Matthew 6:25-34
Philippians 4:4-13
“What Have You Got to Lose?”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN
Has it ever struck you what a basically happy person Jesus was?
Oh yes, we know that, according to the prophecies, Jesus was “a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief.”
We know the darkness and sadness of all the world that descended on Him as He went to the Cross…
…the scene in Gethsemane, where He is wrestling with His Father’s will, and the agony of it all.
We know Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, and that He was heart-broken when people refused to trust and accept God.
But these things are dark patches painted on a bright background!
In the Gospel lesson from Matthew that we read earlier, we see the joy that flows out of Jesus’ own experience of life.
He had watched the birds wheeling around, high up on the currents of the air in the Galilean hills, simply enjoying being alive.
They never seemed to do the sort of work humans do, and yet they mostly stayed alive and well.
He had watched a thousand different kinds of flowers growing in fertile soil—the word “lilies” in verse 28 of Matthew 6 includes all kinds of different plants.
The world is a virtual art gallery!!!
Where did this beauty come from?
It didn’t stand in front of the mirror putting on make-up.
It didn’t go shopping in the mall.
It was just…itself: glorious, God-given, beautiful!
Jesus’ teachings are miles away from those teachers of His day who insisted that the world was just a place of shadows, doom and gloom.
Jesus’ teaching grew out of His own experience.
When He told His followers not to worry about tomorrow, we must assume that Jesus led by example.
Jesus wasn’t always looking ahead anxiously, and thus making the present moment miserable.
No, Jesus was living in the present, celebrating the goodness of God here and now.
And if that’s not a recipe for happiness, I don’t know what is.
And Jesus wants us to experience this same happiness.
So, Jesus urges us to make God our priority.
God has filled this world with wonderful and mysterious things, full of beauty and energy and excitement, and God wants us to trust Him and love Him and thus receive our own beauty, energy and excitement from God!
Of course, we live in a world of anxiety and it’s easy to let it rub off on us.
Anxiety was a way of life for many people in the ancient pagan world.
With so many gods and goddesses, all of them potentially out to get you for something you might not even know about, you never knew what bad thing was waiting for you around the corner.
And with the One True God, Who has revealed God’s-self in Jesus Christ, there is still no guarantee against suffering, but there is the certainty that God is good, that God loves us, and that this good God is ultimately in control!!!
But yes, anxiety can creep up and rob from us the joy and happiness which comes from this Truth!
You never know what’s going to happen.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all.
The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
This may sound easy until we realize that as Paul was writing these words He himself was lying in prison with almost certain death awaiting him.
But Paul had found the secret of all of life.
He had learned to put everything into the hands of the Lord!
He was the Lord’s and the Lord was His, and that was what mattered most.
Is that what matters most in your life, in mine?
As Christians, we are to keep this in mind…
We can never lose Christ, and therefore we should never let anything get in the way of our joy and happiness!
If Christ is our all-in-all, what else do we need?
Yes.
The world is full of worry and uncertainty.
But the Christian life is founded on the Rock of Christ, not on the sand of the world and the shifting opinions of others.
Storms in life will come, but Christ is stronger and greater than any storm.
A number of years ago, a widow…
…a member of the church I grew up in was told by her doctor that she had an incurable cancer.
There was nothing that could be done.
Looking at her with concern, and knowing that she lived alone the doctor asked, “Will you be alright?”
“I will,” she replied confidently, “because Jesus is with me.”
And, indeed, she was.
And not only was Jesus with her, but the community of faith was with her as well.
One family even took her into their home, and when she became too ill to take care of herself…
…they tended to her.
In more ways than one, she did not die alone.
There can be no question about the importance of putting God first and trusting in God’s sovereignty.
Nothing can separate us from God’s love!
People sometimes say that you shouldn’t bother God about trivial requests like asking for nice weather for a church picnic or a parking space on a busy road, but in all reality, we should ask God about every area of our lives.
If it matters to you—it matters to God!
The Christian life is about relationship.
It’s an ongoing relationship with the God Who created and died for You.
And relationships, in order for them to survive and grow must involve continual communication.
We are to “walk with God.”
And when we learn to do this consistently, we are promised, not a rose garden or great riches.
We are not promised perfect health or a force field which will cause the problems of life to bounce off us.
We are promised something much, much greater.
We are promised, “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding”!!!
And this is a deep peace in the middle of life’s problems that keeps guard around our hearts and minds, like a squadron of soldiers looking after a treasure chest.
Paul’s command in verse 8 of Philippians Chapter 4, to think about “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is praiseworthy” runs directly opposite to the habits of our minds which are continually being violated by the modern media.
We see the news and read the papers.
The world is filled with injustice, ugliness, viciousness, and violence.
So what do we do?
Do we wring our hands and worry, or do we act on the solid faith of which we have been given?
Joy, happiness, and peace do not come from avoiding problems but from facing them with the love and courage of Christ.
To think upon the things which are lovely, true, noble and right involves taking these good things into the lost and dying world of anxiety, depression, hopelessness and death.
Jesus has called us—you and me—to be the Light of the world…
…which infers that the world is dark and needs the Light which, through Christ, we are called to bring.
Jesus traversed the countryside, spreading love, hope and salvation in a world mired in fear, pain and sickness.
Paul was used by God to spread the Good News of Christ to the entire known world in a very short amount of time.
It landed him in prison and brought about his death…
…but in acting upon his faith, Paul was able to write, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
And so can we.
Living totally without worry sounds, to many people, as impossible as living without breathing.
Some of us may be so hooked on worry that if we haven’t got anything to worry about we worry that we’ve forgotten something!
But God is handing us an invitation that surprisingly few people even try to take up.
Why not aim to learn how to share the contentment of Paul and the happiness of Jesus Christ Himself?
Amen.
