts. And he can do that with the storms in our lives. So that's the thing to keep focusing on, whatever else we do. If you're watching this video and you're not a Christian, but you're open to

explore the Christian faith, one starting prayer is just to say, God, if you're real, show yourself to me. Jesus, if you are out there, help me find you. If you're wanting to take the first step into relationship with God and experience the peace that he can give. The first step is to recognize your need for His grace and to acknowledge what he has done in the person of Jesus. There is death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, which secures a restored relationship with God. And to do that, we simply turn away from sin and surrender our life and follow him and receive His grace. some of you have a relationship with Christ and you want to take the, basically want to take the next step into this. Honestly, just the simple prayer of just saying, Holy Spirit, give me peace.

We could talk to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person and you can relate to Him and the same way you can relate to Jesus. And the Holy Spirit is your counselor within and you can say, give me peace. And honestly, it is a pretty remarkable experience to have him communicate his peace. It is like, think of Aslan breathing on the stone characters in Narnia. It is like this communication of peace. And it's his piece that he feels. He can breathe it on to you.

You just have that. You pray and you open up your heart. And that's what he does. So thanks for watching this video. Hope this will encourage someone out there. God bless you, everybody.