Worry - The Respectable Sin - part 2

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Show two for me today, I was going to record with Mario some videos, except there was so much noise outside. Couldn't do it. Mike at nocompromiseradio .com. You can write me.

Uh, if you want to support the show, you can go to the Patreon channel, the No Compromise Patreon channel, and we're working on a new website. Hopefully that'll be up sometime soon. Getting back into gear.

The leukemia is gone and I'm probably feeling better than I have in the last, I don't know, 10 years. December, 2015 was diagnosis, the diagnosis with prostate cancer. Then it was a crazy COVID thing.

Then MBL, then CLL leukemia. And so I've been off all the medications for leukemia since I think September. So up in Adam again, let's get going. Today, part two on the topic, respectable sin? Question mark of worry.

Do you worry? We are in Luke chapter 12, and I'm not going to do every show based on what I've been studying, but a few of these, and then back to kind of normal broadcasting. If we knew what that was, somebody critiqued me the other day and said, well, you know, he said such and such.

And while he does a lot of videos for American gospel, he's got 300 followers on YouTube, like that's hardly anything, which it's true. Although we used to have 5 ,000 until we lost the channel. So if you want to do us a favor, click on it.

What does it matter in life? I don't know. Does it even matter? Does it matter what I say about things? And I've got to be known, and I've got to be—listen, I'm never going to be the circuit preacher.

I'm never going to be preaching at Ligonier, Shepherd's Conference. For certain, I'm not going to be at Together for the Gospel. That's gone. The second they did the MLK thing, they should have been gone.

Who are the other big ones? Gospel Coalition? Oh, yeah, I've turned them down several times. They wanted me to do the plenary session. Tim Keller, then Mike Evertraut. The show essentially is for people at Bethlehem Bible Church, and then if it goes beyond that, fine.

People at the church listen, and I'm glad for that. If it expands beyond that, I mean, no COVID in the last 18, 20 years has taken me places I never thought I would have gone, from my friend to Pastor Eric in Kansas to overseas.

I'm trying to think of the coolest place I've ever been because of No Compromise Radio.

I don't know.

I don't think it was through NoCo, it was Hawaii. I think that was through a friend of mine, Ezra. Where's the coolest place? Saskatoon?

That was cool.

I rode a bike there. Stayed at a really neat guy's house.

Where else have I gone?

Never been to Central America. Never been to South America. Africa? I don't know. I don't think that was from No Compromise Radio, so we'll see. All that to say, you can write me, Mike, at nocompromiseradio .com.

The new book is out called The Chosen. The King, or King and Chosen, both came out pretty fast. I took the sovereignty and supremacy of King Jesus and put more guilt, grace, gratitude, duplex gratia, Christ for pardon, Christ for power into it, more gospel-centered.

So it's now called King. And then the new one, The Chosen, is I took a chapter out of sovereignty and supremacy of Jesus. I took a chapter out of maybe evangelical white lies and a chapter out of things that go bump in the church and put those together with the B .B. Warfield article and another appendix or two, appendices.

Just a little book that you could just easily hand someone. And then you can also pick up Jesus and Cancer if you want to hand out books like my friend Nahum does in Ohio.

Worry.

Should you worry? Now, the best thing to do is listen to the show that I just did yesterday, but if you didn't listen to that, that's okay. We're talking about worry and how Jesus in Luke 12, 22 said, don't worry, don't be anxious.

And we talked about how every command is connected to the command giver. The laws are connected to the law giver. So if you're an unbeliever and God tells you to do something, He's trying to show you your sin and need of a Savior, so you flee and believe in the risen Savior.

If you have a relationship of God as Father, because of the work, His work, the Son's work, the Holy Spirit's work, then for Christ's sake, you are a Son, and now the Father gives you guidance in a law.

It's still good and right and perfect. The law is because it reflects who God is, but we're not thinking about an abstract law floating around out there. No, it's connected to God because He wants His glory, therefore obey, and it's good for you.

Just like in the Proverbs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, I think I'll start off with. 7 maybe doesn't start off with a verse 1, but later, my son or my sons. Therefore, when you see this command in Luke 12, 22, for this reason, I say to you, He says to His disciples, do not worry about your life as to what you will eat, nor for your body as what you'll put on, for life is more than food and body more than clothing.

We could go to Philippians chapter 4, we could go to Matthew 6, and we could say to ourselves, yes, this is for us today. It's not just to the disciples. While Jesus said this to His disciples, it is transcultural, transchronological, it is right for us to avoid worry because worry divides our minds and it does not consider the Lord in His care for us.

The opposite of worry is trust, and we need to walk by faith. And if you think about this culturally, historically, there's some significance, and here's the significance. When we need something to eat or drink, we can go to Costco, we can go to a little tiny convenient mart down the street, we can go into our pantry, and in those days, no large stores, if there was not a lot of snow, there wasn't a lot of water.

You depended on seasonal rains, and sometimes those rains were too heavy, and therefore, there'd be all kinds of flooding, and the stress that you would have regarding your food and clothing was a lot more than today.

Today, you just, I mean, you could fly across the world and just buy cheap stuff at a Old Navy, right, an H &M someplace else, Zara, OVS in Rome, and just wear the stuff and throw it away, or pack stuff here in the United States as you're over there, throw away your clothes and have more room for trinkets and tourist gifts, what do you call it when you bring home somebody a gift?

A souvenir. I know, I know, I can't remember. I wonder what souvenir, there's got to be an etymology for souvenir. Now, if you say, Mike, you don't understand about my worry and why my worry is righteous, and if you understood me a little bit more, you would understand why I need to worry, why I have to worry.

Easy for you to say, Mike, you don't know my circumstances. Nobody knows my circumstances. By the way, everybody else worries. My doctor says it's okay. I can't help it. At least I don't worry as much as the other person.

My support group says it's fine and natural to worry. Well, what does Jesus say? We don't want to have any excuses. We just want to say, what does confession say?

I agree.

I say the same thing as God. I will align my thoughts with God and God says, don't worry, and therefore, please forgive me for worrying. Why worry about tomorrow? Why worry about the essentials of life?

Then why worry about what kind of car I'm going to drive? What kind of vacation? Will the flights make it? Will there be delays? What about TSA? What about the war? What about the stock market? I mean, excuses sound bad all around, but especially when I read this excuse from Aaron, Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought such great sin upon them?

And Aaron said, do not let the anger of my Lord burn. You know, the people yourselves, that they're prone to evil. They said to me, make a God for us who will go before us for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt.

We do not know what has become of him. And I, Aaron said, whoever has any gold, let him tear it off. So they gave it to me and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf. And you look at that and you go, how idiotic.

Well, any excuse, that one and our own excuse, I don't worry that much. I don't worry as much as I used to. It's not really worry, it's concern, but it's really worry. We just want to say, please forgive me.

We know we're not supposed to worry. We do. It's respectable sin. Doesn't seem as bad as murder and therefore it's okay. I love Proverbs 25, 25. Anxiety in the heart of man weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad.

The good word is you don't have to worry. Ask God to forgive you. He'll cleanse you. You're a Christian. And then you can say to yourself, I need to focus on God who cares for me. I need to focus on God who loves me.

I need to rest in the work of Christ Jesus and I need to think greater to lesser. If he takes care of my greatest need, forgiveness at the cost of his own son, he'll take care of everything else. I need to recognize anxiety for what it is and it's a tormenting, suffocating, corrosive thing called sin.

I need to ask myself the question that Jesus asked his disciples. Is not life more than food?

Yes.

Is not life more than the body?

Yes.

Is not life more than the body and the body more than clothing?

Yes.

And even if I say that wrong, which I just did, it's still true. I mean, they say you can't take anything with you when you die. That's true. The Talmud would say, man is born with hands clenched. He dies with them wide open.

If I'm not supposed to worry about food and clothing and those essentials, then what about other things? I mean, I have notes here from long time ago. Here's what my notes say. 100 years from now, it will make no difference if you ate at five-star restaurants and drank Evian for breakfast, wore Armani suits, Calvin Klein shoes, drove Rolls Royces.

I mean, talk about clothing. The main clothing you need and you have in Christ is Christ's perfect righteousness. That's the clothing you need. Worrying about dinner, worrying about clothes, worrying about food, worrying about the body, he's given us life.

He gave you life. Won't he sustain that life until the day you need to go to glory? Does not God care? Is life more than having? I think we've got to go back to trust. I think we need to go back to how God provides.

Fannie Crosby wrote a song, many songs, take the world, but give me Jesus. Take the world, but give me Jesus. All its joys are but a name, but his love abideth ever through eternal years the same. And then the refrain, oh, the height and depth of mercy.

Oh, the length and breadth of love. Oh, the fullness of redemption, pledge of endless life above. True or false? Man does not live by bread alone. Of course, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

So the problem we've seen is anxiousness and worry. What's the solution? We just have to live this way. We just have to be a worrywart the rest of our lives. I think my grandmother was a major worrier.

Grandma Erna on my father's side. She worried a lot, had a little cube, a little, I don't know, four inch by four inch by four inch cube, and you push the button down, it had an antenna and you can get the weather so you could worry about the weather.

I mean, I think about that myself. How many times did I look at the weather app a day? I think on the front of my phone, it even has the weather and the wind. I'm always concerned about the wind because if you're ever going to ride a bicycle, it's good to know about the wind.

Although it's April 10th here, who rides bicycles since last November? It's been winter. It's been so, I mean, it's snowed on Monday, snowing on Monday. What's that old song, that Rafi song? I like to oat, oat, oat, opals and bononos.

So it snowed on Monday. Worry about the weather, worry about the clothes, worry about all these things. We're not to worry because life is more than that. Our eyes need to be directed upwardly. And in light of that, the first remedy that Jesus gives for the sin of worry is found in verse 24, and that is to think.

He used the word consider. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. This is Luke 12, 24. They have neither storehouse nor barn. And yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?

Greater to lesser. And of which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to a span of life? If then you are not able to do such a small thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?

Worry.

What does Jesus do? He says, I don't want you to worry. I want you to consider the ravens. Now, what worry does kind of gets us in one of those loops, one of those, I don't know, computer programming loops.

It just keeps going around and around and around. And like, I've got to reboot my computer. I got that spiral circle of death going around in my Mac. Got the blank, the black screen or something of death if I've got a PC.

I never thought I'd switched to Macs, but whatever, 20 years ago, I did. These mental loops.

What if, what if, what if, what about that? What about that? What about that?

What's going to happen? If this happens, then it happens. And this always happens. And you just go round and round and round. And it's this internal mental spiral. So Jesus says something very striking.

And he says, I want you to consider the ravens. Now it's outward. Now, instead of me looking at myself and what about this?

What about that?

What about the other me, myself, and I look outward, outwardly, and now start thinking about the birds, thinking about the birds, how God cares for them and how you're better than the birds. You're more valuable than the birds.

You have image. You bear, Jesus says, paid for your sins. He loves you. And then instead of I've got all these issues, you start looking at the birds and you go, God provides, God cares, God sustains, God providentially upholds, God feeds, he feeds all the birds.

He takes care of the birds. And now I'm starting to think about God in his sovereign hand, God in his providence, God in his care for such a, like a bird, I mean, he says earlier in chapter 12, did he not?

Five sparrows sold for two cents, yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, you're more valuable than many sparrows. So wait a second.

You mean those cheap birds that are sold for two cents, you get five of them, what poor people eat? By the way, how do they catch them all? There must be some special nets for poor people. Cause it can't be that expensive.

Uh, it can't be that hard to catch because things that are hard to catch cost money. Why are macadamia nuts expensive? Well, they're hard to get. Well, these birds must not be hard to get if you can get five of them for two cents for a little snack.

A little snack.

I was 65 years old before I knew that these little sparrows were poor people's food. I almost said like, for like Walmart food. I don't think all of Walmart food is, is designed for little people. Lower income people, some of it's not, but it seems like some of it is.

It's almost like, I don't know, Aldi or something where every time I go there and by the way, I shop at both places. So it's like, I'm, I'm not saying I'm poor, but I'm the poor are not below me. This is hard.

It's hard to be cognizant of everything that you say. If you talk too much, you're going to say something wrong. My point is, what is my point? My point is, if you consider the ravens, you're not thinking about yourself.

You're thinking about God and his providential care. And you just begin to watch and you think, you know what? If he cares for the birds, God does. He's not their father. He's just the, you know, God.

Well, he's my father. Matthew six talks about father in this same kind of context. The Luke passage, and you can hear me turn my Bible here. The Luke passages, he says, consider, I believe in Matthew, he says to look.

And so here in Matthew chapter six, it says, yet your heavenly father feeds the birds. So see, we're back to that father point where he's your father. Hey, the creator takes care of the birds, but I have a father.

My creator's a father. My father's a creator and he's going to take care of me. Even little birds that aren't worth much. Even if you watch a sparrow, here he says, watch the ravens. Hey, by the way, a raven's a dirty bird.

God takes care of them. Scavengers, scoundrels. I mean, crows aren't exactly ravens, but kind of pretty similar. If he takes care of them, hey, yeah, they're looking around for food and they're building their nest and they're getting their worms, you can take care of them, father.

They're dependent upon you. And then this starts driving to prayer. Now we begin to pray. Now we begin to thank God. I begin to not think about ourselves. I read online, worry lives in the future. Birds live in the present.

And so it stabilizes us to think about now. And it says, consider, it's a compound word that means to think down, not think down upon a person like, you know, they're under you, you're better than.

They are.

No, no.

To downthink. It is looking down at something to like really observe it, to put your head down to examine. It's like you're putting a magnifying glass and you got to get close to it to get the magnifying glass at the right distance.

So it's got a clear picture. You want to perceive something and understand. You got to really look, you got to bend down. You got to look down to observe, to think down, down thinking. It means to concentrate.

It means to observe. It means to detect. Jesus detect their trickery in Luke chapter 20, Hebrews 10. Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, to consider, to think.

About it.

It could be used as to fix one's eyes or your mind upon something. And here it's the ravens. So that means you're going to look at it and it's, you're going to think for a.

While.

It's just not a glance. It's looking. And talk about fools, they're building barns, they're storing things. And here, this particular raven, they don't sow, they don't reap, they don't have storerooms or barns and God feeds them, playing off that rich young fool, that rich fool earlier in the chapter.

Hey, what's my ultimate value, my ultimate prize, my ultimate hope, my ultimate joy? It's the Lord. And he cares for me and loves me. So why would I put my ultimate hope in things, possessions, people?

I mean, we could put it this way. I've had birds in the past. We've had lovebirds and I don't think we ever had a parakeet, maybe growing up. I don't think we ever forgot to feed the bird in the cage.

I don't think we ever forgot to feed the dogs. I don't believe we ever had cats. I think maybe a couple of times you forgot to feed the fish, but the Lord would not forget to feed the birds. There's a little poem I read, beneath the spreading heavens, no creature but is fed and he who feeds the ravens will give his children bread.

Dirty scavenger, a scoundrel of a bird called a raven and ravens don't sow, they don't reap, they don't store up their food. They're not like this stupid fool who we just read about in chapter 12 and God takes care of ravens and you think you're not worth more?

Jesus didn't die for ravens. So, what Jesus wants you to do is he wants you to get off your phones, get outside. If you can't get outside, look outside and start thinking. Consider the ravens. Birdwatching, head down, fixing your eye, thinking about them and you look and you just think about God's care.

First Peter chapter 5, God cares for you. It matters to him about you, the sovereign of the universe. Psalm 145, the eyes of all look to you and you give them their food in due time. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Psalm 147, he gives to the beast its food and to the young ravens which cry. Job 38, 41, who prepares for the raven its nourishment when its young cry to God and wander about without food.

How about you?

Are you worried today? What do you do when you're worried? Just keep worrying? Blame? Drink alcohol? Go see a movie? When I was an unbeliever, that's one of the things I did when movies were good, right?

You're like, I just got to go see a movie, just forget about everything for two hours. But I still have the same problems after those two hours. Lloyd-Jones said, the essence of worry is the absence of thought or a failure to think.

So Jesus says, I want you to think, I want you to consider. I want you to be a birdwatcher. Now, this is fascinating because this is in a culture, we're in a culture that doesn't think. I read a book 30 years ago, The Christian Mind, How Should a Christian Think?

And his thesis in chapter one was, there's no longer a Christian mind. That was 30 years ago. And every time we hear the word meditation, we kind of think of Eastern mysticism. No, no, this is meditate in a good way.

This is consider in a good way. Down-thinking, concentration. IBM's founder in 1914 put a placard on his wall that said, think. And I've said many times that little slogan, use your brains. It's the little things in life that count.

Satan doesn't want you to think. If Jesus says, consider, what does Satan want? If God wants us to love the Lord, our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, I think it'd be Satan's strategy to say, don't love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Just go by your feelings. It's thinking, and thinking leads to right behavior. And right behavior leads to doxology, theology, methodology, doxology. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

God feeds the birds. He's going to feed me. I'm not to consider the birds to act like them. I'm consider the birds because I see God taking care of them. It is true. Can you imagine an earthly father saying, I'm going to feed the birds in the cage, but I'm not going to feed my sons and daughters?

Consider, to think. Well, my name's Mike Abramoff, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Could I say, I am No Compromise Radio Ministry? I don't know if that would be true. So many others behind the scenes, Mario, Spencer, Jonathan, and the list goes on.

You can write me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com. You can, I don't know. You can tell your friends, like, subscribe, et cetera, et cetera. Don't forget the YouTube channel. That is No Compromise YouTube channel.

And if you want to know more about our church, Bethlehem Bible Church, bbcchurch .org. This is Mike Abramoff, thanks for listening.