Sermon Tone Analysis

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

There was a man.

And one day this man said to a friend of his, “Mister.

You sure look worried”.

The man responded.

“Man I’ve got so many troubles!

If something else goes wrong today, I’ll have to wait two weeks to get around to worrying about it.

It seems today, that the more time passes the more we have to worry about.

2020 and 2021 we had a worldwide pandemic, with toilet paper shortages, and economic downturn.

2022 looks as if we are on the verge of WWIII.

I’ve said over and over, I wasn’t worried too much about 2021, cause 2020 won.

We lost lol.

I’m more worried about 2020 II or 2020 part II.

But as time passes, as we get older, we have more and more things to be worried about.

Anxiety starts to kick in, and before we know it.

We’re lying in bed, at 2am with our eyes wide open.

An if you’re anything like me, your brain is constantly moving and talking and making up scenarios.

The first time I ever went on the Hulk Roller Coaster in Universal Studios, I had to play two songs while making my way in the line.

The entire walk in the line, I was blasting 10000 reasons on my headphones.

Bless the Lord oh my soul….

Cause I could swear that the moment that Roller Coaster was going to blast off I would fly right off the seat and fall right to my doom.

The second song was while riding the Hulk itself.

John Williams Superman theme song.

Now any Roller Coaster I ride has to be with music blasting in my ear to calm my anxiety.

I and deathly afraid of heights, if I’m standing in a tall building, I can’t walk up to the edge or a window, because I feel like as I get closer to the edge, the building keeps tilting on it’s side.

We all deal with anxiety but what is it?

anx•i•ety \aŋ-ˈzī-ə-tē\ noun

plural -eties [Latin anxietas, from anxius] circa 1525

1 a: painful or apprehensive uneasiness of mind usually over an impending or anticipated ill

b: fearful concern or interest

c: a cause of anxiety

2: an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs (as sweating, tension, and increased pulse), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it

The interesting thing about anxiety, is that it falls into a couple of categories.

By the end of this message we are going to look a those categories and couple of versus on how to deal with anxiety.

Now this isn’t a 100% cure.

Sometimes anxiety goes hand in hand with mental illness and God gave some the intelligence to become Doctors and psychologists to help people with anxiety even.

But I do believe that Paul and even Jesus give us a few steps on how to deal with anxiety.

Please open your bibles to Matthew 6:25-34

In Matthew 6: 25-34 we find that Jesus says a number of times, Do not be anxious, and he speaks negatively about being anxious, so much so that he mentions it 5 times in this passage, by either saying don’t be anxious, or what good can come from being anxious.

So what are the different things that we all tend to have anxiety over.

I. Health or Physical Attributes

How many times do we not worry about our health.

How many times do we not feel that overwhelming sense of apprehension when a family member of ours is sick.

Understand that you are more valuable than the birds of the air, and God takes care of them.

Why would he not take care of you.

Will being anxious or fearful add just an hour of life to you?

No it won’t In fact it’s the exact opposite.

A study done by researchers at Harvard and Stanford has quantifying how much a stressful workplace may be shaving off life spans.

It suggests that the amount of life lost to stress varies significantly for people of different races, educational levels and genders, and ranges up to nearly three years of life lost for some groups, and in some cases up to 33 years lost.

So being anxious actually can have the opposite effect.

Instead of gaining an hour you can lose up to 3 years.

II.

Physical and Material Needs

Some people stress so much just on the way they look.

Their clothes, the styles, everything has to be just right, if not they won’t get that promotion, or so and so won’t be attracted to them, etc. Look at what Jesus said.

Hey don’t be anxious about what you will wear, the Lillies grow, they don’t toil and spin, they aren’t anxious, and Solomon wasn’t even close to looking like them, and he probably had some of the biggest fashions at the time.

He probably had the latest Camel Klein underwear.

Fun fact we get so anxious about clothing, just for it to end up in a landfill somewhere.

Landfills received 11.3 million tons of MSW(Municipal Solid Waste) textiles in 2018.

This was 7.7 percent of all MSW landfilled.

A recent report placed it at 13.1 million tons.

Why be anxious about our physical needs, or material needs.

Our heavenly father knows we need these things.

In verse 33, he says Matthew 6:33

Right here comes the first thing we have to do if we are being anxious about these two categories.

Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.

Sometimes we spend so much time looking for all these things, that in the end, there’s no space for God in our lives.

How many people have all the money in the world, all the material possessions they could ever want, but deep inside are absolutely miserable.

But Pastor Sam, if I could just win one powerball, I’ll be good.

I won’t have any more worries.

Time Magazine put out an article a couple of years ago of people that had won the lottery.

The story tells of one man who one his states powerball which was valued at 60 million.

In the years that followed his win, there were 186 open lawsuits against him.

You know that your name goes on public record if you win, so everyone and their mother wanted a piece of his 60 million prize.

The stress of courts back and forth was just too much for him he explained in the article.

It was so much that he just wanted to give it all away at some point but he couldn’t because of all the lawsuits.

At one point he gave his granddaughter a lump sum.

Enough where she wouldn’t have to work a day in her life.

He says that she got bored in college, (she didn’t need to finish, cause she wouldn’t need to work) she started partying, got into heavy drugs, and eventually she grabbed a shotgun and shot herself with it.

Why the article doesn’t explain.

I have a family member who worries so much about what hes going to feed his daughters and give them to wear that he plays the lotto every week, about $100.

I’ve always wanted to but never told him that if he had saved the weekly $100 he could have given them a nice college fund so they could at least have some of their college paid.

He wouldn’t need a lottery win.

Seek first the kingdom of God.

What does this mean, considering that over 50% of all believers live in the Two Thirds world and that a substantial amount of them live below the poverty line.

What we must consider, is not to chase after or worry after the things that we need or want.

Money, clothing, health, etc.

We need to be chasing after the King who owns it all.

The kingdom of God is the most important thing to chase after.

Everything else is bupkis.

The final thing we get anxious over

IV The Future

The future is a scary place.

Because we don’t know what it can bring.

Jesus says don’t anxious about that either.

Tomorrow will have it’s own worries.

Leave tomorrow where it is.

Tomorrow.

It’s said that 90% of what we fear, never happens.

Pastor Sam that’s all great, but what do I do?