Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast, I have with me Jonny Artavanis. He’s the lead pastor of Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He’s the founder and president of Dial-In Ministries, a ministry that provides biblical resourcing for the next generation. Jonny formerly served as both a camp director at Hume Lake Christian Camps and as dean at the Masters University. Jonny is passionate that people come to know and love Jesus Christ as they pursue a deeper understanding of His word. And Johnny lives in Franklin, Tennessee with his wife, Caity Jean, and their two daughters. Brother, thanks for being with us again. I really appreciate it.
Jonny Ardavanis: Absolutely, Dale. Thanks for having me on. I’m grateful to be here.
Dale Johnson: I want to start out with this question that was the title of today’s podcast, but we’re talking about all of this in the context of a book that you wrote in October of 2024 that I think is just very helpful. It’s very practical, but it’s very weighty in terms of considering Scripture. The book that you wrote is called Consider the Lilies and it comes right out of the frame of Scripture. And the context of that is Jesus’ teaching on this subject of anxiety and worry; even fear is roped into there as well.
The question that I ask in the title, I just want to present to you just in short-term and I want you to sort of flesh this out: is worry sinful? So many people ask this question. They want to know because they feel it, they experience it. Sometimes they feel like they can’t get over it. Is worry sinful?
Jonny Ardavanis: Yeah, “easy question.” No, I think there’s, you know, obviously a way that I would respond to this question. I’d want to do it with a level of grace and compassion based on maybe the person that’s navigating this. I would start by saying, well, the word for worry in the Greek is merimnáō. It comes from a compound Greek word, as you know, merizo, which means to tear and divide, and nous, which is the mind. So, the worried individual is someone with a divided mind according to Scripture. Now it’s interesting in, I think, the 14 to 17 times that this word is used in the New Testament it’s also translated as care and concern. So, for instance, Paul says that he is sending Timothy to the Philippian church because there is no one else who is concerned for their welfare.
That’s a good and godly thing. That word for concern is merimnáō. So, in that instance, you have a good godly concern or stress. Paul says he has a daily stress and pressure for all of the churches. That’s merimnáō. That’s a good and godly thing. But what’s interesting is after Paul says that he’s going to send Timothy to the Philippians because there’s no one else that is concerned for their welfare like Timothy, in Philippians 4:6, he’s going to use that same word and say, do not be merimnáō for anything. So, then you have to ask the question, right? Logically, when is merimnáō a good thing? And when is merimnáō a bad thing? And the argument that maybe I would suggest is that a good and godly stress and pressure become a sinful worry when we dwell on the stresses and pressures. Maybe we become crippled by them rather than going about what we need to do and trusting and depending on God.
The analogy that I use in the book is that when we pool our anxieties and we huddle them, we dwell and fixate on them rather than channeling them towards God. We become almost paralyzed by worry and by fear. So, I use three consecutive examples in the book that maybe help provide a framework for your everyday life. Let’s say Bob. Bob’s got to provide for his family. He’s got a wife and four hungry boys. He’s merimnáō about his financial needs. They’re eating more and the grocery bill just went up $200 a month. There is a good and godly stress, right? Bib is going, “I got to provide for my family. These are my children.”
Now, how would you handle that in a godly way? Well, you might need to go work more. You might need to pray. You might need to cut some other things out, maybe start a side business all while—key idea here, *all while depending on and trusting in the Lord* that He has promised to meet your every need in Christ Jesus. He provides for the larks and lilies and He’s going to provide for you.
He holds the world in His hand and if He holds the world in His hand, He holds you in His hand. So working hard, strategizing, scheming, that is not antithetical to trust and dependency and prayer. Sometimes people go, “Well, I’m going to do my darndest and if that doesn’t work out, I’ll trust in the Lord.” But that would be a good and godly stress and pressure.
Let’s say Bob, alternatively, is stressed. He dwells on that. He begins to doubt that God has promised to provide for His every need, and instead becomes crippled by anxiety. He says, “I don’t know how we’re going to make it,” and doesn’t actually do anything. That good and godly stress can become a sinful worry. Corrie Ten Boom, who wrote the book, Don’t Wrestle, Just Nestle, she says that worry is like racing the engine without letting in the clutch. You burn energy and you go nowhere. And often even Corrie Ten Boom would talk about that. If you know her story, she was in the concentration camp. She was the victim of horrific things and she writes a lot about worry. She would say that a lot of things that she was worried about are certain things, and that she just needed to get to work. George Müller would be another example of, “I have so much to do today. I need to wake up early and pray and then strategize and scheme my day so that I could be a good steward of that.”
If you’re not disciplined and you have a lot to do, that good and godly stress can become a sinful worry and anxiety. So, I would say the difference would be pooling our anxieties where we just dwell on them. We don’t change anything we need to do functionally because we don’t just let go, let God. We work, right? We work to provide for our family. We work and we trust in the Lord instead of channeling them to the Lord and maybe going about it in the way that is biblical.
So, worry in that case is sin. If it’s an imperative, it’s a prohibition. Sometimes people make the argument, no, it’s not God’s best, but it is a negative prohibition. Do not worry. That’s what Jesus says in Matthew 6:25. He says, “therefore, don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink.” And one of the things people need to realize, and this is important, Dale, if you don’t see worry as a sin, it’s never something you’ll need to grow out of. If you don’t see that it is an offense to God’s provision and care for you, it is never something that you’ll: One, need to confess. Two, need to repent. And three, need to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. So, it’s very important that you get, first of all, a fair definition of terms: Is it stress or pressure or is it an ungodly worry?
And if it is an ungodly worry, you need to confess that and repent because it would be like my daughter. I have a daughter, Lily. She’s three years old. That’s why we named her Lily. Consider the Lilies. What if every single day she said, “Dad, are you going to get me dinner tonight?” That would be offensive. “I love you, Lily. You’re my daughter. Of course I’m going to…,” you know. And so, when we worry, it’s an offense to who God is as our father. I think in understanding that it allows us to move forward going, “God, I don’t want to worry. I don’t want to assault your provision as a good God.” When we are worried, when it becomes a sin, it is what we do with it. If we cast them on the Lord, 1 Peter 5:7, “cast all your anxieties on Him.” That’s not sin. That’s what we need to do. But when we carry them rather than cast them, that is sinful.
Dale Johnson: Let me emphasize that because I think that’s a perfect way to describe some of the distinction in worry in the context of how Paul may use it in two different ways. The Bible’s very face forward in describing that we will, in a cursed world, have cares. We will have worries. We will have difficulties and struggles and sufferings and whatnot and they breed in us as sinful, fallen, finite beings, this worry. The big question is: are we taking those worries and trying to depend on ourself to fulfill these things? Or are we taking those cares and concerns to the Lord? 1 Peter 5:7 is the perfect text to describe that. We don’t have to be afraid of the worries that we may have or the cares and concerns that we may have. What are we doing with them? Where are we taking them, right? This is the teaching of Philippians 4:6-8. This is the teaching of 1 Peter 5:7. Where are we taking this? You mentioned the paralyzing effect of worry and sometimes we’re afraid to admit that the worry we have is sort of like anger. The Bible tells us, “Be angry and sin not.” People differ on this. Some people say you can be angry and not sin. But most of the anger that we have as individuals is very sinful.
Worry is probably the same, right? And as we think about this, we’re afraid to admit that worry is sin because we experience it so much. We find ourselves being paralyzed by it. Talk a little bit about how admitting that this worry consistently, when we’re putting so much pressure on ourselves, internalizing, as you described. How can it actually be liberating when we admit that this is sinful? Because now, there’s something we can do about it. Talk a little bit about how liberating that can be to admit that this is sinful.
Jonny Ardavanis: Well, it’s liberating because if Jesus says, don’t be anxious—Margaret Clarkson once said that God’s commands are His enablings. God has never commanded you to do anything that He does not through the power of His spirit enable you to obey. Which means if you’re a Christian, blood bought by Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, you don’t have to be worried. That’s a promise. That’s a truth you can cling to. If you’re crippled by worry and you’re a Christian, this is a command that God enables you to obey through the power of His spirit.
And I think understanding worry to be sin is may be a place to start, but it’s not a place to stop. And we talked about this previously, but there are two different sides—maybe even in the Christian world— of how people approach the subject of worry as it relates to sin. Jesus says, “don’t be anxious, snap out of it, grow up, be a big boy, bottom line, stop it.” Right? The other side would be like, “Hey, let’s really dive into all the reasons why you’re anxious and maybe never provide a biblical basis for: why this does grieve the heart of God?”
One of the things that Jesus does is He issues a prohibition, but then He provides all of the reasons why we should not be anxious. That’s why memory verses sometimes, Dale… As people come up and say, “What’s your favorite verse on anxiety?” Well, that’s just a terrible way to think biblically speaking. And you know, Jesus says, don’t be anxious. And then He goes into drawing their attention to the reasons why they should trust in God.
Because we’ve talked about this. You can’t just stop being worried. You have to have something stronger that provides you with the confidence and peace you need. What’s the antidote? Or what’s the opposite of worry? It’s not not worry—it’s peace that surpasses all understanding.
So, Jesus says, “don’t be worried.” And He’s not going up and down a line saying, “what are you worried about, Bob? Okay, that’s fair. What are you worried about? Grow up. That’s nothing.” He says, “whatever you’re worried about…” And then He draws their attention to the birds, to the lilies, and to the character of God. You mentioned Philippians 4:6-8, right? Be anxious for nothing. That’s an imperative. But by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving—big idea there that thanksgiving is its own antidote to anxiety. Because not only do we meditate on the character of God, we thank Him that those realities are true because thankfulness is the stamp and seal. So with thanksgiving, let our requests be made known to God. And then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
And then here’s the memory verse that we disassociate from anxiety. “Therefore, whatever is true, noble, excellent, lovely, beautiful, dwell on these things,” right? So, he doesn’t just he say, “don’t be anxious and oh yeah, there’s this other thing about dwelling on the truth of God.” No, those are conjoined realities. So, it’s a great place to start by understanding what it is that it’s liberating. But once you understand you have a problem, only then do you seek the remedy. And the diagnosis of Scripture is yes, sin grieves, worry grieves the heart of God. It is sin. Now you can know that God doesn’t just tell you to snap out of it. He tells you to dwell on His character as we’ve talked about previously, which I think is important to kind of bring back into the conversation.
Dale Johnson: If you think about it, our tendency when maybe this is why we are afraid in some ways is to admit that our insistent worries, cares and the way we internalize them is sinful. We find ourselves operating the same way as Adam and Eve. When they sin, what did they do? They retracted from God, they go hide from God, right? So, their tendency is to walk away, run from God, move away from Him. We find ourself doing that as well.
The reality—that you talk about in the book that when these things happen—is actually an invitation of God. I want you to describe how every opportunity of worry or every situation, maybe that’s a better way to describe it, where we feel worry, or a circumstance that leads us to be worried. How do you see that as an invitation to draw closer to the Lord?
Jonny Ardavanis: Yeah, you know, if there was nothing in our life that we were ever worried or anxious about, there would be no reason to flee to God as a refuge. I love Psalm 46. You’re familiar with it, God is our refuge and our strength. Now if you were your own refuge in and of yourself, you would never run to God as a refuge. If you had all the strength you need in and of yourself, you would never depend on Him for strength. If you were self-sufficient, you would never flee to Him as your ever-present help in times of trouble. So all of these different insufficiencies, all of our worries, all of our anxieties are invitations to flee to God, right? To fly to Him.
That’s the whole book of Psalms, right? Like when I am afraid, I’ll trust in you, you know, like you have that language. And so, when we realize that we need someone stronger than us, you know, Paul would have never learned to say, “God’s grace is sufficient for me,” unless he had first learned by means of the thorn in the flesh to acknowledge his own insufficiency. And in recognition of his own insufficiency, there is this invitation to depend on an alien source of grace and power. And I think Paul looks back gratefully upon that.
So, that’s why I say it’s an invitation because sometimes when life is going swimmingly, we’re not crying out for God, “Oh Lord, deepen my faith,” right? I mean, what are the most refining seasons of your life? It’s in the furnace of affliction. It’s when we are worried. And I think one of the gifts that God gives His people is He uses worries and anxieties, even suffering to wean us from this world, to remind us that this world is not our home.
So, it doesn’t only invite us into a meditation upon the character of God, but it prompts us to consider that this world is not our home. You know, when we think this world is our home, the more we’re going to be anxious about it. But Jesus says, don’t lay up treasure here, moths eat, things rust, robbers steal. And even that is a gift from God to go. It’s an invitation not only to consider His character, but to consider the reality of your future home.
And that’s the way I end the book is by talking about the hope of heaven, because so often we want answers for our anxiety in the here and now. And there’s an element where God wants you to be heavenly minded and He uses even that suffering, maybe those things just as a tuning fork. This world is not our home. This world is not our home. This world is not our home.
Dale Johnson: Yeah. So that we wouldn’t rest in ourselves, but rest in Him, right? That’s really the picture. I want to talk about that occasion, because you mentioned affliction, suffering, those terms. Those really are occasions—the sufferings, the afflictions that we walk through in this world. In James 1 and Romans 5, Scripture describes this as a consistent theme in Scripture with the suffering that we experience and in our natural sinful tendencies, we want to retract from God. You just talked about this concept of invitation.
I want you to describe, and maybe this would help us to see God as most inviting, when we think about how God responds in our suffering or to our suffering, and maybe understanding the character of God. Because when people suffer, they start to question the character of God. They start to question His goodness. Knowing God responds in a particular way to our suffering, how is that inviting, as you just described? In relation to the character of God, the fatherhood of God toward us, just talk about that invitation a little bit.
Jonny Ardavanis: On a quest of brevity, I never want to maybe negate the tenderness of the way that I would approach the subject of people that are suffering. I have done funerals and this week, someone in my own life, you know, another miscarriage, another miscarriage. And so, I always want to be mindful of the people listening that, yeah, God is sovereign, and suffering is used by God. And I would want to encourage someone that is suffering to just kind of look at these things from a biblical perspective, that suffering has been the hallmark of God’s people. Obviously, you read in Ecclesiastes, it’s good to also enjoy the life God has given us. I’m not trying to paint maybe an unrealistic picture of someone. In Psalm 104, He makes the rain to fall on the grass so that cattle eat it so we can eat steak. You know, so life maybe isn’t all of that. But when you consider just the suffering of this world, I think as far as the invitations into the character of God, I would say it’s also an invitation into the intimacy with God. And we’ve talked about this in regards to self-sufficiency and our dependency on Christ.
But let’s just use Romans 8:28 as an example, that God is working everything out for His glory and our good. People maybe acknowledge that, and I think they have a total misconception of the good that God is working everything out towards. I think sometimes people come up and say, “hindsight’s 20-20, you’re going to see why God did this in 10 years.” That is an idea that is totally divorced from the Scripture. You might, right? But you have to ask the question: What is the good God is working everything towards? What is the invitation? Well, you have to read the next verse.
For all those God born new, He predestined, Romans 8:29, to be conformed into the image of His son. So again, what’s the good God is working everything out that is for His glory and your good? Well, the plan for your good is that you be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. And the way that you’re conformed into the image of Jesus Christ is often through the furnace of affliction, different trials, sometimes little, sometimes big. Elizabeth Elliot defined suffering as anything you have that you don’t want and anything you don’t have that you do want. So, it could be big, it could be small, but don’t try to compare your trial to someone else’s trial. But God uses those things. And if your objective isn’t Christlikeness, you’re never going to find joy in the midst of trials.
Paul says, “We’re sorrowful yet always rejoicing,” because James says we can rejoice in trials because he knows that the testing of our faith produces perseverance, perseverance character, and ultimately we are being transformed. So, it’s not just an invitation to trust; It is the mechanism by which we are transformed. And sometimes people want to have peace, but don’t want to be changed into the image of Jesus Christ.
But the only way you’re going to have peace as a Christian in the midst of the storm is when you realize the storm is being used by God so that you realize the weight of the anchor that is Jesus Christ. But not only that, so that you become like Him. And I think that’s really important because previously we said, “God, take away my anxiety.” Sometimes, I think people just don’t want to be anxious. But if your prayer is not, “Oh Lord Jesus, make me like yourself,” I think then you lose sight of maybe even what the suffering is intended by God to accomplish, which Acts 14:22, through many tribulations, we’re going to enter the kingdom of God.
So, I’d want to encourage someone, and this is easier said than acknowledged, right? My wife, you know, we’ve gone through trials, different people have gone through trials, and I would say I have to cling to the promise. And I’ve acknowledged the reality that it is in those times where the Lord reminds me this world’s not my home and I want to be more like Him. I’m drawn into deeper levels of intimacy with Him. I would say my prayer life with my wife was drastically affected by a difficult season we walked through. So, that would be not only the invitation to dwell, but the invitation to be transformed as well.
Dale Johnson: I want to go a little bit different direction, that same sort of theme as you talk through that. You gave some really important concepts there. So, if you’re listening on YouTube or something like that, hit the back button a couple of times and re-listen to some of the things Jonny just mentioned. I think some of those concepts, they’re the hooks that we hang our life on.
I want to go a little bit in a different direction, Jonny. I think some people dismiss the value of the character of God as it’s revealed in moments when we feel anxious. In the book, you talk a little bit about the I Am statements. God reveals Himself in this way in the Old Testament, I Am. Jesus, in the New Testament, the series that really a major structure of the book of John, Jesus is using the same idea. He’s saying, this is who I Am. Talk about how understanding Christ in this way, His revelation of Him being God, really helps us to understand not just His nature, but how to trust in Him with very raw, real things like our emotions and our experiences because we are so guilty of disconnecting these sort of objective, truthful statements that God reveals about Himself, Jesus reveals about Himself, as if they’re not helpful in the raw emotional states that we find ourselves in or when real experiences are happening. In the book, I think you do a good job of helping us to see that. Just tie some of those concepts together.
Jonny Ardavanis: Yeah. Regarding the names of God, Shakespeare once asked, what’s in a name? He’s drawing our attention to the arbitrary nature of names in the world in which we live. For example, you could be a great guy named John. You could be a serial killer named John. John in no way reflects who you are. It’s also important to recognize that God’s name is not God. That’s His title. That’s what He is. But His names in the Scripture reflect who He is, because names in the Scripture are representative and consummate of the character of the one who wields that name.
So, let’s go back to Moses. We talked about Moses. He’s an anxious guy and he’s fearful over the prospect of going to Pharaoh. And he says, I can’t go. God says, who made man’s mouth? The first question Moses asks is when they ask me who sent me, what should I tell him your name is? This is interesting. I mean, Moses is crippled by anxiety. He’s 80 years old. You watch Prince of Egypt and he’s like this really good looking dude. No, he’s 80 years old, okay.
And he says, when they ask me what your name is, what should I tell them? And God responds, by saying, tell them my name is I Am. Now, what does this even mean? Well, I think there’s a thrice important, three things maybe underneath that structure that we need to understand. When God says His name is I Am, it draws our attention to one, His eternal nature, right? We sing songs like you’re the everlasting God. We’re so used to it. But one of the things that God draws our attention to, even in the understanding of His name is that He is a God who had no beginning. He tells Moses, I Am the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You know, we’re like, okay, sweet, big deal. We know that. But God wants Moses to think about it. Pharaoh is the most powerful man in the world. And God tells him, well, I’m the eternal God. You can put this big Pharaoh, no matter how big you think he is against the backdrop of my eternality, and that’ll immediately dwarf him.
Moses writes one Psalm. I love this. How does he begin? Well, he begins with what God told Him at the burning bush, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations before the mountains were born or ever you gave birth to the earth and to the sea from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.” Moses begins his Psalm with the eternality of God. It just stumbles off the tip of our tongue. But for Moses, this was a game changer because in our life we think, “oh man, how’s God going to salvage this situation?” Well, God’s been in control for all of eternity past. His name being I Am also speaks to his self-sufficiency. When Moses is interacting with God at the burning bush, interestingly, we call it that, but the bush wasn’t burning at all. It was a bush that was burning yet not consumed.
You know, when I start a fire, you start a fire, we have to throw more fuel, more wood on the fire, or it’ll go out. Not with this bush that Moses encounters. And this speaks to the nature of God. God is not simultaneously trying to meet His own needs as He attends to ours. All of our needs are met by a God who has no needs within Himself. Now we sometimes use that this guy’s attention is divided. He’s a multitasker. God’s not a multitasker. So, He’s self-sufficient, He’s eternal, and all of these things are in His names.
Now, this is an invitation, but God also reveals Himself in different names in different places that represent other elements of His character. For example, in Genesis 16, you have this scene where Hagar calls God “El Roi.” It’s used once in the Scripture, but I love it. She says, “you are the God, El Roi, who sees Agar is hiding there under a tree.”
Sometimes we know that God is big and He upholds the universe, but sometimes we forget that He sees me. So, He’s both this eternal, self-sufficient God, but He’s also the God who knows every hair on our head, every freckle, every nook and cranny of our hidden heart. So that’s God, El Roi. You have Jehovah Jireh. He’s the God who provides.
And what’s interesting—and this is big—is that these are names by which God identifies Himself. So, you’re talking application. Whatever your idea of God is, as you’re listening, watching, I would want you to know that God cares so much about you acknowledging and trusting and leaning into His provision that one of His names is, I will provide. I think that’s cool. I think that’s awesome. I think it’s not just that God is willing to provide, it’s that He so longs and desires to make His people know that. That’s what He says, “call me this.” You know, He’s jealous for His glory, he says, “call me El Kana.” He’s El Shaddai because He’s almighty. And in the New Testament, we have different names that represent these realities as well. Jesus says, I’m the good shepherd, as I’ll care, nurture, guide for you.
So, what’s the invitation here? What’s the application? Well, again, if you view God as a subject, you will never trust Him. If you view God as a person who reveals Himself as a King and as a Father and as a Shepherd and as the God who sees and provides to meet your every need, then it changes the way you view God and you’re drawn in the deeper levels of intimacy with Him. And intimacy is the fountain of trust.
You can never trust someone you don’t know. Bottom line, you can only trust a God you deeply know. And so I think sometimes we put the cart before the horse. We say, “God, help me to trust you.” But we don’t ever intend to be drawn into the deeper levels of intimacy with Him. But we need to be drawn in the deeper levels of intimacy so that we go, “Oh, God is so credible. He’s so faithful time and time again. Look how He reveals Himself. Look at these stories of Scripture.” So that would be my medium-length answer, I guess.
Dale Johnson: And I think we can read a little bit more about that in the book. One final question. I really want to get to this. Often with anxiety and worry, we feel as we talked about, sort of not an invitation to come to the Lord. We often feel like we need to move away. And some of that comes because we feel regret. We feel shame. We feel guilty. And when Jesus rebukes it, we hear that Jesus rebukes, you know, to not worry that tomorrow has enough trouble of its own.
We hear those concepts from Jesus, and we have a tendency maybe to fret more, regret more and feel more shameful. Why do I want to come to the Lord when I feel worse, and His rebuke makes me feel even worse? Talk a little bit about how we should process those emotions like shame, regret, guilt when we experience fear, worry, yet Jesus rebukes it. How should we process that?
Jonny Ardavanis: That’s a great question. So glad you asked. I would say, first of all, the reality of Scripture is 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, He is, not He was. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I love that it doesn’t say most unrighteousness. My friend Eric sometimes says that Satan wins if you believe that God has forgiven you of 99% of your sin. So, I love that word all.
So, we confess this as unto the Lord and we trust. What if I don’t feel like He forgives me? Well, then that’s a lie from the devil because He does if, if you’re in Christ and you’ve confessed that sin, then He does. And that’s why I love the song that goes, “When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there who made an end of all my sin.”
You mentioned sin and you also mentioned shame. And I think sometimes we disassociate those. But one of the things that I love about the Scripture is that on the cross, Jesus not only bore our sin, He bore our shame. I think too, that you can relinquish all that and give it to Jesus Christ, knowing that He was shamed on the cross. And so I think too, one of the things that maybe, Dale, I make the argument of in my book is sometimes we try to process through these thoughts in isolation. We’re anxious and alone. So, we read a book alone. So, we listen to a podcast alone. Faith is fostered in the family of God. And so, part of even these feelings of like, “I feel so much sin and shame,” that’s where the body of Christ comes around you and says, you’re forgiven, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. You’re in Christ. Your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. Jesus died for that sin. And He wants you to dwell on the perfect righteousness of Christ that now envelops you because of the imputed righteousness that you received by faith. And so that’s where the body of believers is so important.
I think sometimes because we live in such an individualistic, isolated world, it’s really hard to grow in our faith because we, one, don’t even acknowledge that worry is wrong individually. And then we try to overcome it individually because it may not affect other people. But I think this is part of the reason why we confess it. And then we have other people that acknowledge that, no, Jesus forgives. Let me help you. Let me point you to Scripture as well, because I can’t live the Christian life alone. And I think particularly with this struggle or any struggle, whether it’s sexual purity or anxiety or whatever it is. We need to in our churches—I’m a pastor and in our church amd I want to remind my people: you need the people of God, so that you might be conformed into the image of God. It’s not just you and your Bible. That’s great. Right? Obviously. Don’t hear me wrong. But that’s why I have people in my life that say, “Jonny, anything you need to confess that I can point you towards the grace of God.”
Dale Johnson: So helpful. What you just did with the gospel. When we talk about bringing the gospel into everyday life, what Jonny just described is exactly the usefulness and beauty of the gospel and its freedom for us.
And several things for us to take away, Jonny, and so grateful for you, your work at Stonebridge Bible Church and you’re leading of Dial-in Ministries, a wonderful ministry that you’re leading, giving some teaching, just like you talked about today. And then one of the most important things is your book, Consider the Lilies. So grateful for the work and labor that you put into it, the carefulness with which you bring the beauty of Scripture into the lives of people right where they are in their hurting and their fears and their worries and their anxieties. And you’re really applying the balm of Scripture to the open wounds that we experience consistently.
So, I highly recommend this book, Jonny. Thanks for being with us. And I hope our listeners will get a copy and read it and enjoy it.
Jonny Ardavanis: Thank you so much for having me on, Dale. I pray it’s a blessing.
