“Getting past the worrying”
Matthew 6:25-27 NIV.
25. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?
26. Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are?
27. And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life?
Here are some statistics off the net, concerning worry and stress:
*30% of workers suffer from back pain. *20% feel fatigued.
*13% suffer from headaches.
*Anxiety disorders cost the US more than $42 billion per year.
*19.1 million (13.3%) of the adult US population (between 18-54yrs) suffer from anxiety and panic attack.
*Forty-three percent of adults suffer adverse stress health effects.
*Two-thirds of all office visits to family physicians are due to stress-related symptoms.
*Sixty-four percent of Americans say they are taking steps to reduce stress in their lives.
*Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death—heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide.
*Stress is said to be responsible for more than half of the 550 million workdays lost annually because of absenteeism.
I’m sure there are many here this morning, that are familiar with Jesus’ rhetorical question,
“Which of you by worrying can add one hour to his life, or as the KJ. Puts it, can anyone add one cubit to his stature?”
Matt. 6:25 NKJ.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?”
Not many of us though, actually let the word get into our hearts and allow the love of God to free us from our habit of worrying.
You see there are times we all are a lot like children, ya know they hear their parents telling them what they need to know and how they need to do it.
But somehow, it always seems to go right through one ear and out the other.
The truth of the matter is this, no amount of worrying can lengthen your life or add anything to your physical person.
Instead, worrying robs you of everything. Your sleep, your health and of your time, over and over and over.
In fact, it is only when you stop the worrying that God’s anointing will flow freely in you, strengthening, healing, restoring and adding to you.
Worrying is all about what you can do, not what God can do.
Worrying keeps the infasis on you, while
trusting God takes you completely out of the picture.
When you stop trying to do it on your own and rely on Gods ability to take care of the situation,
No matter what it is, that’s when the stress stops and the resting in God’s ability starts, that’s when the peace of God takes over the situation.
During the 1800s, the French General George Muller Massena who took orders from Napoleon, arrived at a quaint and militarily important Austrian town. His 18,000 soldiers were gearing up for their invasion, as the stunned Austrian citizens were lifeless and terrified. Knowing they were about to beaten, killed, sold into slavery, or worse, they laid down plans for the counter attack.
What did they do? Since it was Easter Sunday and their upcoming deaths were imminent regardless of their defensive positioning, they went to church. Figuring their only defense was direct intervention from their Maker, they rang the church bells, put on their Sunday’s best, and worshipped the Lord.
When services ended, the Austrian prayer warriors opened the church doors to find the entire French battalion had vacated. It turns out that the French General Massena incorrectly confused the ringing of the church bells for Easter service with what he thought was the announcement of the arrival of the entire Austrian army. The city was saved, and Christ was glorified.
That’s what we should be willing to do every time, just give it over to God and let Him do the dealing with it!
And we should learn to do it, long before we have exhausted and spent ourselves worrying only to come to the same conclusion each time and every time.
We just can’t do it!, no matter how many times we try to do it on our own, without Gods help, its never going to happen!
Matt. 6 Vs. 27 NKJ.
27. And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life?
Oh, I’m sure it would be nice one might think, if life were one mountain top experience after another,
But if life were that easy, it wouldn’t require much faith, would it.
We would be able to take care of everything on our own, it’d be great!
It would just be a D.I.Y. kind of life, you know the Do It Yourself Life,
Oh I’m sorry, I almost forgot, all of humanity already thinks it is a D.I.Y. kind of life,
That’s why almost everyone is worried to death and stressed out all the time.
When we do the opposite though, and put our faith and trust in God, T.B.S.(the bible says) it doesn’t have to be that way.
His yoke is easy, His burden is light.
Thing is, there are a lot of Christians out there that know this, but choose to worry and stress themselves out anyway.
Matt 6:28-34 NKJ.
28. “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
29. and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31. “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32. For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
34. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
MSG. Matt. 6:30-33
"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?
What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving.
People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions.
Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.”
Here it is, summed up in one sentence:
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Sounds easy doesn’t it, God made it just that easy for us.
Then why does it always seem so hard to do?
Because the answer is found in seeking what God can do for you, not what you can do for you!
God tried to make as easy as possible for us, He said, Just seek after Me and My righteousness, relax sit back and watch Me do everything else!
But what about this problem that’s going on in my life, seek God and you’ll find it in the “everything else”
What about the little issues that are bugging me, seek God and you’ll find it in the “everything else”
But what about this and that, and that is to come?
Step 1: Seek God and His Righteousness
Step 2: Have faith, He will take care of it for you!
Step 3: Repeat steps 1 & 2 until your answer comes!
God made it just that easy, its our human nature that always complicates things.
We always seem to try to make things harder than what they are.
If I had a certificate, that was the law of the land and was signed by the President himself,
stamped with the nations seal and notarized and recorded as a matter of public record.
And it said this, follow these words to a stress free life: But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
If you held that document in you hand,
Would that make it any easier for you?
I can go you one better than that.
We don‘t have man’s word recorded on the subject, we have Gods word on the subject,
words that we can take hold of, stand on and believe that what He says will happen, will happen!
We don’t just have a contract written on a piece of paper, framed and hanging on the wall,
we have the covenant that God made with Abraham 1,000‘s of years ago, that includes all of his heirs and descendents forever.
Gal. 3:26-29 NKJ.
26. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
That’s us, all who believe, we are the heirs of Abraham! Through our salvation in Jesus,
When we accepted Jesus as our Saviour, we became sons and daughters and truly a part of God’s family.
What is a covenant? Well it is like a contract. Yet, it is more than a contract, it is better than a contract.
A contract is binding only for a period of time, or until certain obligations have been lived up to, but a covenant is forever.
When you realize all that God has done for us, to provide for and take care of us, it gives new meaning to our text!
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
God has more than done His part, so you don’t have to worry about what will happen next to you.
T.B.S. When you know the truth, the truth shall make you free, and God‘s word is truth.
The opposite of worry and fear is faith.
When you have worry and fear in your life, you are actually believing
that the devil has the power to make things happen in your life that God cannot protect you from.
But when you refuse to worry about how things may look in the natural,
When you seek first the kingdom of God in every situation and stop trying to do it yourself.
It’s then and only then, that you will have more confidence in His love and power working through you and for you,
than in the devil’s ability to harm you!
It seems as though he, has the shortest memory of anyone, maybe he has all timers.
He constantly forgets his defeat on the cross at the hands of Jesus
and all the benefits we enjoy and are entitled to because of it and he continually needs to be reminded of it.
Conclusion:
If you feel worry or fear coming round your doorstep, Remember these 3 simple steps.
Step 1: Seek God and His Righteousness
Step 2: Have faith that, He will take care of it for you!
Step 3: Repeat steps 1 & 2 until your answer comes!
When you refuse to worry, but choose to rest in the finished work of Christ,
you will see the situation that you have been praying about come to pass.
You will see your miracle!
There is so much more our Lord has in store for each and everyone of us
If we will just Seek Him and His Righteousness and let Him rain down His Marvelous Provision that He wants to give to us.
Not because were worthy, because none of us are, but because He is a giving father that truly loves His children.
