Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to Westside. My name is Josh Cordell, and I'm the youth and family pastor here at Westside. I just returned from a coast trip where our team of adults took 45 high schoolers to the Oregon coast. And so I am back and I'm so excited about today. I am so excited about today's message. And it's not a message that sounds super exciting, necessarily, but it is. And we are in our big question series. This is week two, and our question is, can I find peace in an anxious world? How fun is that?
[00:00:43] Can I find peace in an anxious world? We're gonna start off by just jumping right into the scriptures. Let's read From Mark, chapter four, the story of Jesus calming the storm.
[00:00:54] Mark, chapter four, verse 35. As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, let's cross to the other side of the lake. So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind, although other boats followed. But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?
[00:01:28] When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, silence, be still.
[00:01:36] Suddenly the wind stopped and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? The disciples were absolutely terrified. Who is this man? They asked each other. Even the wind and the waves obey him.
[00:01:53] Pray, heavenly father, you are good, you are powerful.
[00:02:01] You sent your son, and even the wind and the waves obey him.
[00:02:07] Lord, would you speak to us today? Would we understand who you are and what you've done and how you feel about us? We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:19] So two and a half weeks ago, Pastor Evan asked me if I would teach this part of the big question series, which I was very excited to. These are questions that are asked in the church. These are questions that are asked. My wife Emily teaches a fourth and fifth grade class, and she has a box where kids can ask questions. And these are the kinds of questions they ask. And then I'm part of a men's Bible study on Monday morning. That's a great group. And these are the kind of questions we ask. We ask the same questions young and old, right? We ask the same questions. And this question I love, but I didn't like how it was worded. I was excited when I got asked, like, would I talk about anxiety and this thing? But when I saw the wording of can I find peace in an anxious world? I was like, anxious world. I'm not so sure that that's how I would write it if it was me. Talk about prophetic right? Two and a half weeks ago to today, we are in a much more anxious world than we were.
[00:03:23] We are in an anxious world. Before I put this message together, I reached out to one of my friends here in the church who's a therapist and I asked him this question. I said, I'm going to be talking about anxiety and I am not a therapist. I'm not a counselor or a medical professional. I'm a pastor and I'm a coach and mentor and I do a lot of things. But where is the line when it comes to anxiety of seeking after professional help? I wanted to like establish that right away. I wanted to ask a professional and he shared this with me. I thought this was great.
[00:03:58] We all worry because what worries us is often important.
[00:04:04] However, worry becomes unhealthy when it overwhelms us and prevents us from functioning.
[00:04:12] I thought that was really good. I wanted to put that out there first as we move into this. He's the kind of guy who would like to remain anonymous and behind the scenes, but his in laws are in town today. So I just want to say thank you, Edward Yu, for the words of wisdom.
[00:04:26] You are a gentleman and a scholar.
[00:04:30] Humble, hilarious. I could go on and on, but thank you.
[00:04:36] Anxiety.
[00:04:38] Real.
[00:04:40] There's a Greek word and a Hebrew word that are both translated as anxiety. The root word of the Greek word basically means to be pulled apart, to be separated. And we translate that word sometimes into anxiety, sometimes into cares, sometimes into concerns is how we see that show up in the New Testament we live in in an anxious world.
[00:05:06] And it's nothing new.
[00:05:08] It's not a new thing that the world is anxious.
[00:05:14] The best selling book, the bestselling Nonfiction Book of 2024 is a book called Anxious Generation.
[00:05:24] It's a book about the unprecedented level of anxiety that the current younger generation feels.
[00:05:32] Number one selling nonfiction book from 2024, I mentioned that in our earlier service and an older woman came up to me and I can tell you this, she described herself as an older woman. She came up to me and she said, as an older woman, so don't. I'm not aging anyone or anything like that. There was no offense intended in that statement. She came up to me. And she said, as an older woman, I heard what you said about anxious generation, and I just want to say my generation is anxious, too.
[00:05:59] My generation is very anxious.
[00:06:02] We feel this concern, this care. We feel this heaviness, this burden of life.
[00:06:09] I love Psalm 77.
[00:06:13] Psalm 77.
[00:06:14] We're gonna read the very first part of it, and then we're gonna skip down to verses 11 and 12. This is written by the worship leader for David and Solomon. So David didn't write this section of the Psalms. This is written by a worship leader who was leading. He was a Levite, and he was leading the worship for David and then later for Solomon.
[00:06:36] It starts out in verse one. I cried out to God for help. I cried out to God to hear me when I was in distress. I sought the Lord at night. I stretched out untiring hands and I would not be comforted.
[00:06:53] He felt the cares of this world. It goes on to say, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
[00:07:05] I will consider all your works and meditate on your mighty deeds.
[00:07:12] This worship leader understood that we have cares, we have concerns, we have anxiety.
[00:07:19] And. And we have to understand who that God is before we take them to Him.
[00:07:27] We may not take them to him if we don't understand what he has done.
[00:07:32] One of my friends said something that I try to remember. I love this.
[00:07:36] They said, preach the gospel every day to yourself.
[00:07:44] Preach the gospel every day to yourself. Remind yourself deep daily of the goodness of God. Remind yourself of who God is and what he's done for us.
[00:07:55] I have a friend here in the church, and they pray in a really bold way. They pray. They pray. In fact, when you know how we have our own patterns that we follow. When I first heard that they prayed this way, I was like, let me think about that.
[00:08:10] They said, aren't you the God?
[00:08:14] That's how they like to start their prayers.
[00:08:16] Aren't you the God who promised this?
[00:08:19] Aren't you the God who delivered these people?
[00:08:23] Aren't you the God who said you'd always be there with me? Aren't you the God who parted the seas?
[00:08:29] And I looked and I found in Second Chronicles, the prayer that starts and continues that. That method of. Aren't you the God? Aren't you the God in heaven?
[00:08:41] Aren't you the God who delivers?
[00:08:43] I love that. I love that. And I love to get shaken up a little bit. The way that I'm used to doing things. I love to like, ooh, another way. I Like that.
[00:08:55] So how do we do this? How do we go from that point of where we're like, God, I cried out and you weren't there to. Then you're the God I could trust.
[00:09:07] You're the one who is there. We were at the coast with this trip. On this trip, it was an amazing time. We had such a great group.
[00:09:15] 45 high schoolers, 11 adults. Everyone made it home, and it was just a really, really fun time.
[00:09:24] The two requests from the group were, could it be longer? And could we have more worship? How beautiful is that? And I told them, you guys were, we can absolutely have more worship. Like, we for sure can do that. It cannot be longer. Like, that's not on the table. I am not staying another night.
[00:09:44] I love you, but there are limits to that. But we can have so much worship. We can definitely fix that. And our theme on this trip was forgiveness. Our theme was forgiveness. And I am convinced that. That the gospel is forgiveness, that forgiveness is the gospel.
[00:10:05] And we talk about these three aspects of forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness. In fact, I'm gonna give you. I didn't give this much in the last service. I'm gonna give you just a little bit of kind of our focus of this trip.
[00:10:17] Asking for forgiveness and the difference between I'm sorry and can you forgive me?
[00:10:23] And then the second part was receiving for forgiveness. And it was the difference between shame and guilt of I am that thing or I did that thing, and being able to receive forgiveness for it. And then the third part was giving forgiveness.
[00:10:41] And the giving forgiveness part was that when we don't give forgiveness, we're the ones who carry the weight of that.
[00:10:49] And we did this at summer camp, and it was a great illustration. We had a backpack full of rocks.
[00:10:56] And we talked about how when you don't have rocks in your backpack, it's a much better situation than when you do. And a quick, fun story. When I was younger, I got a job on a movie set. Actually, it was a commercial set. They were filming a Japanese sports drink commercial at Smith Rock. How random is that? Turns out that the two characters in the thing were basically the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Japan. This is in the 90s.
[00:11:23] And the soap opera star of Japan. And the gist of the commercial is they're racing up the hill to get this tiny sports drink. And it's like, there's only one of them. And they're gonna see who gets there first. Long story short, there was a guy in our group who was not very cool, and he kind of took Charge our group. Our job was brutal, and it was to carry all the equipment up and down Misery Ridge, that trail, all day.
[00:11:46] It was rough. And this guy stepped up and was kind of just, I'm in charge. Here's how we're gonna do it. And we were doing that. And at this one point, I realized, man, he is struggling. Like, we all put about the same amount of weight in our backpacks, but he was just struggling. And we got to the top of the hill, and he opened up his backpack, and not only did he have the equipment he put in there, but someone had filled his backpack full of rocks.
[00:12:12] And younger Josh thought it was really funny, but I didn't do it. It wasn't me.
[00:12:21] But the point is, that backpack full of rocks thing, that's no fun. We're the one who carries it. So we did something on this trip of where we gave every kid a stone and we said, this is something to get rid of.
[00:12:36] This is that unforgiveness that you're holding that you need to throw into the ocean. This is maybe that thing that you've thought is shame, but really should just be guilt. It's, I did it, not I am it. And that you let it go and you receive the forgiveness of God and you throw that stone in the ocean. And it was a powerful moment. I've heard many stories, and we didn't go all go do it together. We did it kind of separately. Some people went and did it in groups, and I'm still hearing the stories about that.
[00:13:05] I bring this up because these are these steps that we take when. Where we understand that we preach the gospel to ourselves. Every day we grow closer to God. We come closer to understanding his love, how he sees us, how he views us, who we are in his eyes. And I love this. This verse from Philippians 4, 6, and 7. I had someone after the last service say, that's my verse. That's my verse. That's my. That is my daily. This is where I go. Philippians 4, 6 and 7.
[00:13:35] Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
[00:13:56] Be anxious about nothing. Make your prayers and your supplications, your requests, your petitions, with thankfulness. Let them be known to God. Give them to God. And the peace of God which surpasses understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So there's a Piece that I hope for all of you, you can understand.
[00:14:17] You have, like, a peaceful. There's peaceful times in life. This is even better. This is a peace that's beyond our understanding.
[00:14:25] So for me, a piece that makes sense.
[00:14:28] One of my. One of my best moments of peace. I call it Alone at the Waterfall. And it's. If I can go on a hike and I can be the only one at the waterfall, my family can be there too, but I just have to step in front so I don't see them, and I just see the waterfall. I love them, but I just need this, like, me in the waterfall moment. And that's, like, a piece that is understandable, right? That's like, for some people, it's the mountains, Some people it's the ocean. It's a piece that you're like, it's great.
[00:14:57] Another piece for me is I take a solo day once a month.
[00:15:01] So I love people. I can't get enough. I want relationships. I just love to hear people's stories. And then I hit a day, once a month where I go, no more people, like, not doing it. And so my family understands that, and they. And they honor that. And so I leave in the morning, and I come back that night. And it's usually just a road trip. Probably involves eating a hamburger, going for a hike, trying to explore someplace I haven't been, maybe listen to an audiobook.
[00:15:28] And my family knows that I'm doing it. We've planned it ahead of time. And they don't have anything to, like. They don't request anything of me. They don't reach out for anything. They send me a text once in a while with, like, a heart emoji, that kind of thing. It's very nice.
[00:15:43] But they know that, like, I'll call them. So I'll call them and I'll say, you're not gonna believe what I just saw. If it's my wife, Emily, I'm gonna say, I just saw a West Virginia license plate.
[00:15:53] Long story, but. So I'll have these conversations, but it's on my terms. Well, I had my last solo day, and when I came home, I was looking at my phone, kind of looking at my stats, and I realized I had spoken to my wife on the phone for an hour and a half of my solo day. And you know what? Because she's my peace.
[00:16:13] Because this is, like, my day of peace, and, like, she is peace for me, I'm gonna reach out to her and talk, especially if it gets to be on my terms. And there's no to do list or anything. Like, that's just beautif.
[00:16:25] And so I'm gonna reach out to her because I'm gonna like, where is the peace?
[00:16:30] How do I find it? How do I do this thing?
[00:16:32] And a lot of this, you guys, it takes trust building, right? It's these steps that we take. I was walking with a high schooler, one of our high schoolers in the last. It was about two weeks ago. I was walking with him, and he said, I'm in this thing. And he told me about it, and it was heavy. It was a lot. It was too much. And he said, but I don't feel under attack.
[00:16:57] Like this. I'm carrying this thing. This is a lot. But I don't feel under attack. And I said, does it feel like a piece that surpasses understanding? And he was like, yes. And I was like. And I wanted to just wait and have him be like, wow, you're good with words. But I said, that's a verse that's actually from the Bible. That wasn't me.
[00:17:18] There's this thing called a peace that surpasses understanding, where you're in the middle of the storm, but you have peace. It's not just being alone at the waterfall. It's being right in the heart of it, Right? It's waking up and seeing the news and being able to go, okay.
[00:17:35] I said, how do you think you did this? And he said, well, I've been praying a lot. As soon as this stuff comes up, I've been praying about it, and I've been reading my Bible, and. And I said, there you go.
[00:17:45] There it is.
[00:17:48] We have two adult volunteers on our team who have been amazing with the girls, Holly and Colleen. They've made this commitment where they've been with us for a few years, and there's this level of trust built of where you have stories you can share and someone comes to you with the difficult thing because you've been working with. With them.
[00:18:11] In fact, today is kind of my announcement day of this. This is really fun.
[00:18:15] I. I'm almost done with a book I've been writing, so I'm writing a book that's called Walking and Talking with Teens. And the whole idea is that, like, you can go for a walk and talk with a teen or someone else in your life. Like, you can do it. Like, I've gotten to do so much of it. I have this lap that I've walked, and in the last eight years, I've walked the stage, same lap with teenagers 5,000 times.
[00:18:39] And so the whole idea is like, okay, here's what I've learned. You can do this. Okay, you can do this. And so there's this idea of we do this thing together. We get to know.
[00:18:50] How do we build trust? How do we get to the point where there's, like, an understanding first? Peter 5, 6 and 7 is so good, you guys.
[00:19:01] That's where I want to really, like, focus in, right here. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time, he may exalt you. Casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
[00:19:18] Casting all your anxieties upon him first. It's humbling yourself. I didn't do this in any of the other services.
[00:19:25] I'm trying to do more of this.
[00:19:27] I'm trying to do more of this in my life. I found that I don't get down on the ground.
[00:19:33] And there's a lot of power in the humility of doing this. This is where I wanna spend more time. I wanna humble myself before the mighty God. I wanna cast my anxieties at his feet. Because there's so many things Peter could say right there. He could say, cast your anxieties upon him because he's the God who holds the entire universe in his hand. He could say, cast your anxieties upon him because he's the creator of all things and knows exactly what you need.
[00:20:02] But it says, cast your anxieties upon him because he cares for you.
[00:20:08] The God of the universe cares for us. And that's the same Peter who, in the scripture that we started out with, was in the boat and said, jesus, do you even care?
[00:20:19] We're gonna drown? Do you even care?
[00:20:23] And then he walked with Jesus and he watched and he. And he listened and he saw all the things. And he came to a point where he said, we know what Peter said. He made the confession. He said, you are the one.
[00:20:39] Where would we go? You have the words of eternal life.
[00:20:42] You are the Messiah. And then his message to the church was, it wasn't, hey, if you end up with anxieties, which you shouldn't, but if you do, he said, cast all your anxieties. There's an assumption that you have cares and concerns.
[00:20:57] Cast them upon Jesus because he cares for you.
[00:21:02] But we're in different places, right? We're always in different places on our walk with God. Some of you may be in the boat right now.
[00:21:10] Some of you may be in the boat and you're like, it is rocky. The waves are crashing. I don't know if I'm going to survive. I don't know that he does care.
[00:21:20] Personally, I don't love water. I like being.
[00:21:23] There's a reason that I like standing at the waterfall and less like riding down in a kayak or something. I'm not a in the water kind of guy. And that idea of the boat, I get it. That was a perfect, like, symbol for me. Like, I don't like the idea of being in a boat that might sink.
[00:21:41] No, thank you. And we may be living in that moment. We may be. We may be feeling the weight of the world. Like, man, the waves are crashing. And like the, like the psalmist, like the worship leader.
[00:21:53] I'm calling out, but you're not there.
[00:21:57] Where are you?
[00:22:00] And it takes this time, this long road, right, this long game, this journey of understanding.
[00:22:06] He's so good.
[00:22:08] He cares for us.
[00:22:10] He loves us.
[00:22:12] One of the things we do in our youth is that every time we gather, someone from the stage says, God loves you and we love you. And then the youth replies, I am loved by God. We're gonna do it right now. God loves you and we love you.
[00:22:27] You are loved by God. And we do this because we want the anchor to be that we are loved by God.
[00:22:34] We want to be in the midst of the storm, in the questioning everything. What do I do next? Where do I turn? We wanna be able to go, I know this. I'm loved by God. I'm going to plant my flag in that. I know that I'm loved by God. Did I just mess up really big? Yes. But I'm loved by God.
[00:22:52] We want that to be our go to spot. So how do we do this?
[00:22:56] I'm a person who really loves.
[00:22:59] I'm a bit of a rule follower. And I love direction. I love, like, tell me how to help you and I will, I will commit to that. That we'll do that right? And I, I like those kind of instructions.
[00:23:14] And first Thessalonians is just the verse that I'm just like, thank you, God. I really need this. And I go to it every single day. First Thessalonians 5, 16, 18. Memorize this, rejoice always, pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. For you have joy, don't stop praying and be thankful in all circumstances. Not for all circumstances.
[00:23:47] Okay? You don't have to be thankful for everything that happens, but you have to be thankful in the midst of it, which changes everything.
[00:23:56] And I love that it says if you do that, then you're in God's will.
[00:24:00] Because that's a question. I don't know if I haven't looked ahead to see what our big questions are. This may be a spoiler, but one of the big questions is often, and what's God's will for me?
[00:24:10] And I don't ever try to answer that question and saying, like, well, you're clearly, you know, a leader or an artist or something like God's will for you is to pursue this particular thing. I say, you know what? God's will for you, have joy. Don't stop talking to him and be thankful.
[00:24:28] And then if you do that, I know you're in his will.
[00:24:31] Because if we can have joy. I was so thankful. I love Lindsay.
[00:24:37] Read the Fruit of the Spirit earlier.
[00:24:40] Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. Self control, you guys. Self control. Self control. For me, just now was reciting that to you without swinging my arms and marching, because that's how I learned it. So the Fruit of the Spirit, though those things are not because we conjure them up and we work hard to get them. It's because we stay close to God and that fruit is produced in our life.
[00:25:08] Huge difference.
[00:25:10] Huge difference.
[00:25:12] Pastor Ben said something last week, and I was so. Yes, thank you. I love it. He. He said the gospel is not try harder, do better.
[00:25:22] One of the things that I've made a mission of because I've coached a lot of sports and I work with a lot of young people, I don't say, try harder, do better.
[00:25:31] That is something we hear a lot, right? But the gospel is not try harder, do better. The gospel is surrender.
[00:25:40] The gospel is forgiveness.
[00:25:43] The gospel is God, what do you want to do in me so then you can do it through me.
[00:25:48] And so to have that first of those three, rejoice, pray and be thankful. You want to rejoice, get close to God. That's where joy comes from.
[00:26:00] Him producing it in us.
[00:26:02] And then that prayer without ceasing, we just gotta be talking to God.
[00:26:06] And it's not just a monologue. It's a dialogue. We listen to God.
[00:26:11] And then that last part, thankfulness. One of my habits that has helped me a ton is I take a gratitude shower in the morning. How's that for a name? I take a gratitude shower in the morning. Here's how it works. It's really simple.
[00:26:23] I have to do lists in my head.
[00:26:27] I'm always thinking about the next thing.
[00:26:30] When it's shower time, I turn my water on. I Wait for it to warm up.
[00:26:34] I step in and I thank God for hot water. And then I thank him for the next thing that comes to mind. And I thank him for the next thing.
[00:26:42] For those of you who take cold showers, more power to you. You're weird. I don't get it. I don't understand. I know that that's good for you, but I'm fine. I'm. I like the way I am.
[00:26:52] I take a hot shower, and that's my first.
[00:26:55] God, thank you for hot water. Thank you that I have a home. Thank you that there's water. Thank you that I live in a place with clean water. And I start thanking God. And you want to know what's crazy? I didn't know that this would be a thing. But do you want to know where thankfulness always takes me? My last line, if it. If I'm doing this, because sometimes I don't, right? Sometimes I'm like, yeah, I should. But, man, what am I going to do with that thing that has to be done? And I get. And I get sidetracked. But when I do it right, and I thank God, you want to know what the last thing that comes out of my mouth is? I say, have mercy on me, a sinner.
[00:27:28] I'm always drawn back to that. Like, I have so much to be thankful. God, thank you. Have mercy on me, a sinner.
[00:27:35] Last verse that I want to look at with us together is in Galatians. That's where we find the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 6. 2. I love how straightforward this is. It says, carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
[00:27:51] Isn't that great? Isn't that straightforward and simple? The law of Christ, when they said, jesus, what's the most important commandment? He said, number one, love God with everything you've got. And then number two is like that. Love your neighbor as yourself. And we find out that to fulfill that law, we gotta carry each other's burdens.
[00:28:11] So this means two things. One, it means if we are in the boat right now and we are overcome with anxiety and fear and concern and care, we gotta go to God and lay it at his feet. And we also need community. We need someone else to carry that burden with us. We were never meant to carry it alone.
[00:28:32] We have to ask for help. We have to invite people in. It's gonna take trust, but we've got to do it. And then number two, on the other side, it means someone's got to be that person who helps carry the load, who helps carry the burden. There is someone in your circle who has if you don't have great anxiety, there's someone in your circle who does.
[00:28:54] There is someone in your circle who does I want to read one last thing.
[00:28:58] This is from when I brought up the question of anxiety. I asked our high school group what what does anxiety feel like?
[00:29:07] And a 17 year old girl wrote this and told me I could read it to the group that I could read it. Today.
[00:29:14] Anxiety is like a burglar. It robs me of many opportunities to share my story or my thoughts. I wish people knew that anxiety squeezes the words from my throat and almost paralyzes me. It's silent and hidden to everyone else, but is like a ton of bricks in my lungs and throat.
[00:29:37] But are you ready for this? She wrote on the other side and on the other side she says, I try to remember Matthew 4:16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.
[00:29:51] And for those who live in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shine.
[00:30:01] There's a light and we need to go and access that love and light that is Jesus and we need to point other people to it.
[00:30:10] AW Tozer said that he wanted to be a signpost that pointed people towards God and that's what we are called to do.
[00:30:19] And we either are feeling great anxiety or someone else is and we've got to do this together and it's got to be about being pointed towards Jesus, who has many great titles, but I think my favorite is the Prince of Peace.
[00:30:36] And to have that peace that surpasses understanding is available through him.
[00:30:42] But we have to lift each other up and carry the burden together.
