Faith: The Cure for Worrying

Joel Hayworth

Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

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Transcript

Introduction

40% of Americans say that they have persistent stress or excessive anxiety that interferes with their daily lives. 28% of Americans have had an anxiety or panic attack, yet only 9% of Americans have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. We are a nation or worriers. We stress over all sorts of things, in general. Some of those things include: deadlines, bosses, interpersonal relationships, and dealing with issues/problems. Both men and women experience stress and anxiety. Regardless of your background, history, work environment or age chances are you have experienced stress. Maybe that is you right now. Maybe you are worrying about a relationship or a situation at work. Maybe you are stressed out about how you are going to make ends meet this month at home. Maybe you just found out that you and your spouse are expecting and you are being told what to do by hundreds of people and you are simply stressed out.

We’ve all been there. It’s interesting to see the ways that people deal with stress, though. Statistics say that men and women deal with stress and anxiety in different ways. Men are more likely to use illegal drugs and exert physical energy (like boxing, lifting weights, running) while women are more likely to talk to family/friends about the issue or stress eating in order to deal with stress. Some of the ways that men and women handle stress similarly include consuming extra caffeine, abusing over the counter medication and consuming alcohol more than normal.

The world tries to handle stress and anxiety by doing more things. The world says that if you’re stressed then you need to try this or try that. While there are certainly some people out there suffering with genuine disorders that require clinical help, as Christians we know the Bible shares some great words about worry and its cure: Faith in God. There are some things, in fact many things, that are out of our control. In those situations we have a choice: trust in God or try to handle the situation on our own power. Many times, even as Christians, we choose the latter option and deceive ourselves by saying that the issue is “small” and that we can handle it on our own.

Jesus continues in His Sermon on the Mount in and addresses how His followers should handle worrying. They should seek the Kingdom of God, not worry about tomorrow and trust in the Lord.

If you’re dealing with stress today, if you’re worrying about a situation today, if you’re anxious about what tomorrow holds, pause. Look at the cross. Listen to Jesus’ teaching in this passage and run to the Father. Cast your cares on Him because He cares for His children.

Matthew 6:25 NASB95

Matthew 6:26–28 NASB95

26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,

Matthew 6:25

Matthew 5:26–28 NASB95

26 “Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent. 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; 28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:26-

Matthew 6:29–30 NASB95

29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!

Matthew 6:29-30

Matthew 6:31-32

Matthew 6:25–34 NASB95

25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:31–32 NASB95

31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

Matthew 6:33–34 NASB95

33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Trust God to take care of your immediate needs (25-30)

For many of us, it is one thing to say to one another that God is in control and for us to genuinely believe that truth whenever push comes to shove. Danny Akin notes that the great battles of Christian life are often fought in our minds. This is the case when it comes to worrying. We know that God is in control. We read it in Scripture and we have experienced it in our lives, but for whatever reason we have difficulty transitioning that head knowledge into heart knowledge in the heat of the battle. This is such a big deal, friends. Because what is at the root of worrying for a Christian? At the root of worrying is a failure to believe that God is in control or that God is able to come through. At the root of worrying is unbelief. The cure to this condition is to understand that God takes care of His children.

Jesus continues His Sermon on the Mount with yet another present imperative as He says, “do not be worried.” This is a call for us to constantly and continually stop worrying about life. This is a big thing to trust in, is it not? Christ doesn’t just want you to believe and trust in His ability to help you out with the big ticket items, but rather a call for you to cry out to Him and trust that He is able to take care of your immediate needs right now, today!

One of the examples Jesus uses in this sermon is to show how the birds of the sky are fed by God. There are seasons of harvest and drought, but through thick and thin God provides. If He provides for and cares for birds and animals, how much more do you think He will provide and does provide for His most precious creation: us?! Just as Christ declared in the Lord’s prayer, we are to depend upon God to meet our daily needs. There is no need to worry about big ticket items or immediate concerns because we know full and well that our God will provide and that He works all things together for our good according to . With that said, let’s look at the extreme position. Does this mean that we should never care about things and go throughout life with a very lackadaisical attitude? Of course not! It’s a fine line to walk, tells us

Colossians 3:17 ESV

17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

We are called to care and do everything we do to the best of our ability in order to glorify Christ but we are also not supposed to worry because worry takes our eyes off of God. Verse 27 reminds us that worry cannot and does not add time to our lives. The answer to verse 27 is obvious. We ca not add a single moment to our lives. Worrying about a week, month or year from now is fruitless and pointless. Worrying affects our quality of life but it does not add to the overall length of our life. So, as Christians we trust in the Lord daily. Every step of the way. Whenever we get too far ahead of His plan we backtrack and we go wherever He leads. God knows what we are going through, friends. The book of Job shows us that our days are numbered and known by God

Job 14:5 NASB95

5 “Since his days are determined, The number of his months is with You; And his limits You have set so that he cannot pass.

1 Samuel tells us that the Lord gives life and also brings death

1 Samuel 2:6 NIV

6 “The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up.

reminds us that the Lord is in control and knows all things about us, even before we were born

Psalm 139:16 NASB95

16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.

Charles Quarles notes, “A person’s survival depends on divine sovereignty, not human anxiety.” Does God make accidents? Nope! He knows who we are. He knows what we need and He loves His children! He will give us whatever we need to make it through the situation we find ourselves in.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you genuinely made a mistake that caused a great amount of stress to fall on your plate? Have you ever forgotten something extremely important that led to a consequence of sorts? Growing up my parents were always the type of people who would show up 15-30 minutes before they were supposed to be somewhere. They were very punctual and that’s something that they instilled in myself as well. One summer evening, though, I was watching some tv downstairs getting ready for a baseball game later that night. I thought the game was at 7pm but it was 6:45 and my parents were still in their room. As a result I ran upstairs and opened the door only to find the two of them asleep. Kids, believe it or not there was a time before cell phones where you set an alarm with your alarm clock rather than on your cell phone. As a result, they forgot to set the alarm clock and simply overslept. We got ready in a couple of minutes and I was able to get to the game right in the nick of time, but I was stressing out because mom and dad forgot to set their alarm clock.

There are times in our lives where we feel stressed and we might even wonder aloud if God has made a mistake and if He forgot to set His alarm clock. In the “waiting” times, we are prone to worry and wonder. Don’t fall victim to this, friends. He’s in control. He doesn’t make mistakes. He has not forgotten about you!

Christ continues by mentioning clothing in verses 28-30. The average American has 103 items of clothing in their closet right now. The average American spends $1,700 on cloches annually. Clothing is a big deal and Americans are notorious for having lots of clothes! The situation was much different for the 1st century world. Whenever Jesus talks about the people being worried about clothing, this would have been a legitimate concern for many people because the average 1st century Israelite didn’t have a lot of clothing to choose from. Just as there was little money to waste back then on clothing, we know that billions of people live in our world today with little more than the clothes that they wear on their back presently.

Christ answers this concern by showing that the flowers naturally grow in the field. God provides for them. They do nothing, they simply grow. Christ looks to Solomon, the great king of old, and notes the wonderful clothing he had but even it could not compare to that of the wild flowers that God clothes. Do you see the point Jesus is arriving at here? Verse 30 spells it out for us. God clothes the grass of the field. The grass will come and go in the blink of an eye. The grass has no eternal value tied up with it, yet God cares for it. How much more do you think God will take care of you, His beloved child? How much more do you think He will walk with you in your time of need and help you out in the midst of your suffering? We are created in the image of God, we are His greatest creation whom He dearly loves. He will surely help us out.

Christ concludes this section with 4 powerful but direct words: “You of little faith.” The word for little faith in the Greek is “oligopistos” and it appears 4 times in Matthew. Each time it shows the doubt in the eyes of the person (Peter walking on water, the disciples on the stormy sea, Jesus providing food for them). Worrying is energized by little faith. Small faith leads to worry. This does not mean that there aren’t good, genuine, legitimate reasons to ever worry: there certainly are! But, as Christians we must know and tell ourselves that God is greater than our worry. To worry and focus on our worry is actually unbelief. At the core of worry is believing that God is unable to come through and provide. We can call it tension, anxiety, worry, stress, these are real genuine things, but friends God provides. We rest comfortably in the fact in the good and bad times. As we discussed a couple of months ago in the book of Daniel, don’t have a fearful faith or a conditional faith, have an “even-if” faith that trusts in God regardless of the outcome just as the Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego were willing to lose their lives in order to stand against Nebuchadnezzar. They did not have “little faith”, they had “Even-If” faith. The same principle should exist in our lives. Don’t have “little faith”, have an “Even-If” faith!

Trust God to take care of your worries (31-32)

Verses 31-32 continue by showing how God will take care of our worries, big and small. James Merritt notes, “Worrying never solved a problem, never dried a tear, never lifted a burden, never removed an obstacle. It never made bad things good, or good things better.” Jesus shows how God provides for the animals and the grass so for us of “little faith” we should not worry either. Whenever we find out some life changing news, how do we react? Understandably we can be concerned and taken aback by the news, but what do we do after that? Do we trust in God’s plan and His power or do we worry about how everything will work out? Friends, worrying about these types of things is foolish. It is absurd. God hears, sees and knows everything. He is all powerful, so why on earth would we worry about what we’re going through? Christ commands His followers in verse 31 to not be anxious. Don’t worry. Yet, we are professional worriers. Why is this the case?

I have a couple ideas why:

We think that we are in control. Whenever we do not believe that God is in control then it follows that we are in control. If we are in control and something bad happens to us then we worry about what we can do to make things work. A teacher who depends on her pay check to pay bills will no doubt worry whenever snow days come up and cause that pay check to shrink and shrink. In these situations we try to make ends meet by doing other things to earn money or cut back on expenses. This is doable, but imagine you go to the doctor and are told that you have stage 4 cancer. If you think that you’re in control then this news completely wrecks your life because you’re no longer in control. There is a force that is more powerful than your will that will claim your life. You can fight it but you will most likely lose. This is the reason many people worry, because there are things out there that are simply beyond our control and it reminds us that we are not and have never been in control.

We don’t know Scripture as well as we should. Scripture shows us that there is one person in control and it is not us. It is God. We see that to be true from Genesis through Revelation. The world says that we are good on our own and that we can work our way to heaven. In fact, there probably isn’t even a hell because everyone gets to heaven. The Bible tells us that we are wicked, sinners and without hope based on our works. On the surface level this should give us reason to worry and be anxious, but the cross eliminates the need to worry! Christ won for us the victory. So stop worrying! Trust in God to take care of your worries. Look to the cross and have the confidence that Paul talks about in Philippians

Philippians 4:19 NASB95

19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

In the words of John MacArthur, “When we think like the world, and crave like the world we will worry like the world. The faithful, trusting, and reasonable Christian is anxious for nothing.” God provides, friends, trust in Him to meet your needs big and small! Just as God provided for His people in Scripture, we believe that He will provide for us today!

Trust God to take care of your future concerns (33-34)

Jesus gives a present imperative to show His followers to seek first the kingdom. Seek first God’s rule above all things in our life and things will work themselves out. Just as Jesus said in the Beatitudes, blessed are those who long for righteousness. Simply do this and our lives will work themselves out because our wants and desires are reoriented to the way that God see’s things. As we seek God, our entire lives change and He takes care of us. Spurgeon noted, “Seek God first and the rest will follow in due course.” That’s our call, friends! Anyone can seek God when its convenient and when it is the norm for the culture. When it’s popular. That’s when its easy to trust in Him. It is hard to trust in the Lord completely when the rubber meets the road because our human tendency tells us that we need to do things on our own. Even as Christians we have the temptation to use one eye to trust in the Lord and the other to look to our own ability/power. That’s not what we are called to do, though.

Life is more than food and clothing

The birds of the air work and count on God

Anxiety doesn’t get you anywhere

God delights to adorn things

Unbelievers are anxious about food/clothing

Your heavenly Father knows your needs

God will carry your burdens if you seek His honor

Tomorrow will be anxious for itself

Louie Giglio, pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta Georgia has long been a ministry mentor of mine ever since I heard his message entitled, “Indescribable.” Giglio, like myself, is fascinated by the stars and the cosmos (universe). The universe is huge. So huge, in fact, that we have no idea just how big it is! Our sun is roughly 1 million times the size of the earth. If the earth were a golf ball you could fill up an entire school bus of earths and that is roughly how many earths that would fit inside the sun. Did you know that there are stars out there that are significantly bigger than our sun, though? There is a star 427 light years away called Betelgeuse that is 262 trillion times the size of the earth. If the earth were the size of a golf ball, Betelgeuse would be the size of 6 empire state buildings stacked on top of one another. There are bigger stars, though! Mu Cephei could hold 2.7 quadrillion earths and if the earth were a golf ball, Mu Cephei would be as wise as 2 Golden Gate Bridges. Another. Canis Majoris “the Big Dog” nearly 5,000 light years from the earth, is 7 quadrillion times the size of our planet! If the earth were a golf ball, Canis Majoris would be the equivalent of Mount Everest! Friends we are small. God is big! God is the creator. What does Scripture tell us, though? We are special. We are created in His image. He loves us. He knows the number of hairs on our head. God knows us deeply. He see’s our fears, our wrongs, our struggles, our questions/doubts, our dreams, our motives and our needs. Why worry whenever we are known and loved by the star breathing King of Kings?

Verses 33-34 are the basis for the final 2 reasons. (If Time Is Short) Jesus gives a present imperative to show His followers to seek first the kingdom. Seek first God’s rule above all things in our life and things will work themselves out. Just as Jesus said in the Beatitudes, blessed are those who long for righteousness. Simply do this and our lives will work themselves out because our wants and desires are reoriented to the way that God see’s things. As we seek God, our entire lives change and He takes care of us. Spurgeon noted, “Seek God first and the rest will follow in due course.” That’s our call, friends! Anyone can seek God when its convenient and when it is the norm for the culture. When it’s popular. That’s when its easy to trust in Him. It is hard to trust in the Lord completely when the rubber meets the road because our human tendency tells us that we need to do things on our own. Even as Christians we have the temptation to use one eye to trust in the Lord and the other to look to our own ability/power. That’s not what we are called to do, though.

Whenever we face a difficult situation at work, school or with our health we seek the Kingdom of God first. We know that God is able to help us out and that He works all things together for our good, even if that thing looks bad. So, don’t worry about tomorrow. But also don’t go throughout life with no cares at all. This is the delicate balance we walk as Christians. We care and we do our best, but we leave the rest up to God knowing that He is ultimately in control. Danny Akin puts it well whenever he says, “Stop worrying and start seeking. Stop worrying about your little kingdom and start seeking God’s big kingdom first. Nothing about this is passive or indifferent. Be active and be aggressive. Go for God and His Kingdom with all you have and watch Him care of everything you need.”

Verse 34 concludes this chapter with a reminder that God calls us to live for Him each and every day. Just as we pray for our daily bread, we trust in Him to provide each and every day. We live for Him each and every day. This is a daily decision we make. As a result, we shouldn’t focus on what tomorrow holds, rather we know that God takes us one step at a time. As DA Carson notes, “If there will be new troubles tomorrow, so also will there be fresh grace.”

In the good and bad times there will always be a tendency to worry

Conclusion

*Giglio story if times permits*

In the good and bad times there will always be a tendency to worry. As Christians, though, we are called to simply believe and have faith that God will provide. Whenever we believe this with every fiber in our being, the need to be anxious and worry goes away and is replaced with a peace that can only be explained as something given to us by God. It is a peace that surpasses all understanding as notes

Philippians 4:7 NASB95

7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

There are times where we worry and there are people out there who genuinely have a mental situation where they worry more often than others. This is not an indicator that this person is not a Christian or less of a Christian than someone else, it simply means that we are wired differently. With that said, even to the person with a clinically diagnosed anxiety disorder, look to the cross. God took care of our greatest problem there: our sin. He takes care of the grass, flowers and the tiny birds in the sky. He cares for them as well but He cares for and loves His people so much more! We can trust that God will take care of us in our daily lives. He has secured our eternal life and He holds our future in the palm of His hand. There is no need for us to be anxious about our future or to worry about today or tomorrow. God is on His throne. He is sovereign. Rest comfortably in that fact today and continue to live for Him and trust in Him in the good and bad times because He is able!

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