4 weeks helping students navigate anxiety. Anxiety is the whistle on a teapot. It’s not the heat. It’s an indicator that there’s heat. There is something deeper going on fueling the anxiety response. So when you try to pray away your anxiety, you’re asking God to take away the whistle on the teapot, but you’re not dealing with the heat. The whistle might be louder, but the heat is more dangerous. Fortunately for us, when Jesus came, He came to deal with the heat in our hearts.

Video Messages Included

Week 1 (2 Corinthians 3:13-18 NLT)

Intro: Anxiety is difficult because it can lead to feelings of shame about who you are. And the question we have to ask is: “Why hasn’t God answered your prayers for Him to take away your anxiety?”

Truth: In the Old Covenant, people communed with God on a surface level. It was almost like there was a “veil” keeping them back from digging deeper. But in the New Covenant, the veil has been taken away, and we’ve been invited into a deeper experience with God. That includes the teapot of anxiety.

The Point: Jesus came to deal with the heat in your heart

Week 2 (Matthew 6:7-10 NIV)

Intro: Therapy is good. Medications can be necessary. But there are most likely also spiritual factors playing into your anxiety, and that’s what we’re addressing in this series.

Truth: When Jesus taught us to pray, He made it pretty clear that our priority should be anchoring ourselves to the foundation of who God is to us. That could be so helpful when anxiety hits. But maybe even more so, Jesus teaches us to elevate God’s Kingdom come over our own. It’s about relinquishing control of how things will turn out and choosing to trust God’s preferred outcome over our own. For some of us, anxiety is the whistle, but control is the heat.

The Point: Let “Your Kingdom come” come into your kingdom

Week 3 (John 8:44-47 NLT)

Intro: Just like we sometimes buy into the lies of advertising, we sometimes buy into the lies of the enemy too.

Truth: He did it with the Pharisees, and he does it today with us. Satan loves to whisper lies in our ears in order to make us feel shame, dread, rage, panic, and more. But, for those of us who belong to God, we don’t have to listen to the lies of the enemy. Through Scripture, prayer, worship music, and the words of other believers, we know the truth. So if you want to identify and neutralize the heat fueling your anxiety whistle, then…

The Point: Identify the lies as lies

Week 4 (2 Corinthians 4:7, 16-18 NLT)

Intro: Some of us came into a relationship with Jesus with the expectation that it would make all of our problems and issues go away. That makes for a frustrating experience when we’re still struggling with the same old stuff—like anxiety—for instance.

Truth: But Scripture isn’t shy about noting that our physical, sin-affected bodies remain imperfect after believing in Jesus. This side of eternity, our physical bodies will always find new ways to hold us back. The good news, though? Our issues and struggles are small and momentary in comparison to the eternity we’ll spend in heaven someday. And that should give us hope as we work through our mental health issues.

The Point: The reality of heaven combats the reality of heat