Untitled Sermon
Fear and Anxiety
The Big Business of Anxiety
Proverbs 12:25; Matthew 6:25–34; Philippians 4:6–7; 1 Peter 5:7
Preaching Themes: Stress, Faith
What do you worry about? What is it that makes you anxious? Journalist Eric Sevareid (1912–1992) said, “The biggest business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement, and distribution of anxiety.”
The answer to anxiety, although easier to say than practice, is to replace it with trust. Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow.
—Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell
Matthew 5–7
“If you were to take the sum total of all the authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene—if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbiage—if you were to … have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount” (James T. Fisher, A Few Buttons Missing: The Case Book of a Psychiatrist [N.Y.: Lippin cott, 1951]).1525
Matthew 6:19–21
There is a story of a wealthy woman who, when she reached heaven, was conducted to a very plain house. She objected. “Well,” she was told, “that is the dwelling-place prepared for you.”
“Whose is that fine mansion across the way?” she asked.
Her guide replied, “It belongs to your gardener.”
“How is it that he has a house so much better than mine?”
“The houses here are prepared from the materials that are sent up. We do not choose them; you do that by your faithfulness while on earth.”
This may be a story, but it bears a profound truth about the “treasures” we accumulate.1528
Matthew 6:26
Said the Robin to the Sparrow:
“There is one thing I would really like to know,
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the Sparrow to the Robin:
“Friend, I think that it must be
That they have no heavenly Father
Such as cares for you and me.”1529
Money will buy:
A bed, but not sleep.
Books, but not brains.
Food, but not appetite.
A house, but not a home.
Medicine, but not health.
Amusement, but not happiness.
Finery, but not beauty.
A crucifix, but not a Savior.
WORRY
The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith; and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.
—George Muller
