The Sin Of Anxiety And Its Remedy - [Matthew 6:25-34]

Worry as a Respectable Sin and the Need for Biblical Help

Quite a few years, we sent our children to a Christian elementary school and they would come home with all kinds of songs to sing, including this one. My name is Worry Warthog. I live in misery. Instead of trusting in the Lord, I worry constantly.

Although I know it's silly, although I know it's bad, still I find a certain joy in always looking sad. Sometimes my mother asks me, why must you worry so? Our graciously heavenly Father loves all creatures here below.

You worry in the night time. You cry when you're alone. You'll be one great big wart before you're even grown. And no, I will not sing that for you. Do you ever worry? And the answer is, of course. Do I worry?

The answer is, of course. We worry and fret. The problem is, there's so many things to worry about. Right? From stock markets, to health, to the world, to the election,.

To viruses,.

To vaccinations, nuclear bombs, salvation of loved ones, student loans, our grandchildren growing up in such a world. So many things to worry about. Too much snow to get to church? I mean, the list is endless, right?

I don't know if you're like me, but sometimes I've wakened in the night and I feel like there's a boa constrictor around my neck, strangling me. And I can just think of those thoughts. It makes me worry about so many things.

Matter of fact, the English word to worry means to strangle. Because it's all consuming and it's just choking you from your relaxation and calm. And so today, we'd like to talk about, or I'd like to talk about, what does the Bible say about worry?

It's almost like the respectable sin of Christians. We know how bad some other sins are, but what about worry, the forbidden fruit? So we're going to take a little deviation. On snow Sundays, we meet at 10 .30, and we have no Sunday school, no Sunday night, and also I pull up an older sermon that I know is good for me.

And good for you.

Matthew 6 and the Sermon on the Mount

So we'll deviate from Luke 4 today. Turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6. The greatest sermon may be ever preached. The Lord Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount. And I want you to know this morning that there are solutions to worry, and God, the Heavenly Father, cares so much for you.

He doesn't want you to worry. And He can certainly take care of you and could look after you and your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren.

And certainly,.

If you want to plan your future and have prudent provision for yourself and work hard, there's nothing wrong with that, but worrying is a sin,.

And we need to see it as such.

And then we need to see that the remedy for worry is trusting in the Lord Jesus. This sermon in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is found in the book of Matthew, and I love even the name of Matthew just to catch you up in the book of Matthew a little bit.

Matthew means gift of the Lord, and certainly His name means that, and also this book is a gift from the Lord, as we see in this book, Jesus extolled as King. Everything about it from the very beginning with His genealogy, I mean, whoever reads genealogies, right?

When I started my Bible reading for the year, the McShane Plan, to read through every book of the Bible again this year, of course, Matthew 1 was on January 1st, and it's got a genealogy, and then Esther 1 and 2 have all kinds of names,.

And I thought,.

I'm glad we can look at genealogies.

A little bit differently.

This is the book about Jesus, the King, the Sovereign Lord. If I had one verse in all of Matthew to describe it, it would be Matthew 21 .5. Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your King is coming to you.

And that's exactly what happens. The King, the Lord Jesus, arrives. The first book in the New Testament, having so many Old Testament connections, it seems fit and right. Malachi ends, and now we have Matthew, and we have Jesus, the Messiah.

Jesus, the King. Early on in chapter 2, for He has been born King of the Jews, and then at the very end in Matthew 27, the charge against Him, red that was put over His head on the cross, this is Jesus, King of the Jews.

And if you look at Matthew 4 .24, what has been going on before Jesus preaches this sermon? It says in verse 24 of Matthew 4,. So His fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and He healed them all.

And great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis, those ten Gentile cities, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. Seeing the crowds, Matthew 5, He went up on a mountain, sounds like Moses going up to Sinai, right?

Jesus going up to a mountain. We see a lot of this similarity and parallel from the Old Testament to the New. And when He sat down, His disciples came to Him. Of course, that's how they would teach back in those days.

You know, here at the church, when I'm preaching, I stand up. Back in those days, when rabbis would teach, they would sit down. It would be a very formal thing. They're sitting down to teach. And you know, there's a little bit of that in the synagogues.

There's a seat of Moses. Or even today, the professor at a university has a chair, because that's a formal thing. So now Jesus is going to teach. And if you're not careful, you read chapter 5, verse 2, and you think, what is He doing?

And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying, I mean, don't you have to open your mouth before you teach? The answer is yes. It's hard to just mumble. And so this is a formal way of saying this is important.

When you hear this language in Scripture, He opened His mouth to teach. This is going to be kind of hold on to your hat type of thing. Get ready. This is going to be very, very important. Acts 8, Philip opened his mouth and preached Jesus to them.

Acts 10, Peter said, opening his mouth, God shows no partiality. And so now Jesus is going to be teaching. Of course, I know you love the Sermon on the Mount, but not everybody does. Remember the old Russian leader, Khrushchev?

He said, I'll tell you what the difference between Christians and me is. That if you slap me on the face, I'll hit you back so hard your head will fall off, instead of turning the other cheek. Harry Barnes said, once we make a candid examination of the actual teachings of Jesus, it must be admitted that they are not only archaic, but even destructive for any advanced civilization.

If the teachings of Jesus as they exist were applied to contemporary society, nothing less than anarchy would inevitably follow. Not everybody likes this sermon. And one more man said the doctrine of salvation in the Sermon on the Mount stands in sharpest contradiction to that of Paul in Romans 3 -8.

There's a gulf between Jesus and Paul that no exegesis can ever bridge. I don't quite think so. I think you know this passage, you've read it regularly, and I think you'll be encouraged and convicted as we look at God's prescription for worry.

If you'd like an outline today, it's super simple. I'm going to give you six charges to work through by the grace of God to help you look at worry God's way. In essence, God's solution for anxiety and worry.

And they're not going to be with alliteration, they're going to be alphabetical, acrostic. A-B-C-D-E-F. That's my outline. A-B-C-D-E-F. I know, that's rare. That's rare around here, so I think we should probably turn off the live stream, because I don't think those watching at home should enjoy the things that we do in person, right?

Just kidding. So we're going to look at God's prescription for worry and anxiety. Six charges, starting with A, working our way all the way through F. Letter A. Admit that all worry and anxiety is sinful.

Admit That Worry Is Sin

Matthew 6 -25. Just recognize it and believe it, and say to yourself, this is in fact sinful. If God says not to do something and I do it, that would be sinful. If God says in Philippians 4, be anxious for nothing and I'm anxious for something, I have to just say that's sin.

And by the way, as we work through this passage, once you recognize something's sin, there's hope. Because God doesn't forgive diseases or illnesses or syndromes, He forgives sin. Because Jesus is a great forgiver.

And so when we realize and confess and agree with God, this is sin, then it opens up everything for us. It's God's compassion to even tell us through the Lord Jesus here, to see worry as God sees it as sin.

Matthew 6 -25. 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. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

And once again, we need to recognize the gravity of things, that if we are told not to do something and we do it, let's just admit that it's sin. And so when we worry, we ought to immediately say, I know you're telling me not to be divided and distracted and worrying and working through these things with fretting.

And so I will admit, Lord, that's sin. You might ask the question, like a good Bible student, it says in verse 25, the first word, therefore, so it must be connected to something. And he has been talking about money, has he not?

In verse 24, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. And so the logical conclusion, if you can't serve money, then we shouldn't be concerned about things that money can buy, like food and clothing, what we eat, what we drink, what we put on.

Does anybody here have King James? Instead of saying, therefore, I tell you to not be anxious about your life, who has King James? Anyone?

Okay, what's it say?

Verse 25 of Job 12. Just kidding. I'm kidding. 625, it says take no thought, does it not? Okay, stop there. Take no thought. He's not saying you should never think about it, but it's this grinding worry and this kind of, you know, sometimes in computer programs it just gets stuck in these loops and it's just over and over and over.

I'm not saying we're dogs at all, but when I would train dogs or be around dogs, they just kind of stare and they're fixated on something and I have to just give them kind of a little prod, right? I know what some of my enemies might think, that he called us dogs again.

I'm not saying that at all. But like a dog, similar to a dog, with similes of language for the dog, it's like we're so fixated on something, we're taking thought about something so much, and Jesus is saying, you know what?

That's not your department to worry about, what you eat and what you drink and what you put on. If you are worrying, stop. And if you're not worrying, don't worry. That idea of fretting over things and being consumed about this stuff that might happen or is happening, this gnawing or this biting.

Jesus says, don't be anxious about it. By the way, do you see the argument? Since God has given you life, won't he take care of you for what you need for life? If he gives you the greatest thing, life, wouldn't he give you the lesser, clothes?

Someone called the world's trinity of cares, what we eat, what we drink and what we wear. There's a genuine concern we have to provide for our family, obviously, but there's a difference between concern and worry.

If we're not supposed to worry about the essentials of life, eating and drinking what we wear, well, then should we worry about what kind of car we drive? What kind of snowblower we have? Matter of fact, my snowblower is on the last legs.

It's a 27-year-old snowblower. And he, Luke, today was out there getting ready. My father always said he had a 15-year-old snowblower when I was 15. He had a 16-year-old snowblower when I was 16.

If you think about what happened back in the Bible days, no Costco's, no Hannaford's, none of these stores. If you're supposed to not be worried about what you eat and drink, then, I mean, everybody's talking about sometime this year the grid's going to go down and three weeks at least, five weeks at least, ten weeks at least.

What are we going to do? Well, we're going to do what we did back in the Bible days and that is not worry about these things. You say, well, it's easy for you to say. Well, it is because it's right here.

But it's the Bible.

You say, well, you don't know my circumstances. I know, but the Lord does. Yes, but everybody worries. I know, but you're not supposed to. I cannot help it. My doctor said it was okay. At least I don't worry as much as the other guy does.

My support group says it's fine to worry. Jesus says, don't worry. If you're a Christian, you're not to worry. It's a sin. So the next time you worry, you just ought to say, Lord, I'm sorry I've sinned against you.

Please forgive me. I don't want to make any excuses and sound as bad as Aaron did. I just threw in this gold and out came this calf. I don't want to sound as dumb as Adam did, the woman you gave me. I don't want to do that.

I will confess my inequity, Psalm 38, and will be forgiven. It says in 1 John 1, If we say we have no sin, like worry, we're deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins of worry, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins of worry,.

And everything else,.

And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. My little children, I'm writing these things to you that you might not sin, including worry. And if anyone does sin, worry, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

And He Himself is the propitiation, or the wrath is assuaged by Him, for our sins, including worry. Not for ours only,.

But also for the whole world.

I read this week that 19 million adults suffer from some kind of anxiety disorder. I'm not here to talk about whether disorders are true or not, and whether syndromes are true or not. I'm more thinking about anxiety really is real.

I don't know what you want to call it, but we need to be careful to realize that anxiety is real. You can do some self-tests online too. Have you been concerned about any of these things or been bothered by them in the last six months?

Have you been restless? Easily tired? Problems concentrating? Irritable? Muscle tension? Falling asleep? Having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or restless sleep? If you've answered at least three of those six questions, yes, you might have generalized anxiety disorder, also known as GAD.

I think I've got like ten of those six. I found another one because I thought it might help me. Do you have two or more of these symptoms? Feeling on edge?

Easily fatigued?

Having a hard time concentrating? Muscle tension? Having a hard time falling asleep? And I'm like, yeah, that's me. Heart racing? Chest pain? Difficulty breathing? Grandchildren speaking out of turn? I guess I could ask you this.

What makes you the most worried?

Finances?

Health?

The election?

The Bible says,.

Anxiety in the heart of man weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad. And the good word is, you don't have to worry. Jesus asked the question in verse 25. Do you see it at the end of verse 25? Is not life more than food?

Is it not? And the body more than clothing? Is it not? There are eternal realities and eternal verities that we need to live in light of and not just focusing here. A hundred years from now, it'll make no difference that you went to a Michelin star restaurant.

Did you know that? In 100 years, it'll make no difference that you wore an Armani tie when you preach from the pulpit. Matter of fact, I'm wearing one right now. I got it at the thrift store. How much was it, Grace?

It makes no difference. So, letter A, admit that worry is sin. Just confess it as sin and go to Lord forgiveness. That's the first thing. If Jesus calls something sin, we call it sin. Own it.

Believe Your Heavenly Father Provides

Secondly, B,.

Believe that your heavenly Father is loving, good, and provides everything you need. Believe in the goodness of God the Father. If you're a Christian today, you know and you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good because you have received salvation full and free.

You've seen the plan of God unfold in your own life and you can look back in time.

And say,.

These are the people that prayed for me. These are the people that evangelized me. These are the people that taught me the Bible. And all leading up for that time where the Spirit of God makes me alive and makes me born again to love the things I used to hate and hate the things I used to love.

I've seen the goodness of God.

I've seen Him answer prayer. I've seen Him convict me. I've seen Him open my heart. All these things, I know all about it. And now Jesus is going to draw on that fact. Remember the heavenly Father. Verse 26.

Because He provides for you.

And so, the first one's stop. The second one's look. Right? Stop, look, and listen. Sometimes people say, stop, drop, and roll. Remember, did you do that when you were a kid in public school? Nuclear bomb, like that was really going to help.

Stop, drop, and roll. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? So it's one thing to say,.

Don't worry.

It's another thing to say, what do I do instead? And remember, a lot of times, the Bible helps us to say, we say no to sin. We kill sin, mortification. We put off. And then we say, yes, we want to live under righteousness, motivated by grace, motivated by the Lord, Titus chapter 2.

And then we want to live rightly and we put on. So if we don't want to worry, then what do we do instead to replace it? And I've said to myself many times before, and I've said to my children many times before, what's the opposite of worry?

And what's the answer?

Trust.

That's what he's doing here. Trust in the heavenly Father. I mean, what are your other options to overcome worry? You can call 1 -888-ANXIETY. You can call the National Anxiety Foundation. You can call Anxiety Disorders Association of America.

You can read books like,.

Living With Fear,.

Peace From Nervous Suffering. You can be like G. Gordon Liddy. Remember, he was involved in Watergate.

Mr. Tough Guy G. Gordon Liddy.

And remember, he had a fear of rats, electricity, and heights. He didn't like to be up high. He didn't like rats.

He didn't like electricity.

And so what did he do to overcome his worry and his fear? Remember, he climbed up an electric pole and ate a rat. That's an option. Maybe not a good option. I hope he cooked it first. But that's alright.

Minereth Meyer, some Christian psychologist said, We suggest setting aside 15 minutes in the morning and another 15 minutes in the evening for active worry.

What Jesus said,.

Your Savior, your Redeemer, your friend said, Remember the Father. Remember how good the Father is. Instead of worrying, you need to trust. He could have said, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And lean not on your own understanding.

It's cured with doctrine. Anxiety is cured with doctrine. The Lord takes care of who He has made. And so we have the command, verse 26,.

Look at the birds.

It's almost like, get out of that fixation. You're staring at your own problem so much. Get out and look at the birds. I was talking to Hannah Abendroth the other day, and they were just in Netherlands, and I think they saw it.

Did you see Corrie Ten Boom's house?

Okay.

They wanted to. And Corrie Ten Boom, of course, had survived the concentration camps in Germany. And I think she said something like, when it comes to looking, When you look around, you get distressed.

Amen?

You look inwardly, you get depressed. And when you look out and you look up, you find rest. I thought, you know, that's really good. So Jesus directs to look. To go outside, to be the bird watcher, and just to look.

And this kind of look here, in the original language, is to take a good long look.

Stare.

Be like one of those geriatric 63-year-old men outside with nice cameras and binoculars, that he probably has bifocals too, and just stare at those birds. Because when you're looking at the birds, you should be thinking something.

The Lord God takes care of them and their birds. I mean, what's a bird cost? What's a bird worth? He says, I want you to look. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the theologian, said, The essence of worry is a failure to think.

Or in this case, a failure to look and think.

To look.

To think.

To think.

Through the issues. To realize that God shows some kind of concern for a bird. He shows some interest of a bird, that even cares that there's a bird there. Now, we're not to imitate the birds. We're not to say, well, they don't store things up.

Well, they don't store things up out of instinct. But we're to look at them and say, God providentially cares for the birds. If He providentially cares for the birds, and He's my Father, and the only way He's your Father is through faith in the Son,.

If you're one of His children,.

He will take care of you. I don't see the birds lining up at BJ's to try to get stuff. Birds stockpile, but out of instinct only. One man said, Nobody ever saw an earthly father feed his birds and abandon his children.

What earthly father would do that, let alone Heavenly Father? Jesus is not saying, Oh, don't worry because you don't really have troubles.

You have troubles.

But He's saying, Don't worry because I'm your Heavenly Father. I would feel so bad if one of my children, when they were little, said, Daddy, are you going to provide us enough food for tomorrow? Do you think we might have clothes for tomorrow to wear?

I would think that's impugning my nature as a father who wants to protect and provide and to care for.

God is good.

He's full of goodness.

He's eternally good.

Is there anything about God that isn't good?

G .I. Packer said,.

If you understand that God is your Father, you get Christianity. One simple word, Father. You understand it. He said, You sum up the whole of the New Testament teaching in a phrase,.

Father.

In the same way,.

You can sum up the New Testament religion by saying that you know He's your Heavenly Father and Holy Father. One man said, Worms eat you when you're dead. Worries eat you when you're alive. I don't want to do that.

Who wants to be the worry warthog? It's not even good for you physically, is it not? You can understand how many times people have to go to the hospital from ulcers and other things out of worry. It's really saying to yourself, God's not my Heavenly Father.

God has not sent the Son to redeem me. And God can't provide for what He's made. I think there's a hymn that says something like this. This is my Father's world. And to my listening ears. All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.

This is my Father's world. I, what? Rest me in the thought. That's what the Lord wants us to do. We don't want to walk around like there's no God. Worry, essentially, is unrighteousness. That's true. But it's an atheism.

It's a willful ignorance that God cares. Luther said, you see, God is making the birds our schoolmasters and teachers. Whenever you listen to a nightingale, you're listening to an excellent preacher. Said the robin to the sparrow, I should really like to know why these anxious human beings rush and worry about so.

Said the sparrow to the robin, friend, I think it must be that they have no Heavenly Father such as cares for you and me.

John said,.

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God and such we are.

You're God's child.

You're not supposed to worry. You're supposed to work, that's true, but you're not supposed to worry. I've quoted a couple poems and songs today, I might as well just keep going. No other elder here to tell me I did the wrong thing, so I do what I want today.

Preach as long as I want.

Quote as many poems as I want. Many songs as I want. Mention my kids as much as I want without giving them a dollar. We are free today. His eye is on the sparrow. Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come?

Why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home? When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He. His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me. I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free.

His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me. The Lord doesn't want you to worry. When I have children that worry,.

Or I worry,.

I know it's not good for me, and so the Heavenly Father would not want that for us. It's even unfruitful. Do you know that? Verse 27. The Heavenly Father wouldn't want us.

To be involved with this.

Because it doesn't do anything. There's no result. It's useless. And which of you, dear Bethlehem Bible Church,.

By being anxious,.

Can add a single hour to his or her lifespan? NAS says, add a single cubit to his lifespan. I think ESV is right there. A single hour. If you worry, can you live longer? I don't think you can. I don't think it does any good.

I mean, I wouldn't do this because I'm a pastor and I know worry is sin, but if I said, okay, go ahead. You like to worry? Just worry all weekend and see how that works out for you. Worry as much as you want.

Drink a lot of caffeine. Stay up all night.

Worry, worry, worry,.

And tell me how that works out for you. Stonewall Jackson, the great general,.

Said,.

My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed a time for my death. I do not concern myself about that. So even when it comes to death, people are worried about when they're going to die, how they're going to die.

Will they die with enough money to pass on to their children?

What does Jesus say?

Keep going in Luke, sorry, Matthew chapter 6, verse 28. He gives another illustration of looking or considering or getting outside to take a good long think,.

If you will.

And why are you anxious about clothing? Verse 28 of Matthew 6.

Consider, observe, ponder.

The lilies of the field.

How they grow, they neither spin nor toil.

Yet I tell you, Jesus said, even Solomon in all his glory, and he had great glory, was not arrayed like one of these.

Just go out and observe.

Get yourself a good magnifying glass and just take a look at some of those lilies.

As a matter of fact,.

It would be a good thing to do. Get like a little jeweler's loop or a magnifying glass and just take a look at some flowers and see how intricate they are and see how beautiful they are and see how arrayed they are, full of splendor, but not compared to what the Lord can do.

Remember, Queen of Sheba saw Solomon.

And she said,.

The half was not told me how much splendor you had. So Jesus says, when you're going to be anxious, just essentially admit it as sin and then remember the Father. How do you remember the Father? You can't see Him because He's invisible.

Of course, you could read the Bible or you could go outside and see some of the handiwork of the Father.

And you could say,.

I see birds and sparrows and chickadees and other things. God takes care of them. He'll take care of me. They're not image bearers.

I am.

And then you look at if God clothes animals or clothes here plants, won't He clothe me? I mean, if you consider and work through what happens, let's just expand it. From a plant to the universe.

I read this week.

That the globe's weight is six sextillion tons. That's a six with 21 zeros. And it's perfectly put at 23 degrees. A little less burn, a little more polar freezing. Did you know that our globe revolves at the rate of 1 ,000 miles per hour or 25 ,000 miles per day or 9 million miles per year?

And that how many of you have tumbled into orbit because of that? Not one. And if God can do that and make the stars and provide for the lilies and provide for the animals, Jesus asked in verse 30, but if God so clothes the grass of the field.

Which is today alive,.

Tomorrow thrown in the oven, will He not much more clothe you,.

O you of little faith? Do you see it?

Worry questions God. Worry shows that it's a faith issue,.

A trust issue.

So when we're worrying, we're not trusting in the Lord. I mean, I don't think anybody in this congregation that I know of would say, I don't believe the Bible. It's not infallible. It's not for us today.

I don't believe Jesus is the only way. I don't believe Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead. I don't believe He's coming back. I don't believe He prays for us. It's just all mumbo-jumbo.

I don't think we do that. But as children, sometimes we question the Father and it's an issue of faith. Every time I worry, it's not just useless, doesn't do anything, the last few verses, it's actually questioning God.

It's a mark of faithlessness. Oh, you of little faith.

I don't want to be that.

I know you don't want to be that. I read of a preacher named David Field. He was over in England and he preached at a country church.