This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day four together of our look through Matthew chapter eight. Remember
yesterday we began a look at this story of Jesus and his disciples in the boat
and how God deals with the anxieties in our lives. How do we keep from worrying
when God seems to be slow in answering, when life seems overwhelming?

Clichés are of no use. I could sing, "The sun will come out tomorrow till I'm
blue in the face. " It's not going to help you deal with your worry.

Statistics don't help. I could tell you statistics show that 92% of what you
worry about will never happen and you would think, "Well, what about the 8%? "
Maybe I'm in the 8%.

Even appeals to what it's doing to you physically usually are no use. The tense
muscles, the faster breathing, the raised heart rate, the blood vessels
constricting, blood pressure rising, all those things that are happening with
your glands pumping hormones into your body, the effects that you're feeling.
Worry wears you out.

Extended worry shortens life, but that doesn't convince people not to worry. Not
if you feel like your worry is doing something. It's when we come to the moment
when we realize, "I need something greater than worry in my life.

I need not worry. I need worship. " Worry doesn't work because we need to do
more than just identify the problem.

We need an answer. With some things, you can be the answer. There's no doubt
about that, but most of the things that you worry about, you can't be the answer
or you wouldn't be worrying about it.

You would have gone and done something about it. First you face the reality.
There are situations and circumstances in life that I can't handle, that are
bigger and greater than I can handle, that are outside of the resources that I
have.

In light of that reality, you choose faith. You'll never get rid of anxiety by
telling yourself not to be anxious. In fact, that just focuses your mind on your
worries.

It makes you more anxious. The answer is to choose faith, to choose to trust in
God. Look again, we read this yesterday, but look in verses 25 through 27 at
what the disciples in the boat eventually did.

Verse 25, "The disciples went and they woke Jesus saying, 'Lord, save us. We're
going to drown. ' He replied, 'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?

' And then he got up and he rebuked the wind and the waves and it was completely
calm. And the men were amazed and they asked, 'What kind of man is this? Even
the winds and the waves obey him.

'" There are four things that you do in these few verses. First, to choose faith
means that you ask for help. There came a moment when their fears were so great
they had to wake Jesus up.

Now, I don't know why it is. It's like sometimes we wait until we're almost
going to drown before we ask for help. We say to ourselves, "I can handle this.

I can handle this. I can handle this. I'm going to die.

" And then we ask for help. Ask sooner. That's one of the things I want to do is
ask sooner, ask for help.

Worryers that remain worriers are reluctant to ask for help. It may be that
they're embarrassed to admit their needs and maybe that they think no one else
cares and maybe they've had an experience of people not helping. Maybe they've
convinced no one else is capable and maybe they don't want to bother other
people.

Whatever it is, you don't ask for help. Even of God. "I don't want to bother God
with this.

He can do the big stuff. " Well, to God, it's all big stuff in your life. And He
can handle it all.

He's big enough to handle every detail of your life. So you ask God to help. You
do what Philippians 4.

6 says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving, make your request to God and the peace of God, which
surpasses all comprehension. It will guard your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus. " You can ask Jesus for help today.

That's what prayer is. The single most effective cure for worry is prayer. The
Bible completely and clearly tells us that truth.

Now, prayer that defeats worry, it's an attitude of life. It's not just an
emergency cry for help. And what are the directions for the kind of prayer that
defeats worry?

Well, I'd say it's these three things. You talk, you tell, you think. You talk
to God about everything.

You tell God what you need. And then you thank God for what He's already done.
That's the kind of prayer that defeats worry.

You ask God for help. That's where you start. A second thing that you and I can
do to defeat anxiety in our lives we see in this passage is you question your
fears.

That's what Jesus does. "Why are you so afraid? " He says to His disciples.

"Why? Because there's a storm. We're about to drown here.

" Why does Jesus say this? Why are you so afraid? Because He's teaching us
something about anxiety, about worry in our lives.

Our worries always grow out of our fears. And so when we start to question our
fears, we begin to lessen our worries. Now, we oftentimes feel like our fears
are the final authority.

Whatever I'm afraid of, that's the final word. That's what controls my life, my
thoughts, the direction of my life, as if they had ultimate power. But if you
question those fears, you'll find that God has the final word and not your
fears.

So you question your fears. If you're deeply in anxiety in your life over some
one thing or constantly, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is, "What
am I afraid of? What is the fear that God needs to work on in my life?

" Third thing that you do is you increase your faith. Now, am I telling you that
you worry because you don't have enough faith? No, I'm not telling you that.

Jesus actually is the one who tells us that. He's the one who says you have
little faith because of their worry. It's important here to remember that the
disciples had a good reason for worry.

But Jesus is telling them, "Worry is not making this situation any better. Why
didn't you waken me earlier? " may have been one of his questions.

Or, "Why didn't you yourselves trust in a brand new way? " could have been one
of his questions. But sitting there, wringing your hands, wondering why I'm
asleep, worrying is not helping anything.

So you have little faith. This statement reminds us that there is no reason
that's good enough for worry because worry is always counterproductive. Now, how
do you increase your faith when you're faced with so many circumstances that
would cause us to worry?

One of the ways to do that is to realize that the same circumstances that cause
our worry can also build our faith. The things that I can't control cause me to
worry. So when I put them into God's hands and I watch what only he can do, that
builds my faith.

You know what this means? This means that if you're a great worrier, you can
also be a great person of faith. Why?

Because you see what to worry about. And the very fact that you see what to
worry about means you also see, "I need to trust God with that because I can't
control that. " There are some people, they walk through life clueless as to the
storms that hit them.

They look like they're not worrying, but the truth of the matter is they're
clueless. They have no idea what's coming their way. They can't see in advance.

They can't see what's coming. But not you. You're a worrier because you can see
everything that's coming.

So the question is, are you going to worry about the future? Are you going to
trust God with that future? You can be a great person of faith, great person of
prayer.

Your prayer is going to make a great difference in this world. You increase your
faith. And then there's a fourth thing that you and I do to deal with anxiety,
and that is acknowledge God's control.

What happens here is almost humorous, except that it reminds us too much of
ourselves. The disciples are about to die of worry, and Jesus wakes up, calmly
says, "Wind, be still. Waves, quiet down.

" And they did. It becomes calm. It becomes silent.

And Jesus goes back to sleep. And the disciples are standing there or sitting
there in the boat with their mouths open. Who is this?

They had God in their boat. God commands galaxies with a word. He holds together
molecules by His power.

There is no situation which can come about in your life over which He does not
ultimately have control. Why does it not always work out then the way that I
want? Why does God allow evil in this world?

There's a thousand questions that I have about that, but not one of those
questions can take away from me the assurance that God ultimately is in control.
I'm not going to allow the fact that I don't understand many things to keep me
from trusting in one thing that I absolutely do understand. God's holding it all
together.

He's in control. 1 Chronicles 29 and 11 says in the living version, "Everything
in the heavens and earth is yours, O Lord. We adore you as being in control of
everything.

" He's the one who's in charge of everything. Oftentimes the reason we worry is
because we try to do what only God can do. We try to control the uncontrollable,
to explain the unexplainable, to get the ungettable, to stop the unstoppable, to
do the undoable, to bear the unbearable, to fix the unfixable.

The problem is so much of life is outside of your control, and you can't stop
worrying because you feel like, "I can never get it under my control," so you're
worrying all the time, but the truth of the matter is you can never get it under
your control. The secret is not trying to control it all yourself. That's an
impossible pursuit, but it's trusting.

The secret is trusting in the one who's in control of everything. That's where
you start, so you face reality. There are real problems in this world.

We talk about heaven and earth. This is earth. We're not at heaven yet.

In heaven, everything's going to be perfect. We're still on earth. There are
problems in this world.

Don't let anybody talk you out of that reality, but you face reality with faith.
There is a generous and a loving God who promises to be in your life through the
problems. Many times solve the problems, but those that he doesn't solve, he
will even work in your life in the midst of those problems until one day he
takes us to an eternity where there are no more problems.

They're all gone. So in that spirit of faith, let's take a moment to talk to
him. Would you pray with me?

Our Father, you might just join me in this prayer and say, "Father, I want my
life to be led by faith and not by worry. So right now, I trust you as the one
who is in control. Take control of my life.

Control of these circumstances. I know you are in control. Ultimately, your will
will be done.

As best as I know how, I ask for your help. I ask you to calm my fears, to
increase my faith, to show your greatness to me and even through me. And I ask
this in Jesus' name, amen.

" Tomorrow we're going to look together at a great story about some pigs.