Walking Away From Worry--Sermon on the Mount Series

            By the grace of God, human beings have accomplished some amazing things during our history. We have explored outer space and put a man on the moon. We have developed techniques and tools that allow us to operate on the heart and the brain. We have found ingenious ways to combat belly fat. We have created useful inventions like the light bulb, the computer, and the Snuggie.

            But despite all that we’ve achieved, no one has ever found a way to turn worry into something productive. Like the people of old who labored to find ways to turn lead into gold, people all over the world have indulged in worrying in a vain effort to improve or sort out their circumstances. As far as Scripture is concerned, we will probably find a way to turn lead into gold before we ever find a way to make worry a useful or beneficial thing.

            Today we’re going to take a look at a very familiar passage of Scripture that contains some very precious words from the Lord. The lesson will be nothing new for most of us—we know we’re not supposed to worry—but perhaps we can gain some fresh insights today that will help us gain the upper hand when we face the temptation to worry.

Why does the Lord tell us not to worry?

1. Worry blows things out of proportion (Matthew 6:25)

            As we start to look at v. 25, notice that it begins with the word “therefore.” That word tells us that the Lord is about to make a point based on what he had just talked about. Jesus had just told us in v. 18 not to lay up treasures here on earth, and now He’s going to make this point about anxiety because it is one of the main factors that make us tempted to lay up treasures on earth. If we indulge the temptation to worry, then we will be tempted to lay up treasures on earth, and that will affect our ability to serve God with the kind of freedom that Jesus calls for here.

            The first reason we shouldn’t worry is that worry blows things out of proportion, and it does so in two ways:

            1. It turns healthy attention into harmful distraction

            Jesus states, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.” Its important to note that the Greek word translated “anxious” in this verse is used elsewhere in the Bible to describe an appropriate degree of concern about something. For example, in Philippians 2:20, Paul told the Philippians that he was planning to send Timothy to them, and here’s why: “For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.” Those words “genuinely concerned” translate the same Greek verb that we find in Matthew 6:25. Paul was obviously talking about a good trait in that verse—he wasn’t going to send Timothy because Timothy was a worry wort!

            So that Greek verb can describe an appropriate concern about something, and that’s important to understand. There is an appropriate degree of attention that we should give to questions like, “What will I eat?” Worry, then, seems to simply be a good thing gone bad. It is observation that has become obsession; it is forward-thinking that has turned into fear, so our healthy attention actually becomes a harmful distraction.

            2. It turns lesser things into ultimate concerns

            Jesus goes on to say this at the end of v. 25, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” The answer of course is, “yes.” Getting dressed is just one part of caring for the body; eating and drinking are just one segment of life. But when we indulge in worry, all of life starts to revolve around something that is only supposed to be one segment of life.

            I’m sure we’ve all experienced how this works. When you give in to worry about one detail of life, it starts to dominate everything else. When you’re worried about basic needs like getting food, for example, it dominates your thinking even when you need to be thinking about other things. It consumes your energy and leaves you with no energy for the other things that you need to be doing.

            To borrow an old saying, its like the tail begins to wag the dog. One area that’s really just a portion of your whole life begins to dominate your whole life in a way that its not supposed to.

2. Worry is unobservant (v. 26)

            Worrying causes you to overlook the way that God works in the world every single day. Let’s read v. 26 [READ v. 26]. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that birds don’t work for their food—He just emphasizes that they don’t work for it in the same way that we do. They don’t produce lots of food all at once and then store it up and try to preserve it. Birds go out day by day and look for their food for that day, and God is faithful to make sure that they get it.

            This is a process that repeats itself every single day—for who knows how many birds, not to mention other animals—and yet we often look right past it. Worry gets us distracted with other concerns, and we fail to see the obvious—that God provides for His creatures. And notice how Jesus makes an argument from the lesser to the greater. The birds are simply God’s creatures, yet He is faithful to feed them. We, on the other hand, are His adopted children; we are of more value than they are, so we can be even more confident about God’s faithfulness to provide for us.

3. Worry is unproductive (v. 27)

            Let’s read v. 27 [READ v. 27]. Jesus could have used a lot of comparisons to remind us that worry doesn’t accomplish anything, but I think its fascinating that He chose to talk about our health and well-being. I think he may have been giving us a clue about the power that worry has to actually damage our health and well-being.

            Worrying leads to the release of certain hormones in the body, and when we get an excess of those hormones, it can lead to a weakening of the immune system, digestive disorders, muscle tension, short-term memory loss, coronary artery disease and heart attacks. Worrying will never add an hour to your life, but it just might take some away!

            Worrying accomplishes nothing, and on top of that it drains our ability to accomplish other things. So when we invest our minds and our energy in worrying, we get no good returns from it, and its more than likely that we will get bad returns from it.

4. Worry reveals a faith in need of growth (vv. 28-30)

            Look at vv. 28-30 [READ vv. 28-30]. Once again, Jesus points us to nature as our school teacher to give us a lesson that should be quite clear if we would just pause and “consider” the world around us, as Jesus says in v. 28. Again, Jesus uses an argument from the lesser to the greater—God delights to adorn plants with beauty that cannot even be matched by the wealthiest man in the history of Israel, yet they are such temporary things. Should we not then be confident that God will clothe us, since we are so much greater than flowers and grass?

            The Lord gives us a gentle rebuke when He calls us people of “little faith.” I picture Jesus speaking those words with a bit of amazement. These lessons that Jesus draws from nature are around us all the time. The natural world is constantly reminding us, constantly teaching us about God’s loving care, yet its as if we’re walking through the world in a trance because we fail to consider—we fail to observe—all that happens around us on a daily basis. If we are ignorant about these things, it is a self-imposed ignorance, because our professors—the birds and the flowers—are constantly teaching us their lessons. If our faith is small, it is because we are not feeding our faith with insight into what happens all around us every day.

5. Worry imitates a bad example (vv. 31-32)

            Follow with me in vv. 31-32 [READ vv. 31-32]. Remember that the word “Gentiles” refers to all non-Jewish people. In a religious sense, it means that these people do not know the one true God, the God who spoke through Moses and revealed Himself to the Jewish people. You may remember that when we talked about prayer a few weeks ago, I mentioned that the Gentiles had no concept of having a personal relationship with the gods that they worshiped. They had no reason to think that their gods cared about them or even paid attention to their lives.

            Its understandable, then, why they would be consumed with worry about their basic needs—they had no expectation of help from their gods. In light of those beliefs, the grace and goodness of our God shines out all the more. God has adopted us into His own family, which means that He has committed Himself to do all of the things that a Father should do for his children—love us, teach us, protect us, discipline us, and yes, provide for us.

            When Carmen and I were going through the process of getting approval to adopt, we had to show that we were as prepared as we possibly could be to take care of a child. We had to go through a physical exam, a review of our finances, background checks, an interview about our family background and our emotional well-being. Now do we think that God would adopt us and then fail to follow through on what He has committed to do? Would He say, “Wow, I didn’t realize how hard this was going to be! I really wasn’t prepared to take care of all of these children. I just can’t do it!” Of course not.

            Do you see, then, how unbecoming it is for us to worry about these things just like people who have no relationship with God? That is not at all the kind of example we should follow.

The remedy: Give your attention and effort to obeying God (vv. 33-34)

            Look at vv. 33-34 [READ vv. 33-34]. Notice the exchange that Jesus is calling us to make. In v. 32, He said that the Gentiles “seek” after the basic necessities of life. Their attention and energy are given over to pursuing those things because they have no promise of help from their gods.

            So instead of seeking those things, Jesus tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. We have to exchange one focal point for another. Its like the illustration that speakers use at times when they tell you not to picture a pink elephant in your mind. You can’t help but picture a pink elephant unless you get your mind wrapped up in something else.

            When we confront worry, we can’t just put off worrying—we have to put on something else in order to keep that worry at bay. Its similar to what Jesus said about God and money in that we have two distinct choices before us: are we going to give our energy and attention to shoring up our basic needs, or are we going to give our energy and attention to obeying God and trust Him to shore up our basic needs?

            Don’t you see, my friends? God has our basic needs covered, so we are set free to focus on other things. We are empowered to live like no one else because everyone else is held back by worries about their basic needs. Without the knowledge of the promises that we have from God, it only makes sense that others are consumed with obsessing over food and drink and clothing, but armed with these promises, we are at liberty to invest our energy and effort in greater pursuits.

            But, worry does remain a strong temptation for us. All that we have learned about worry today will help us form a strategy for walking away from worry and pursuing obedience to God instead. If worry blows things out of proportion, we can walk away from worry by keeping things in proportion. For one thing, we can kick some false guilt out the door by remembering that there is an appropriate degree of attention that we must give to our basic needs or to working through problems that we encounter. We don’t need to think that such things shouldn’t occupy our attention and energy at all, but when they start to dominate our attention and energy at the expense of other things, then we can know that we’ve crossed the line.

            If worry is unobservant about God’s work in the world, then we can walk away from worry by being more observant about God’s work. We should consider God’s work in nature, as Jesus tells us here. We should remember what God has done for us in the past. Frequently, when we worry, its because we’ve just plain forgotten how God got us out of a similar jam in the past. Write these things down; find some way to remind yourself about them.

            If worry is unproductive, then invest your attention in something that is productive. Prayer is an obvious choice, especially when we make sure to give thanks for everything we can think of. Also, we sometimes worry about a situation simply because we don’t have much information about it. If we will take the steps we can to just gain some more information, we might gain some insight that will put our worries to rest.

            If worry reveals a faith in need of growth, then do things that will help your faith grow. For one thing, we can’t very well trust God to keep His promises if we don’t know what he has promised to do for us. We have to feed our faith with the Word of God and then exercise our faith by obeying what we read. If you want to make your muscles stronger, what do you do? Give them the proper food and then put them to work. If you want to make your faith stronger, what do you do? Give it the proper food and then put it to work.

            If worry imitates a bad example, then imitate a good example. Sit down with that godly person you know who just radiates peace of mind and talk to them. Be like Jacob wrestling with God, and tell that person, “I won’t let you go until you bless me! I want to know how you do it.”

            Praise God that we don’t have to be imprisoned by worry. We can walk away from it to give our energy and attention to greater things.