Mosaic A Divorce Recovery Ministry

MosaicA Divorce Recovery Ministry Lesson 5: My World Is So Uncertain

There Goes My Security Thing • A dozen questions may be bouncing around the walls of your mind. • How will I survive the sorrow I’m facing? • Who can I talk to now that she’s/he’s gone? • With whom can I share my feelings, interests, and dreams? • What am I going to do with my time now that I’m alone? • On whom can I depend now that he’s gone? • Who will care for me? • How can I stop thinking about the emptiness of my heart?

What About the Future • Most of the questions in the last slide reveal an underlying anxiety about the future. • They also reveal the likelihood that you have a dependence focused on something other than God. • On what are you building your trust? • In whom are you placing your security?

Watch Out For Moths • Are you building your life around things that are temporal? • Are you building your life around things that can be taken away, (as by thieves) or destroyed (as by moths and rust)? • If you are, you will never truly be secure. • There is no guarantee that the temporary things God gives you to enjoy in this life will not be taken from you.

Where is Your Treasure • If you are building your life around treasures in heaven, which NO ONE can take from you or destroy, then your world cannot be easily shaken. • The greater your security in the Lord, the greater will be your ability to “fall out of love.” • The greater your insecurity, the greater will be your difficulty getting over the breakup.

I Want Insurance • Heavenly Home Insurance • You might be asking the question, “What exactly can I invest in down here that will still be intact when I get up to heaven?” • Will anyone or anything be able to take you from your relationship with Christ? • Not if you are truly a Christian.

Assurance • No one will be able to destroy Scripture. • Read Matt. 24:35 and I Peter 1:24-25. • No one will be able to destroy your service for God. • The times you spend ministering to others. • The times you spend encouraging and building up others, those you pray for, will earn you rewards in heaven that cannot be taken away or destroyed as long as your motives for ministry are truly to please and glorify God. (I Cor. 4:5; 2 John 1:8).

Real Security • The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is no lasting security in this life. • As Christians, our lasting pleasures and rewards come in the next life, not this one. • The things God gives us to enjoy down here are temporary blessings to encourage us on our journey. • The real rewards come later in heaven. • If you set your heart on things of the earth rather than the things above (Col. 3:1,2), you will be profoundly disappointed. Even if moths or rust do not take away those temporal things, you will lose them when you die. They were only meant to be temporary comforts to sustain you on your way to heaven.

Yesterday Wants More

Provision • The Bible instructs us to “make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” • To make provision for something is to exercise forethought about or to plan ahead to do something. • The text is saying for us to stop planning ahead so as to satisfy the desires of the flesh.

Don’t Get Paralyzed • Reminders that are not so easy to remove. • There are two extremes to be avoided. • Take care not to become paralyzed by the thought of being in the presence of anything that reminds you of your ex that you avoid going places and doing things that are clearly God’s will for you. • We should be careful to avoid those situations that we know from experience will tempt us to sin.

And I Did It God’s Way • Your love for God and your confidence that He loves you ought to overcome your fear. • If it doesn’t, your love for Him is deficient. • To love God, you must choose to obey Him whether or not you have a fearful experience. • Loving God means choosing to do those things He wants you to do. • It means going to those places He wants you to go even if you are faced with things that remind you of your breakup.

Jesus Addresses Worry • The fact that Jesus Himself addresses worry should give you hope because it means that there are answers from God for your problem. • Jesus is addressing His own followers, this gives you hope because it assures you that even believers in Jesus can and do struggle with worry and anxiety.

Is Worry Sinful? • Three times in the text of Matt. 6:19-34 Jesus forbids you to worry, (verses 25,31,34). • The apostle Paul tells us in Phil. 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything…). • The fact that worry is sin should not discourage you. • Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners like you and me, to forgive you for worrying, and to help you change your patterns of thinking.

Everyone Does It? • You might say, “Worry shows that we’re concerned about things in life, isn’t it better to worry than to be callous, indifferent, and apathetic to the things going on around us?” • Jesus tells us in verses 19-25 that worry is idolatry. • Idolatry is to worship someone or something other than the true and living God. • It is giving yourself to some person, goal, ideal, or object other than God. • It means you are hitching your heart to some false refuge or savior. • It means you are putting your personal desires above God.

Idolatry of Your Heart • Worry is a sign that you are trusting in yourself. • Worry is a sign that you are building your life on things or people. • Your worry is an automatic indicator of the heart that is not fully following the Lord but is following someone or something else.

What Is Worry? • Worry is a good emotion focused on the wrong day. • Read Matt. 6:34, “Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matt. 6:34). • It’s wrong to anxiously focus your attention today on what may go wrong in the future, as though the Lord were not going to provide for your protection.

Imaginary • Worry is experiencing unnecessary distress in the face of imaginary suffering. • Worry is fear in the absence of actual danger. • It is overestimating the possibility of danger and magnifying the degree of potential adversity.

Anticipation • Worry is anticipating future suffering without anticipating the grace God has promised to those who suffer. • Worry is thinking about your future as though God will not be there to take care of you.

By-Product • Worry is the by-product of an undisciplined mind. • 2 Tim. 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. • The term for mind in this verse has to do with self-control, especially in one’s thoughts, decisions, and judgments. • The term may be rendered as, “to have right thoughts about what one should do. • You defeat fear by learning how to control your thoughts.

No Anxiety • Treatment for Worry • You are about to come face to face with a powerful, state-of-the-art treatment for worry. I believe it to be more effective in the long run, safer, and in many cases faster acting than any anti-anxiety medication on the market. • Specialized prayer… • Your prayers must not simply contain petitions for what you need or want, they must also include expressions of thankfulness to God.

Thanksgiving • There are three areas of thanksgiving. • Thankful for the past, for what can I thank God concerning previous answers to similar prayers. • The present, what is there in these present circumstances for which I can thank Him? • The future, how can I thank Him for what He might be doing in the future?

Biblical Thinking • To knock out despair, you must change your thought patterns. • To overcome grief, resentment, and depression, you must change the way you think. • You will have to learn how to discipline your mind. • You will have to change your anxious thoughts to thoughts that reflect biblical hope, and are biblically accurate.

The What If’s • Let’s look at some of our false thoughts, like “I just know I’m going to have a panic attack if I see my ex at the restaurant.” • Self-controlled thinking would say, “The Lord will give me the grace to respond appropriately to my ex if I see him at the restaurant.” • Self-controlled thinking might say, “If I have a panic attack, I’ll just have to have one. This is a dinner for my parents’ anniversary and I’m not going to selfishly allow my fear of meeting my ex to keep me from honoring my parents.”

I Will Never • What is the alterative thinking to the thought, “I’ll never get over losing her ?” • Getting over losing her is not as important to God as getting over and losing my anxiety problem. • You might say instead: “Never is a long time. I’m confident God will cause my grief to go away if I respond biblically to losing her.”

Hopeless • What is the alternative thinking to the thought, “I’ll go crazy if I have to spend the rest of my life by myself.” • Wouldn’t it be more accurate to think, “I’m more likely to go crazy if I don’t learn how to get my anxiety under control. To live the rest of my life by myself is not a sin. To make an idol out of being married is.”

Biblical Action • What Should I Do? • What actions can I take today to keep what I’m worried about from happening tomorrow? • The actions might include studying your Bible, getting godly counsel, or formulating a biblical plan of action to solve a potential problem.

Chop Down a Tree • Don’t worry about how you are going to chop down the entire forest. • Determine how many trees the Lord would want you to chop down today. • Tomorrow is another day with another section of trees to cut. • Read Matt. 6:34. • If each day you prayerfully plan to ax a limited number of trees, you will find it possible to address your concerns without worry. • You may even discover that the Lord has been on the other side of the forest bulldozing trees down much faster than you ever could.

Go talk to the Lord about your worries. • Admit your worrying is sin. • Ask God to help you identify the specific idols and lies that rule you. • Confess all lies and idols to Him. • Repent of the various ways you have let the cares of this world control you.

Ask God to forgive you for doubting His promises • Ask God to forgive you, • Break your bondage, • And cleanse you of these things. • Turn back to God and worship Him.

Bank on His promises of grace, even when you are prone to worry. • Fill your mind with appropriate truths about God that will destroy all idols and lies. • Cling to Christ alone, obey Him, and cast your anxiety on Him, know that He cares for you. • Pour your energy into today’s business and responsibilities.

Mosaic A Divorce Recovery Ministry