There are problems and anxieties in life but God gives us enough grace to deal with the problems of today.

<p>There are problems and anxieties in life but God gives us enough grace to deal with the problems of today.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Amazing Facts

Worrying

Doug Batchelor

01 Worrying About Stuff

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

You actually have a commandment here from Jesus, he's saying, thou shalt not worry.

You know Jesus said you will hear of wars and rumors of war, you'd think that would be a reason to worry, wouldn't you?

Christians are supposed to be a people of faith.

Now I don't know if I'm the only 1 that has a tendency to worry.

If you don't have anything to worry about I could probably help you think of something.

There's a lot of things that if you want to, you could worry about.

You could worry about your salvation, you could worry about the salvation of others you love, you could worry about your health, you could worry about life, you could worry about death, you could worry about just the basics from day to day, no limit to things that you could worry about, and yet in spite of all the things that concern us, do you know that we are commanded to not worry in the Bible?

I'd like you to go ahead and join me in the same passage that we had in our scripture reading.

Turn to Matthew 6, verse 24, and here Jesus said, No 1 can serve 2 masters, for either he will hate 1 and love the other, or else he will be loyal to 1 and despise the other.

Now I'm reading from the New King James version.

Some other versions might say something different.

The word there mammon is actually the word abundance.

It means abundance of things or abundance of riches.

A translation would be an abundance of stuff.

You cannot serve God and an abundance of stuff.

Stuff can be things, stuff can be other stuff.

And then Jesus goes on, in case you have any doubts, He begins to specify.

He said, don't worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, or what you will put on.

Is not your life more than food and your body more than clothing?

Now, we've got a lot of commandments in the Bible.

You've got the 10 commandments, and every now and then some of the commandments say, Thou shalt, and others say, Thou shalt not.

You actually have a commandment here from Jesus.

And it's easier when you know, well, you're God, it's easy for you to say that, you know everything.

But I don't know what's going to happen, so I'm worried about what's going to happen.

But the question is, do you trust your life to someone that does know?

It says, trust me, live by faith, don't worry.

And if we spend our lives worrying, folks don't want to know how to worry, everyone does that pretty well.

But if we meet someone that knows how to believe, that can actually be inspiring.

I Heard about 2 friends that were talking 1 day and 1 was telling his buddy, he said, yeah my house is in foreclosure, lost my job, medical insurance has been cancelled, kids just dropped out of school, and he said, you know, my credit cards are maxed out.

He said, I've actually hired someone who is a professional worrier to worry for me.

And his friend said, Wow, that's amazing.

I said, where in the world are you going to get $50, 000 a year?

He said, that's his job, I don't have to worry about it.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have someone else do all our worrying for us?

Doesn't the Bible say that we can cast our cares upon Him?

Now maybe we should go and start off with a definition.

To worry, it means to feel anxious or concerned about something that may have happened or may happen, to torment oneself or to suffer from disturbing thought or anxieties, to fret, to be troubled, to agonize, to be bothered, fear, unease, sleeplessness.

The word worry actually comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word, worgen, and it means to choke or to strangle.

Have you ever seen a person that is just, they're choked by their fears?

We have an expression when you play pool, choking behind the 8 ball.

Or other sports, they say, you know, here he had this free throw shot, but all the anxiety, everything depended on him, and he choked.

You've got a chance to drive in the home run and win the game and turn everything, but all the pressure, he started to worry, he choked, couldn't perform because of the worry is what they call that.

Now Jesus talks about how worry will choke you, matter of fact he has a parable Some of the good seed fell among the thorns, they are those who when they've heard the word of God, they go out and they are choked with cares.

Now Jesus draws on a few different illustrations to try and help us understand that.

And He says in Matthew 6, 26 look at the birds of the air.

Now I remember when I first read that I thought, you know Lord I've got all these problems, and these are big problems.

And you're telling me, look at the birds.

And I'm going, I don't want to look at the birds, I mean, birds don't worry like me, and they don't have the same problems I've got, and he's saying exactly, and Jesus knew what he was saying, He said look at the birds, they don't sow, nor do they reap, nor do they gather into barns, now you know a lot of people get through the bad seasons because we think ahead, we worry about the future, and so worrying about the future, you do have to plan, and that's okay.

And so you farm, you know, you sow and you weed and you put in a barn and you try to take care of the next year.

You know, when Jesus sent out the apostles, he pretty much told them, you go out, don't take anything with you.

Now, we usually don't tell our Afro students that, you know, if you're going to go do a mission project.

But Jesus, He said, look, I want you to learn to trust Me.

He said, I don't want you to take a purse.

I want you to go out and just live by faith and trust Me." And did He take care of her?

So look at the birds, look at the flowers why do you worry about clothing?

They don't toil, they don't spin, And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like 1 of these flowers.

And let's face it, there are some beautiful flowers out there.

No human can duplicate with their looms the beauty of the flowers.

He says if God so clothes the grass of the field, flowers, which are here today and tomorrow the throne in the heaven, will He not much more clothe you of little faith?

Now Jesus is basically saying, look, I see the sparrow when he's hungry and I feed it.

He says, a sparrow does not fall to the ground without the notice of your heavenly father.

And then Jesus goes on, He tells us in Matthew 10 31, Do not fear, therefore you are of more value than many sparrows.

If God cares enough to feed the sparrows, if He cares enough to clothe the flowers, He says, Why are you worried?

Go to Luke 10 verse 38 Now it happened that they went to a certain village, that was Bethany, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house, we know they were friends.

She had a sister named Mary, also had a brother named Lazarus, who sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word.

But Martha was distracted with much serving.

Now that word distracted, you ever been worried to distraction?

You're going from 1 room to the next and you're thinking of something else that you forgot.

You know, so I gotta get this and oh, I gotta watch that on the oven.

That's about to boil over over here and we've got these people, the place is set.

Martha's just, you know, she's like coordinating this dinner they're having.

Later talks about that dinner where Mary washed the feet of Jesus, but maybe the same dinner.

Mary's sitting at Jesus' feet and Jesus is talking, teaching with the apostles and Martha's trying to take care of everybody.

I mean, you know, whenever you have to feed 13 men, you want your sister to help.

02 Worrying About Stuff

God gives you enough grace to deal with the problems of today.

There are problems in life, God uses troubles to teach us and to test us.

It's a very common topic in the Bible to address the anxiety and concern that people have.

Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount got right into it.

He said in chapter 6 of Matthew therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

Someone once said, worry brings tomorrow's difficulties into today.

God doesn't give you grace for tomorrow's difficulties, He only gives you grace for today.

Worry does not take the sorrow out of tomorrow, It only takes tomorrow's sorrow and brings it today, and it then less prepares you to deal with tomorrow's sorrow.

You know, I was reading in the news not long ago, many of us here in Northern California remember last year there was a terrible fire in Oakland and 36 people perished in that fire in the warehouse in Oakland.

The authorities later determined that it was probably due to what they called an overloaded circuit.

They had too many things plugged into a breaker that was only designed to handle so many amps.

And because they did this, some wires heated up, they shorted out, they caught on fire, the fire spread, there was only 1 exit downstairs.

Most people were trapped upstairs and died from the smoke inhalation and a lot of death and damage was caused by an overloaded circuit.

When you spend all your time worrying about things for tomorrow and the week after and the month after that and you just pile 1 on top of the other, you overload your truck, you blow out the tires, you overload your circuits and it fries.

That's why Jesus said in his discourse about worry, he said, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Now that's kind of the old English way of saying, God gives you enough grace to deal with the problems of today.

God uses troubles to teach us and to test us.

You can read in the book of Job 5, verse 7, Yet man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

And in Acts 14.22, Paul said, Strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and he said, we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.

Tribulations is related to the word trouble.

It's through trouble we enter the kingdom.

There's going to be trouble, there's going to be problems, but God does not want you to worry about these troubles.

He wants us to learn to trust through the troubles.

So often in the Bible, the children of Israel came to a point where it looked like it was hopeless.

They'd have mountains on both sides, an ocean in front, and an army of angry Egyptians charging down on them.

Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

God allowed the trouble to come that they might develop trust.

Deuteronomy 33.25, the promise is your sandals will be iron, that sounds uncomfortable, but I'll explain, and bronze, as your days so shall your strength be, meaning that they won't wear out.

You know, for the 40 years they were in the wilderness, God said your shoes didn't wear out, your clothes didn't wear out.

He said, as your days, so shall your strength be.

God is not going to give you Herculean strength for today that you really don't need until tomorrow.

When the challenge comes, He gives you the strength.

People have asked me, Pastor Doug, do you think you've got enough faith?

If we get tortured for our faith, do you have enough faith where you would not deny Jesus in the face of torture?

And my answer would be, not today I don't.

But I hope that when that day comes, I will.

And so I'm not going to worry about that now, because as your day, so will your strength be.

You're not to say, Lord, give me this month my monthly bread.

Now, when God tells you not to worry, it doesn't mean that you're not to plan.

But a lot of things we worry about, we don't ever have to deal with.

Somebody did a study about the average person and what they worry about, and they found that 40% of what people worry about never happens.

Reminds me of that lady that was always telling people, don't tell me worry doesn't do any good, the things I worry about never happen.

She thought that's because she worried about them.

40% of what people worry about never happens.

30% of what people worry about has already happened and you can't do anything about it.

Have you ever spent time worrying about regrets?

Or you come away from a difficult conversation and you keep thinking about what you should have said?

Or you've made bad decisions and you just keep rehashing it and then, you know, every now and then, you can't change it.

But we still worry about things that's too late.

12% worry about what others say about them, and you can't really change much about that.

10% worry deals with your health and of course worrying about your health can always make your health worse.

That means that leaves about 8% of things that are worth consideration.

Most of what we worry about is really a big waste of time.

Now when the Bible says, do not worry about your life, Jesus said, do not worry about your life.

That doesn't mean don't ever think or plan.

He's not asking us to just kind of go skipping idiotically through life without a cure in the world, not worried about anything and being irresponsible.

And there are scriptures that talk to us about planning.

Proverbs 21.5, the plans of the diligent lead to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty leads to poverty.

Proverbs 11.14, where there's no counsel, the people fail, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

And Jesus said, which of you intending to build a tower doesn't sit down first and count the cost.

There's a difference between being aware that there's a problem and worrying about the problem.

Stressing and being anxious and fretting and wringing your hands and losing sleep, we need to know how to commit our troubles to the Lord.

I heard about a man that came out from this office building in Chicago and a policeman was writing him a ticket for double parking.

He said, what in the world possessed you to make you do this?

The man said, well, whenever I go to the dentist I always double park because it gives me something to think about.

I worry about getting a ticket and I don't think about the drill.

Now, you might be wondering, Pastor Doug, are you saying that worrying is a sin?

I mean, whenever Jesus says, Thou shalt not worry, and you worry, you wonder, well, is it a sin?

Well, first of all, Romans 14, 23 says, Whatever is not from faith is sin.

And so if we're spending a lot of time worrying about things, it means you don't trust that there's a God who can help you.

Hebrews 11 6, without faith it's impossible to please Him, for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and He's a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him.

In 1 sense, when we worry, we make ourselves God, and that's idolatry, As though we have power to change our circumstances.

It's like this man that was walking around New York City clapping his hands over his head and someone finally asked him, why do you do that?

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Worrying

02 Worrying About Stuff

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