JESUS SERMON ON THE MOUNT
XIV. Anxiety-Free Living
2-4-07
Ken Peterson
Mtt. 6:25-34
INTRODUCTION
In a Peanuts comic strip, Linus and Lucy are standing at the window looking at torrential rains coming down. Lucy says to her brother Linus, ABoy, look at it rain. What if it floods the earth?@ Linus, the resident Biblical scholar for Peanuts, answers, It will never do that. In the 9th chapter of Genesis, God promised Noah that would never happen again, and the sign of the promise is the rainbow. With a smile on her face, Lucy replies, Linus, you’ve taken a great load off my mind. And Linus replies, Sound theology has a way of doing that.
This morning we’re going to look at the sound theology Jesus teaches us so that we need not worry about life. None of us are strangers to worry. "Worry" is from the old English word meaning "to strangle." Have you felt that strangulation in your life? It chokes off our life emotionally and even physically. Many of our diseases find their origin in some anxiety. In fact, hyphenating the word, "disease, says a lot: "dis-ease." We all agree worry is bad, and I’ve never heard anyone say they wanted to worry more. We hear cute little proverbial sayings like:
"Worry is like a rocking chair: It will give you something to do but won't get you anywhere."
"Today is the tomorrow I worried about yesterday."
"Worry is bringing tomorrow's clouds over today's sunshine."
I especially like the story of the minister preaching on worry and stating that 90% of what we worry about never happens. A voice from the back pew was heard to say, So, it works!
We know these saying are true. But how do you stop? When you’re feeling anxious and someone tells you to not be anxious, it is not particularly helpful. In fact it can add to your anxiety because now you feel anxious about being anxious! Or, on the other hand, someone said, "I'm so used to being tense, when I'm calm, I get nervous." There is a huge gap between our head and our heart in this area. Telling ourselves that worry does no good does not put a halt to worry.
And, we are immersed in a culture that encourages anxiety everywhere we turn. The news informs us of an infinite number of worrisome world situations, global warming, along with the latest study telling us what can cause cancer. Advertisers try to induce anxiety over gray hair, dandruff, our deodorant, or wrinkles. Everyday we face fear-induced questions like: Will I fit in? Will I be adequate? Do I have enough money?
Erma Bombeck tells of a little boy named Donald who talked about his fears in starting school:
My name is Donald, and I don’t know anything. I have new underwear, a loose tooth, and didn’t sleep last night because I’m worried. What if the bell rings and a man yells, Where do you belong and I don’t know? What if the trays in the cafeteria are too tall for me to reach? What if my loose tooth comes out when we have our heads down and are supposed to be quiet? Am I supposed to bleed quietly? What if I splash water on my name tag and my name disappears and no one knows who I am?
And you thought you had problems!
We all need Jesus’s sound theology for anxiety-free living this morning. This middle chapter in the Sermon on the Mount gives us the nitty-gritty of daily living as a disciple. Last Sunday, Jesus taught of the dangers of putting our confidence or trust in our earthly treasures,
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (6:21).
Also, Jesus says we cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and Money (24). Note that this morning’s Scripture begins with that connective, therefore. It is in the context of this exclusive allegiance He has just been talking about that Jesus continues on with this morning’s teaching.
READ Mtt. 6:25-34
Here Jesus gives us three things we need to know to have a sound theology to defeat worry in our lives.
1st KNOW WHO YOU ARE
First of all, Jesus puts his finger on the source of worry. Jesus clearly says that if you're worried, the problem is not what you’re worried about. It is a symptom of something else that is wrong with our perspective and with our view of life. He places His finger on the roots of our problem. Our problem is not really money, or crime, or our health that we’re worrying about. Jesus says we worry about these things because we have misplaced priorities, we have a wrong focus. We are letting these things define our lives. He catalogues the basic questions of life: What will we eat? What will we wear? Where will we live? To all these questions, He responds with, "Life is more than this!"
Our world tries to reduce life to mere material things. And thus we seek our sense of worth and our value from what we have or the status this world gives. We even have that telling phrase when asking about a person's financial status, "How much is he worth?" We treat the wealthy with greater deference and honor than the poor. And we compare ourselves with one another in terms of what we have. This leads to unspoken competition. If we have good grades, are popular, or are in the right groups at school we feel good about ourselves. If not, we feel bad. We do the same thing at work and socially. And sometimes we even step on the other person, push them down, or run them down if necessary to make us feel better. We compare our cars, our houses, our possessions. We use mere "things" to gain acceptance, and to be noticed. We want the right clothes and to be able to do the right things. Jesus says, you do that because you don't know who you really are. Life is more than that. You are much more valuable than mere things. Don’t let your worth be defined by that.
We run into trouble if we are seeking our self-worth from things and from people's opinions of us. Our lives will be beset by anxiety. We will always be jockeying for position and trying to prove our worth. Jesus offers us a whole different paradigm. Consider instead what God says about you.
Jesus uses the illustration of how our heavenly Father cares for the birds, the grass, the flowers, and created things. Then, He asks this rhetorical question, Are you not much more valuable than they? (26). Jesus is saying, if we understand our true value, we won’t be anxious. We have a heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us. We belong to Him. We are of much, much greater value than anything else in all of God’s creation. Should we ever doubt that, all we need to do is look at the cross, as Rom 5:8 reminds us:
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Don’t settle for the world’s demeaning definitions of who we are. We are not just a highly evolved mammal. We are created in the image of the God who created all things.
2nd KNOW WHO GOD IS
Your heavenly Father is a drumbeat throughout this section. Not only are we incredibly valuable, but we have a heavenly Father who cares for us as one of His own. Jesus says that this running after things and not knowing your heavenly Father takes care of you is pagan thinking. That’s the way people are who don’t know God. But you have a heavenly Father and you can trust Him to care for you.
Someone said, "Worry is a mild form of atheism." Certainly to some degree that is true. It is symptomatic of a lack of faith. Jesus here is saying when we are beset with anxiety, then we are not trusting our heavenly Father. Faith here is not some vague, ethereal principle or feeling. Jesus makes it very concrete. Faith means first, looking to God to determine who you are and believing what the Bible tells us about our true worth. Then, secondly, it means committing ourselves to Him as our Father. He's committed to you as His child.
Philip Melanchthon, a leading scholar of the German Reformation was in an anxious time in a deep valley of his spiritual life. His friend Martin Luther wrote him:
From the bottom of my heart, I am against those worrying cares which are taking the heart out of you. Why make God a liar in not believing His wonderful promises, when He commands us to be of good cheer, and cast all our care upon Him, for He will sustain us? Do you think He throws such words to the winds?...Why then worry, seeing He is at the helm?
If then, worry is the symptom and it is caused by distrust or misplaced trust or a wrong focus of our lives, what is the cure for this disease? How do we overcome a lack of trust? Advice to just trust more or have more faith doesn’t help much, does it? Jesus tells us how to answer anxiety in two practical steps.
3RD ANSWERING ANXIETY
First, Jesus tells us to look. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Jesus says to pay attention to the rhythms of nature, pay attention to the creation around us. Have you ever been beset by worry and driven up into the mountains and stood in wonder of their majesty. In that context it is hard to anxious about the details at work. A long walk observing nature slows our pace, eases anxiety. Other generations were more intimately involved with the world God created. How often the Psalms refer to God’s creation, offering praise, wonder, and worship. A day immersed in the beauties of our Father’s world can feel like a vacation if we really take our kindergarten street crossing advice and, Stop, look and listen. Look at the moon as it rises. Notice the stars. Pay attention to the sunrise and sunset and sky colors. See the frost patterns and frozen fog on tree limbs. Turn off your TV and get away from your computer and go outside and walk, look, and listen. Take the time to observe and feel the rhythms of God’s creation and ponder His works. Then, let the logic sink in. Later in Mtt., Jesus assures His disciples that even in the light of persecution they need not be anxious, saying,
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Matt 10:29‑31)
The second part of Jesus’s answer to anxiety is to redirect our seeking. Instead of seeking food, clothes, and security in things, He says,
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well. (33)
This is brilliant, because if you know anything about worry, it is not just something you can turn off by saying, I’m not going to worry. Jesus has clearly said, Don’t worry and that it is never God’s plan and doesn’t make sense Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (27). So, He gives practical steps we can take. After considering the birds, grass, and flowers and pondering on their splendor provided by our good, gracious, heavenly Father, He now calls us to reorient our seeking toward God’s purposes. Look away from the clamor and seeking of this world and with singleness of heart begin seeking God. This means taking our eyes off the temporal and focusing upon what is of ultimate value and eternal significance. Jesus offers us the liberating obsession of being about what God is doing and thinking what God thinks. We begin with the question, What is God wanting to do in my life and in each situation I face today? How can I be a part of what He is doing? He has just taught us to pray, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. (Mtt. 6:10). It is not about you.
And here’s the bonus. God is the source of all we have in this world. He loves us, and if we’re about His work and doing His will, He will take care of all these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things [food, shelter, clothes] will be given to you as well [as a by-product]. (33) But the converse is also true. Once we start seeking other things, we're in charge, and we will be anxious. Here, momentum helps being about God’s work in this world. It is like a bicycle, the slower you go, the harder it is to keep balance. The more we focus outward on His calling to us, the less we’ll be pushed around by worry.
I remember an encouraging letter we receive a few years ago from a friend, Ruth, giving us an update on the goings-on in her and her family’s life. Her daughter, Ann, grew up in our church in Whitefish, MT and after college, married. She and her husband Tom felt called to mission work. Presently they are in East Africa directing the World Concern operations for all of E. Africa. Over last 20 years they have at times been in danger for their lives as well as facing the difficulties of raising their family in third-world nations, without our standards of sanitation, exposed to diseases children can easily die from. But, in her letter, Ruth said she often remembered words I’d shared with her when she felt anxious about Ann, Tom and her grandchildren living among the dangers of the third-world: There is no safer place than the center of God’s will.
Now that’s not original from me. I read it, or heard it somewhere. But, it is true, isn’t it? How could we be any safer and more secure than when we’re doing God’s will? Think about it. If you find out you have cancer, God is great enough to heal you or to be glorified in the debilitating effects of disease. If you lose your job, God is your source, not the company worked for. Whatever may happen, God has promised, "I will never leave you nor forsake you!" (Heb. 13:5).
Following that basic choice of putting God first, we must practice it. What does that mean at the beginning of each day? Wouldn’t we start by spending some time to listen to God through His Word and prayer? If you’re running late, which is more important, a devotional time or breakfast? And then, throughout the day, we need to frequently turn our hearts to prayer and worship.
This last week, our seven-year-old granddaughter Hannah called to ask us for prayer. She needs extensive orthodontia, and has an over-active gag reflex. She was going to the orthodontist to get an expander taken out. She was very worried. She told Polly she’d rather fall off her bike and skin her knee than go have this done! Also, she worried about the orthodontist dropping one of those scarey-looking tools down her throat. But, Hannah knows what to do when she’s frightened and asks for help in prayer.
That’s what we all need to keep doing. Prayer reorients us toward God and His plan. Ruth Bell, Billy Graham’s wife, writes that Worship and worry cannot dwell together in the same heart. Throughout the day, we need to seek to realign our desires and priorities with what God calls us to and continue in an attitude of worship. Every anxious thought should be a call to prayer.
CONCLUSION
As we close, let me summarize the teaching Jesus gives that He wants us to get inside the sound theology to cure our anxiety:
1. Know who you are a child of your heavenly Father who loves you and has promised to care for all your needs.
2. Know the greatness and power of God to care for you.
3. Fight anxiety in your life by:
1st by immersing yourself in the rhythms of natureB ponder, consider.
And 2nd, by orienting your living by seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness.
JESUS’ SERMON ON THE MOUNT
XIV. “Easily Mastered”
For Further Study and Reflection on Sermon for 2-4-07
Mtt. 6:25-34
1. Think about some of the things you’ve worried about today. If you found out tomorrow a loved one had a terminal illness, would what you worried about today have seemed that significant in comparison?
2. There’s a saying that helps us put worry in perspective: “Ask yourself if you’ll even remember what you worried about today in five years.” Does this help our priorities? Why or why not?
3. A couple of Sundays ago we talked about fasting. Do you think this might help when we obsess about food? Why?
4. Jesus specifically talks about clothes in vs. 28-30. Can you think of a time in your life (maybe as a teen) when a passion for wearing “the right” clothes became an obsession? Does that seem foolish now? Are there still ways we put too much stress or money on what we wear?
5. Count how many pairs of shoes you have and put the number here: . (Don’t forget those in the garage or on the porch). What does that say to you?
6. Discuss why some schools require uniforms for the students.
7. When Jesus uses birds as an illustration (sparrows here and ravens in Luke’s version,12:24) , why these examples and not something like peacocks?
8. Talk about some of the things that keep you from trusting
your heavenly Father with the details of life.
9. Read vs. 33. What does it mean for you to seek first
His kingdom?
His righteousness?
10. What do you think Jesus means in 34 when he says, “tomorrow will worry about itself?”
11. If time– assign the following verses to various readers:
– 1 Pet. 5:7
– Phil. 4:6-7
– Ps. 27:1-2 & 4-5
– Is. 41:10
– Ps. 56:3-4
Which one speaks to you best now? Why?
THOUGHT TO TAKE WITH YOU
Don't fret or worry.
Instead of worrying, pray.
Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers,
letting God know your concerns.
Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.
It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at
the center of your life.