Questions:

1. Fill in the blanks below from Jeremiah 17:5-9: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,  whose _____ is the Lord. ⁸ He is like a ____ planted by water, that sends out its ____ by the stream, and does not ____ when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not ________ in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
2. TRUE or FALSE:  Anxiety is powerful but not contagious.
3. The counseling concept that describes staying connected while maintaining self-clarity is called ______.
4. In the story from Galatians, what led Peter to withdraw from the Gentile believers?
5. A dispute with Paul
6. Anxiety about others’ opinions
7. A lack of food
8. Miscommunication
9. TRUE or FALSE:  Storms will never come to those who follow Christ faithfully.
10. Match the term with the description from Pastor Winan’s message (Differentiation, Jeremiah 17:5, Jeremiah 17:8, Peter in Galatians, Jesus washing feet, Isaiah 26:3, The heart from Jer. 17:9, the Lord):
11. "Cursed is the man who trusts in man"
12. "You keep him in perfect peace"
13. He is like a tree planted by water"
14. Model of a non-anxious presence
15. Anxious about others' opinions
16. Deceitful above all things
17. Our everlasting Rock
18. Staying connected while maintaining self
19. In Mark’s Gospel, when the disciples anxiously said, “Everyone is looking for you,” Jesus responded:
20. By hiding
21. With quiet strength and clarity of mission
22. With anger
23. With worry
24. The name of the Lord is a strong ______; the righteous run to it and are safe.

Discussion:

1. Read Jeremiah 17:5-9 and discuss the following questions:
2. How does Jeremiah 17:5–6 describe the person who trusts in man rather than in God?
3. Why does Jeremiah warn us not to “trust in our own hearts”? (Jeremiah 17:9).
4. Discuss how that idea (Jer 17:9) is counterintuitive to the way our world thinks.
5. According to Jeremiah 17:7–8, what kind of person experiences stability and peace?
6. Pastor Winans employed analogies to describe an anxious and non-anxious presence and to describe the sources of our emotions:
7. What does it mean to be a “thermostat” instead of a “thermometer”?
8. What does Jesus’ example in John 13 teach us about living as a non-anxious presence?
9. What are some “anchors” people often rely on instead of God? How do those anchors fail?
10. Pastor Winans described the anchor and disciplines needed to sustain us in the anchor:
11. When storms come—as Jesus promised they will—what reveals whether we’re anchored in God or in ourselves?
12. How do prayer and solitude, like Jesus practiced, help us remain anchored in God’s peace?
13. Discuss what might it look like this week for you to “set the temperature” spiritually in an anxious environment?
14. Discuss any examples from your life or others where the temperature has been set by a non-anxious, God-anchored presence vs. an anxious, world-anchored presence.
15. How can you prepare yourself to be a non-anxious presence entering a known anxious situation?
16. Discuss the need for our world to have non-anxious followers of Christ today.
17. How can we be Christ’s hands and feet to demonstrate how the Gospel is the only true anchor for a non-anxious presence?

Sermon Outline

Sermon text: Jeremiah 17:5-9

We live in an anxious age. The data confirms what we already feel—our world is increasingly gripped by fear and uncertainty. Yet as followers of Jesus, we are not called to be swept up in the anxiety or antagonism that surrounds us. We are called to be a non-anxious presence—people who carry the peace of Christ wherever we go. So as we begin this morning, let me invite you to reflect on this question:

Are you anchored in the proclamations, promises, and presence of God or are you being tossed to and fro by the emotions, the opinions, and life circumstance of others?

Do we carry the peace of Christ with us, or are we swept up in the same waves of anxiety that define the world around us? To help us think about that question, we’re turning to the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived as a non-anxious presence in a deeply anxious culture. In Jeremiah 17, we find a vivid picture of two ways of living, one marked by fear and instability, the other by rootedness and trust. In many ways, it mirrors Psalm 1, offering a contrast between the person who trusts in self and the one who trusts in the Lord. As we reflect on these verses today, we’ll be reminded that anxiety is not only powerful, it’s also contagious.

Anxiety is Contagious

When we carry anxiety into our interactions, others can feel it. Anxiety has a way of spreading. Think back to the early days of COVID, when we all had to be cautious about how close we stood to someone showing symptoms. If someone was coughing or feverish, we instinctively stepped back because we knew those symptoms were contagious. In a similar way, anxiety can spread from person to person. When we bring our worry, tension, or fear into a room, others can absorb it—sometimes without even realizing it. To show how this happens, I want to look at three settings: a workplace, a home, and finally a scene from Scripture.

We’ll begin with a simple example—a landlord informing a restaurant owner that rent will increase by forty percent.

• Landlord raises rent by 40 %. It's easy to see why such news would cause anxiety. So, how does the owner react when they visit the restaurant after learning about it?
• The owner cuts staff hours, obsessively criticizes waste without explanation. He carries the stress caused by his news into the workplace, and his symptoms start to affect those around him. Although he keeps the details to himself, others can sense the growing tension.
• Then the head chef begins to blame the cooks for every minor mistake. The owner's stress has filtered down to the head chefs and eventually reached the line cooks.
• Line cooks create a tense, silent environment. Everyone is working but no one is talking.
• Servers become impatient with the customers, which generates complaints.

Step by step, the anxiety travels—from landlord to owner, from owner to chef, from chef to cook, until it settles over everyone in the room.

Think about how this might look in a home setting. You’re at work on a project that fails—deadlines are missed, goals aren’t met, and frustration builds.

• Project fails at work; boss holds you responsible. When the problem at work is your fault, the stress doesn’t stay there. You bring home the tension and anxiety of wondering how it will affect your standing or reputation.
• You come home visibly tense and avoid discussing it with your wife. You withdraw into silence, avoiding conversation. Your wife asks what’s wrong, but you offer no answer—though it’s obvious something is troubling you.
• Your wife senses the tension and becomes irritable. She snaps at your teenage daughter about unfinished chores. As the wife internalizes that stress, she begins projecting it outward—becoming unusually critical of their teenage daughter for small, ordinary mistakes.
• Your daughter feels unfairly targeted and retreats to her room upset. The daughter feels the weight of that tension and retreats to her room, slamming the door behind her. Down the hall, her little brother sits in his room, playing music.
• She criticizes her younger brother for playing music too loud. She yells at him to turn the music down, her frustration spilling over. He snaps back, and before long, everyone in the house is caught up in the argument.

So what happened? If we trace the sequence, the fight between the siblings is simply the final symptom of something that began much earlier. The root cause is clear—anxiety is contagious.

The same dynamic appears again and again in Scripture. Anxiety moves through communities, shaping decisions and leading people away from trust in God. We see one such moment in Galatians, where Peter, while in Antioch, faces pressure among the Gentile believers.

• Peter initially eats freely with Gentile believers. He is engaging in table fellowship without restriction.
• Certain people arrive from Jerusalem and become upset about Peter ‘breaking’ Jewish food laws. They bring their uneasiness with them—their anxiety about sitting at the same table with Gentile believers.
• Peter becomes anxious about their opinion and withdraws from the community. He begins to pull away.
• Even Barnabas was ‘led astray’ withdrawing from table fellowship. Because of the pressure and anxiety stirred up by those who came from Jerusalem. But then Paul stepped forward and said, “You’re not living in line with the truth of the gospel.”

This whole situation grows out of an anxious system—one fueled by the men who came from James in Jerusalem.

Jeremiah helps us see what’s really going on: people reacting to the emotional climate around them, taking on the fear and tension others bring. One person carries the symptoms, and soon everyone else begins to share them. Jeremiah captures this truth beautifully in verse 5.

Jeremiah 17:5 – ⁵Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength.

“Cursed,” Jeremiah declares, “is the person who places their confidence in human beings—who seeks life and security from others rather than from God.” If that’s true of us, Jeremiah’s words are meant as a warning.

Jeremiah 17:6 –⁶He is like a shrub in the desert...He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

Life in the desert is fragile and reactive. It only flourishes when rain comes; when the rain stops, it goes dormant and withers away. Jeremiah is saying that when we trust in people instead of the Lord, our life becomes just like that—up and down, anxious one moment, discouraged the next. It’s a spiritual yo-yo.

When we live that way, we become like thermometers—we simply reflect the temperature of the environment around us. If the atmosphere is tense, we’re tense. If it’s anxious, we’re anxious. We absorb whatever is in the room. But God hasn’t called us to be thermometers; He’s called us to be thermostats.

A thermostat doesn’t reflect its surroundings—it sets the temperature. It influences the atmosphere instead of reacting to it. And that’s our call as followers of Christ. Every believer, in some sense, is a leader—called to bring calm where there is chaos, to bring peace where there is pressure. We are to be a non-anxious presence, inviting others to share in the peace we have in Christ. That won’t happen if we keep reacting to the anxiety around us. Our calling is to live steady, rooted, and grounded in Him.

Non-Anxious Presence

We’re not called to withdraw or detach from others. We remain present and engaged, but we do so with calm and stability. In counseling terms, this is called differentiation—the ability to maintain a clear sense of self while staying connected in relationship.

A person with high differentiation maintains a strong sense of self without being overwhelmed by the emotional state of others. – Joe Carter How to be a Non-anxious Presence

In other words, you can sit with a coworker who’s upset and truly listens with compassion—without being swept up in their panic. You can care deeply without becoming controlled by their emotion.

Or think of another situation: you feel called to serve on a mission trip, perhaps somewhere difficult—like Haiti. Those who love you most, maybe your parents, become anxious and plead, “You can’t go—it’s too dangerous.” You can feel their fear. To be differentiated means you still honor them, as the fifth commandment teaches, but you are not ruled by their anxiety. You can say, “I love you; I respect you—but I’m following God,” calmly, respectfully, and non-anxiously.

As a pastor, I have to remind myself of this often. People come with passion, ideas, and sometimes strong opinions about what I should do. My calling is to listen carefully—to understand their heart—without being taken captive by their anxiety or agenda. That’s part of staying differentiated.

But how do we actually do that? How do we maintain a strong sense of self without becoming hard or detached? Jeremiah 17 reminds us that our anchor cannot be in other people. It’s not that we stop loving or serving others—we absolutely should—but we don’t root our identity or security in their approval.

Now, some today might say, “You don’t need to anchor in other people—just be true to yourself. Look within. Follow your heart.” But Jeremiah challenges that idea. He says our hearts, left to themselves, are not steady anchors.

Jeremiah 17:9 – ⁹The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

That doesn’t sound like a very secure anchor, does it? If we’re going to be anchored so that we can live as a non-anxious presence, we can’t root our lives and identities in other people. Nor can we anchor our meaning, purpose, or identity in ourselves. So where should our anchor be? Verse 7 gives us the answer.

Jeremiah 17:7 – ⁷Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.

Our anchor—our ability to live with calm confidence and to experience, as Philippians 4:7 says, “the peace that surpasses all understanding”—will never come from being anchored in other people. It won’t come from being anchored in our own emotions or sense of self either. True peace comes only when we are anchored in the Maker of heaven and earth—our Redeemer, our Sustainer, the One who is restoring us. And so Jeremiah goes on to describe what that kind of anchoring looks like.

Jeremiah 17:8 –⁸He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.

We stand without fear, we live without anxiety, because our anchor is secure—not in others, not in ourselves, but in God alone.

Isaiah 26:3-4 – ³You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. ⁴Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

Remember what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7:24: “Blessed is the one who hears these words of Mine and does them, for he is like a man who builds his house on the rock.” Over and over again throughout Scripture, God is called our Rock. The storm comes, the wind blows, yet the house stands firm. But the one who hears these words and does not do them—the one who trusts in man or in himself—builds his house upon the sand. When the storm comes, that house collapses.

The message is simple: we don’t want to live like a boat adrift on the waves, tossed back and forth by whatever is happening around us. If the water is calm, we’re calm; if the water is rough, we’re shaken, that’s not how we’re called to live. We’re not meant to be thermometers that merely reflect our surroundings, but thermostats that set the spiritual temperature. We are to be anchored—steadfast, grounded, unmoved—because our anchor holds fast to the Rock.

If anyone tells you that believing in Christ means no more storms will come, they’re not telling you the truth. Storms will come—Jesus Himself said so. In fact, you may be standing in one right now. The question is: where are you anchored? If your anchor is in other people, or in yourself, you’re adrift at sea. But if your anchor is in the Lord, you are secure. The waves may rise, but they will not overthrow you.

And of course, the perfect picture of this is Jesus Himself. When He stooped to wash the disciples’ feet—an act that filled them with confusion and anxiety—He remained utterly calm. If you want to see a non-anxious presence, look at Jesus. He could remain peaceful in the midst of turmoil because He knew exactly who He was. His identity wasn’t anchored in the disciples; it was anchored in His Father. He was grounded in God. As John’s Gospel reminds us…

John 13:3-5 – ³Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴rose from supper...and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Jesus knew that the Father had placed all things into His hands. He knew what the Father had spoken over Him—the promises, the calling, the certainty of His mission. He knew where He had come from, and He knew where He was going. Because His identity was firmly anchored in His Father, He could live and move as a completely non-anxious presence.

For example, remember when Jesus was in a Judean town healing everyone who came to Him?

• Jesus goes off to pray before dawn after healing many in a Judean town the day before. This is a powerful model for us—showing what it truly means to be anchored in God. We are anchored in Him when we intentionally spend time with Him—when we step away into the quiet places, open His Word, and meet Him in prayer. Jesus Himself modeled this rhythm of retreat and renewal with the Father.
• That morning, the townspeople become anxious about Jesus’ whereabouts. Remember, Jesus had healed so many in that town. But soon the people grew anxious—and the disciples, sensing the tension, began to share in their anxiety.
• The disciples look for Jesus; they find Him praying alone and anxiously report: “Everyone is looking for you!” But Jesus responds with quiet strength. He isn’t drawn into their anxiety or controlled by their urgency. He simply says, in effect, “I won’t be taken captive by the anxiety of others.”
• Jesus calmly states, “Let us go elsewhere to the towns nearby, so I may preach there also, for that is why I came.

Our ability to be a non-anxious presence in an anxious world is directly tied to our location. As believers, our location is in Christ. We are united with Him, and we are called to rest in Him. As we rest in Christ, He becomes our strong tower.

Scripture reminds us of this again and again: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” How often do we read that God is our refuge? “Blessed is the one who takes refuge in the Lord.” All of this flows from the refuge we have in Christ Himself, the one to whom we turn in faith.

The greatest storm that ever faced us was the storm of our sin. Yet through faith in Jesus, we have peace with God—He has forgiven us and brought us near. But let’s not forget: the same Jesus who saves us is the One who sustains us. The same faith that brought us into His refuge keeps us there every moment of every day.

When we forget that, we can be swept up by the anxiety that surrounds us. But we are called to be different—to be salt and light, to be non-anxious bearers of the peace that surpasses all understanding. The world is desperate for that kind of peace. The question is, will it see that peace in you?

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