Worry and Anxiety

Matthew 6 and the Problem of Worry

I sure did. Let's try the Gospel of Matthew. Let's do that. I'm not starting good. Matthew chapter 6. And what I'll do is I want to read the section that we will consider this morning and then we'll just ask God's blessing and then we'll look at it a little closer.

In Matthew chapter 6, beginning at verse 25, I want to read through down to verse 34. And again, I do read from the New King James. And the Lord says this, Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature?

So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, and they neither toil nor spin. And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat?

Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For all these things the Gentiles seek, for your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient to this day is its own troubles. Let us ask God's blessing. Our Father in God, again we do come to you in that name, the name of Jesus, the Lord of glory, the one who so loved us that he gave himself for us.

And Lord, now we come, Holy Spirit, to you, word, the word of the living God. Lord, we ask you to help us. Help us to see things that you would have us to see to become more like that one, even the Son of Man, the Son of God.

Lord, come now, do what only you can do. May the words of our mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. You alone are our rock and our Redeemer. So do what only you can do, we ask in Christ's name.

Amen. So as I said, I want to look at this section, but before I do, I want to make a couple of statements just to kind of preface it. And let me start it this way. I think it would be a fast statement to say that society in general, and particularly or especially our society here in the United States, is a pill-taking society.

I'm not talking about the needed medications that people take for the vast amount of maladies that we experience. What I'm talking about is a very particular medication pill that is consumed to reach a very specific and particular result.

So let me ask you to think about this. Would it surprise you if I told you that in the United States, that 20 of the people in the United States are taking some sort of pill for worry and anxiety? Well, let that sink in just for a second.

That means one in five Americans are taking some kind of medication to suppress and alleviate worry and anxiety. Now, out of that group, I would assume, and I do understand that there are some that deal with all kinds of issues of their minds and their hearts, and some of it is chemical imbalance.

And I know that for sure because my dad had it. My dad would take certain medicines to help chemically in his brain to keep him from becoming way out of line. But that's a very small group. So let that, again, sink in.

One in five Americans are on some kind of pill to reduce or take away worry and anxiety. And that's what I want to deal with this morning. I want to deal with what, in many ways, I believe the world calls mental health issues.

Although I have not heard, and maybe you have, I've never really heard anyone define what they mean when they use this word mental health issues. Unless they're talking about the chemical imbalance that I spoke of.

But it just seems to be this big bucket that we dump everything in, and we never really define it. And I believe that's so because, you see, friends, if we are not going to put ourselves under the Word of God, and under the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are going to continually have worries and anxieties, and I will show you that, or I hope to show you that even those who are His still deal with worry and anxieties.

Now you might say, well, I don't have any worries, and I don't have any anxieties.

Baloney.

You might not have any that you want other people to hear, but you have them. We all have them. We all have things that disquiet us. We all have things that cause us anxiety. And again, the world has a solution, and that solution is, well, take two of these.

And if that don't work, take one of those, and take a red or a blue or a yellow. You know what's really interesting? The Lord Jesus Christ, I believe, He deals with this issue right here. And He's the physician of the souls.

He's the one who made us. He's the one who knows us. He's the one who knows our very thoughts are far off. He knows our thoughts before we do. And as we come to this section, I hope to show you that there is a remedy for anxiety.

There is a remedy for, if you will, that anxiety that churns within us. Now, there's a similar passage in Luke chapter 12 where Jesus again deals with this thought about worry and anxiety. But for now, we're going to at least stay focused on the passage in Matthew.

I want to state this too in the beginning. Worry and anxiety is something that we all deal with. What I mean by that is we would all agree that there are things that unsettle us, things that take us off the mark, things that cause us to ultimately become more anxious about something that hasn't taken place than being concerned with the things that are right in front of us.

That's what anxiety does. It causes us and worry causes us to be taken off the mark of where we ought to be. And I would say this, that if the devil can have us worried about tomorrow, then he's already won the battle for today.

Again, it's staggering to think about what I just said as far as 20 of Americans are taking some sort of pill. And I don't know the age range. But I guarantee you it probably starts pretty early. Let me add this to it.

I believe, and if you want to argue with me, see Mike. But I believe worry and anxiety is in many ways the result of the fall of man. That man having rebelled from God, man having turned from God, man having resisted the very commandments of God, as a result has come to the point where he no longer is in fellowship and union with the God of heaven and earth, and therefore one of the consequences is this anxiety or this worry that to some extent churns in every single one of us.

And as I said, I do believe it affects both the believer, because he still has or she still has the remaining remnants of sin within us. The dominion has been broken, but that doesn't mean the battle with it is over.

And certainly for the unbeliever, for those who do not know the saving work of Christ, and by the way, friends, just consider this. When Jesus came into this world to die for sinners, He not only came to pay the price that God requires to be satisfied, but He paid that price and that we can be satisfied within ourselves, and that the believer can still be troubled with these worries and anxieties.

And certainly the unbeliever, because what does Isaiah say? Isaiah says that the wicked, and in the Bible the wicked are those who do not know God, that they're like what? They're like the troubled sea.

That they're like the waves of the beach. They just keep crashing and they keep stirring things up and stirring things up, and in that sense they're just bound. Now you might say, man, that's not a good opening, brother.

Well, I hope if you give me a few minutes and give the Lord Jesus the attention, He will deal with this issue and we can find a remedy and find a way to overcome, to deal with worries, anxieties, things that put us out.

The Three Therefores of Worry

And so the title for the message is the three therefores of worry. Want to know where I got it? Let me show you. Verse 25, chapter 6 of Matthew. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life. And then, if you will, look at verse 31.

Therefore do not worry, saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink? And then a third time in verse 34. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things, and sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

The three therefores of worry. We need to look at this. We need to consider it. And by the way, if you look at this, what we just read, that's what Jesus tells us to do in part. Look, in verse 26, He says something.

He says, and this is again in the New King James, He says, why do you worry about clothing? Consider. Consider. He also tells us that we ought to look, observe, think. And so you and I need to ask ourselves, what is it that we have to look at?

What is it that we have to consider? What is it that so troubles this world? And how is it that we, by God's amazing grace, can be able to cope with it, to deal with it, and in many cases to overcome it?

And what are the remedies if we fall into it? And so I want to take them one by one and look at them, consider them, think about them, with the hope that God will be pleased, in the case of the believer, to help us, to encourage us, to, if you will, prod us to press on.

And if you're here this morning, listen, if you're here this morning and you do not know Christ, I want you to know something.

You're doomed.

I know I'm getting way off track now, but it's true. Listen, if you're not in Christ this morning, you are doomed, not only in this life, but for all eternity. You think you have worries now? Take your last breath without Christ, and you will suffer in eternal anxiety and punishment like you never could conceive.

I'll probably say that again later, too. But I want to consider them and look at them one by one in the immediate context of the first one, and there it is in verse 25. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, 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 the immediate context, if you will, is what Jesus had said in verse 24. And that's the immediate context, where Jesus said, No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon. And what I think he's driving at and what we will consider, and this is more of a general point, if you will, is that there's got to be a reality in us as we think about where we stand in relationship to this world.

Is the things of this life, is mammon and the allurements of this world, do we love them? Do we hate them? Where are we in this situation? Because depending on where you are, it will have an effect on whether you will be anxiety-plagued, if you will, or worry.

In the wider context, certainly, is this Sermon on the Mount given by the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that context, he gives to us, and even Brother Mike brought that up in the Bible study this morning, considering the Beatitudes and the character of those who are participants in the kingdom of God.

And I want you to know that, too, I hope you know that, that being in the kingdom of God means that you're under the rule and reign of Christ. Amen? That means we're under the possession and power and direction of the Holy Spirit.

And that the things of this world, although they have attractions for us, and though they pull us, yet by the reality of the power of God in us, the things that bound us before no longer bind us. It's like breaking gravity.

We have been able to overcome. So that's something to think about as far as the context, and it's being under the rule and the reign. And so I want to look at the words for a minute, because I think it's important for us.

And again, I say to you, I read the New King James. So in the New King James, in verse 25, which is the first of the three therefores, he says, therefore I say to you, do not worry. So the word in the New King James is the word worry.

If you were to look up what that word means, it means to be anxious. It means to be put out. It means to be in distress. It means to be, as I said before, somewhat out of your, I don't know, can I say it this way?

Somewhere out of your zone. And that's the way it's interpreted or translated in the New King James. In the King James, yeah, in the King James, if I'm not mistaken, it says take no thought. That's the way they translated it.

In the ESV, which many of you read, I believe it says anxious. And it has that same thought of being distressed, being put out, being overly concerned about something. What's interesting, it's the same word that Jesus uses in Luke 10, where Jesus is dealing with Martha and Mary.

You remember that account, right? That where was Mary? She was sitting at the table. She was listening. She was focused in on the Lord of Glory. And where was Martha? Martha was the one who was anxious.

Martha was the one who was, if you think about it, she was distressed because what she thought was that Mary should kind of jump in and help out. And the word in that account in Luke is the word care.

So you see that this word has many different ways to be translated. It's all the same word. And the word is the same word that's used in Philippians chapter 4, where Paul says, be anxious for what? For nothing.

Be anxious for nothing. Now, if you begin to think about it, there's a section in Matthew 13, and you don't have to turn to it now, with the parable of the sower and the seed. And if you remember in one of the different grounds of the soil and the seed and how it works, it talks about that group who they received the word, but then it says, but the cares of the world choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

Well, that word care, in Matthew 13, is the same word that Jesus uses here when he says, therefore I say to you, do not worry. Now, nowhere am I trying to say this morning that we ought not to have concerns.

Nowhere am I trying to say that there aren't things. No, certainly, listen. Has anyone here this morning not given at least a thought or two about what Milton's going to do? We all have thought about it.

The problem becomes when some of us become overly distressed, and as I hope to show you, the reason why is what Jesus says right here. So we all have, and nowhere am I trying to say that we don't have concerns, we don't have planning.

I mean, you think about it, even the king that was going to go out to war, what does it say? He had to consider the cost, and he had to plan things out, and he had to have some sort of concern. Do I have enough to finish the war?

Do I have enough soldiers? Do I have enough ammunition? Do I have enough this or that? I mean, certainly I'm not saying that we shouldn't have any concern. As far as planning and things of that nature, because, listen, if you're going to provide for your family, and you don't have a whole lot of concern about how that's going to come off, I guarantee you, you're going to have some worries.

If a man don't work, what not to eat? But just think about it, and so I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't have concerns and we shouldn't have anxieties. As a matter of fact, if you think about it in a positive way, God says we ought to be good stewards of what he's given us, correct?

Absolutely. And so there has to be planning. There has to be some sort of consideration. Friends, it's when we become distressed, and we miss the mark, if you will, of being quiet before God, that we are being carried away into anxieties and worries and the things that can cause so many.

And it's sad, friends. It's sad that so many people are popping pills. Now, again, I'm not trying to say we shouldn't take medication, and I'm not saying that there aren't those that have other issues that necessitate them taking something to help to calm their souls.

But I want you to think about what's happening here, that what Jesus is saying is a remedy. And I want to add this about worry and anxiety. And someone said this, and I don't know who it was, otherwise I'd mention his name, but listen.

You can have worry and anxiety and distress and all kinds of things working, and it's that very thing of worry that causes the issue. Like, in other words, you could be as worried over poverty as you can be being worried over wealth.

You see, it's not the thing that you're worrying about, it's the very fact that you're worried, that we become anxious, that we become overcome by a certain situation. So again, it could be... I guess what I'm trying to say is it has no boundaries, friends.

You really don't. Just like they say mental health issues, again, there's that big umbrella of mental health issues that just seems to cover a multitude of situations. Let me tell you this. The Word of God covers every situation if we only would listen to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, do not worry. It's important for us to understand who's speaking. It's just Jesus speaking, right? Isn't it interesting, in the Sermon on the Mount, if you went back and read from Matthew 5 to Matthew 7, what is commonly been called the Sermon on the Mount, how often we will hear Jesus say, I say to you.

And that's exactly what he says here. Therefore, I, in verse 25, I say to you, do not worry. It's important for us to understand who's speaking. It's not Dr. Phil, not Oprah, not all those that are out there trying to dispel, if you will, worries and anxieties and being in distress and all these remedies that they propose.

This is the Lord of glory. This is the Son of God. This is the Son of Man. This is the one who did always the things to please the Father. This is the one who created us. This is the one who sustains us.

This is the one who knows what we need. And what we don't need. And so remember, we need to remember that Jesus is speaking with all authority here. And that's what many people have the problem with, right?

It's the authority of Christ. Many people rejoice that he came as a Savior, but they're not willing to submit to his Lordship. Just like the Jews. Remember what they said? We will not have this man reign over us.

We will not. So anyway, the authority is there. It's in the Son of God. And he is again, verse 25,. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, 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. Now, I don't believe he's dismissing concern over clothes. Just want to clear that. In other words, I would hope every one of us, I know everyone has had some consideration this morning about making sure that we put clothes on before we came here.

Otherwise, we'd have a whole different dynamic going on. But that's not what he's saying. But what he is drawing a contrast to, and that's why I say it's more of a general principle at this point, is he's contrasting.

Because it's interesting to me, look, Therefore I say unto you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, 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.

He's talking about life and food? What's the connection? I believe what he's saying is that we need to have this perspective, if you will, that the thing that really matters is where we stand for all eternity.

That the things of this life are not unimportant, but none of the things of this life should put us into a place of distress and anguish, anxiety and worry and overdue care. I think we all have concern.

I know you're all so spiritual, but let me ask you a question. How many of you have not ready this morning, thought about what you're going to eat today? Thank you, Rachel. Bless your honesty. We've all thought about that, in one way or another.

That's not what Jesus is concerning himself in teaching us. He's not saying that we ought not to be concerned about it. What he's saying is it ought not to overcome us.

Overpower us.

Now, again, I have concerns about what I will eat today. Guarantee you. Because I know, or at least I believe, that the Lord is not going to send the ravens, like he did to the prophet, to feed him meat and bread.

But that would be cool, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

Lord, how about some cheeseburgers today? So he's not saying we ought not to have concern. What he's saying is we ought to have our minds on straight enough to realize that life is bigger than food and clothing, and even shelter.

You look at those people up in that storm. They got a whole different perspective this week than they had two weeks ago. What they worried about two weeks ago is not what they're concerned about today.

And that's why I say to you, we need to be careful as God's people, as all people, not to allow ourselves to be put out and put in a mindset of distress and grief about anything. That's what, again, what the apostle said, be anxious for nothing.

Now, he didn't say don't pray for anything, because he says be anxious for nothing, but what? But in prayer and supplications, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto God, and then what? And the peace of God with pastor's understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So, again, we need to have a right thought pattern in our minds. What I believe is really to have a biblical worldview, if you will, and I know that's a broad term, that those who are possessed by grace eternal life, we ought to remember this life is only temporal, and we get all worked up about things that, in the big picture, not disavowing the small things in front of us, but in the big picture, friends.

Look, think about this. How many here can tell me what you ate 10 days ago? How many of you can tell me what color you wore three days ago? I know some of you ladies probably got that nailed, but dudes usually normally don't focus in on that stuff.

But you see, the reality is, in the big picture,.

So many things don't matter,.

And yet we allow those very things that ultimately don't matter to capture us and to hold us. And then look at it in verse 26, because it's so neat to me. Jesus said, look at the birds of the air. Here's his way of giving us something to consider.

Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Look at the birds of the air. Do you ever see a bird by a storage unit?

I don't know of any birds that are preppers. I don't want to get into that. I should have stepped back from that. But my point is, you never see birds being overly concerned about what they're going to eat weeks, days out.

That Jesus is trying to, not trying, Jesus is teaching us to be observant, and that many times what worry does and anxiety does it gives you myopathy.

It just, all you see is this.

Do you ever have a worry or a concern about something and no matter how you try to get rid of it, you can't? Am I the only nut here this morning? I know I'm not. I know I'm a nut, but I was going to say I know I'm a knucklehead, but I can't do that.

That you and I would consider that life is much more than food and clothing and shelter. Again, we need it, but we shouldn't be bound and distressed by it. Let me just read to you Psalm 127. Just don't turn there.

Many of you know it by heart, and it's most instructive, right? Except the Lord build a house, they labor in vain to build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman stays up late at night. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for he gives his beloved sleep.

Listen, my friends. God has sovereignly appointed the amount of years, the amount of months, the amount of weeks, the amount of days, the amount of hours, the amount of seconds that each one of us will be here, and we will not pass that boundary.

And it's interesting to me that many people who take these pills for anxiety and worry, they're worried about getting old.

Well, dude, you're going to go to way of all the earth.

You can't stop it. The sovereign God has declared it and decreed it. He sovereignly appointed all these things, and so when we begin to consider it, I ask you to consider this, that you're only going to go, I'm only going to go like the waves of the sea, thus far and no farther.

And when God is pleased, God's going to take us out of this world. But he tells us to look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into bonds, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they?

Are we not the crown of God's creation? Are not we the ones who are to have dominion over the very things, the birds of the air and the fish in the sea and the creatures upon the earth, and that you and I ought to consider it and look to cause us not to be overly distressed?

I'm going to make an example. I'm going to give you an illustration, and I don't recommend this to anybody, but I've got a tendency, as Brother Mike knows, I've got a tendency to be up really early in the morning.

So 4, 4 .30, I'm usually sitting in my garage, drinking my coffee. And here's how my morning goes. By 5 o 'clock, I open the garage door, and there's the two stray cats that live on our front porch that I've got to feed.

Okay?

Now, not long after that, I then have to fill up the two big giant bird seeders in the backyard to feed the birds, followed by Candy usually opening the sliding glass doors and feeding the squirrels unsalted peanuts by hand.

Then I go in and I light up the fish tank, and I feed the fish. And that pretty much will handle the morning. Then in the afternoon, not to be outdone, we feed the raccoons. So there's cat food, marshmallows, leftover potato chips, and anything else that we ate the night before, and I go out and I feed the raccoons.

And I didn't even mention the dog who eats all day every time the refrigerator opens. Here's my point.

We just do it. We just feed them.

I thought about it this morning. I don't even think about it no more. And that God provides for them through me and Candy. Are we of not much more value than they, friends? Why would we be distressed about food and clothing and what we shall eat and what we shall wear and those kinds of things?

Which of you, look at it. Look at verse 27. Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature? I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that a cubit was measured from your elbow to your middle finger.

And that's roughly 18 inches. Now, what would you and I say to somebody who was in their room and they were worried half to death and anxious and put out, worrying about whether they were going to grow a cubit?

And by the way, I'm talking about height, not width. We can handle it.

We're good at width.

We're not so good at height.

But wouldn't we say, what are you doing?

It's God who provides. You can't stay up all night worrying about how tall you're going to be. You see, my friends, that's what Jesus is trying to get us to think about. And then he says this, if you will.

He says, consider. First, he says, which of you, in verse 27, can add one cubit to his stature? Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.

And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Remember how gorgeously Solomon was arrayed? I mean, he had more gold and more silver and more treasures and more palaces and more ivory.

And it was beyond belief that people actually lost their breath. Didn't the Queen of Sheba come? And she was absolutely taken back at the majesty and the riches and the beauty of Solomon and his sitting on his throne.

And yet Jesus says that the lilies of the field are arrayed more gorgeously than Solomon. Because you know what? Solomon had to do a lot of work to get where he got, and by grace and by God's purpose, yes.

But the lilies of the field, they just grow.

God just...

And they're only temporary. They grow up. They flourish. They wither. They die.

They're gone.

Again, the illustrations that Jesus is giving us are there to help us to take a right view of things. Now again, you might say, well, I don't have many worries. I'm too young. I'm still living in my parents' house to have worries.

Praise God for you. But hang on, because it's coming. You're going to have to deal with things that you're not going to want to deal with, and you and I need to just look and consider and not be anxious.

Because again, I'll say it this way. Many of the things that we are worried about will never come to pass. There are people in our society. This is why they're pill poppers. There are people in our society, if they get a splinter before they're done in their mind, worrying about that splinter, they'll have to have their whole arm amputated.

So what do they do?

Take two.

You see what I'm saying?

This is not some minuscule subject. People are disquieted in their souls, and you and I as believers ought not to be like that. Now, you know, we divide things up. We say, well, are you predominantly an optimist or a pessimist, or is your glass half full?

Is your glass half empty? I don't know about that, but there are times when I know I am in distress, worrying about things I ought not to worry about, being overly anxious. And it leads me. Listen, I know I've got to move on, so let me just hold off on that, because I really want to get to verse 31.

Seeking First the Kingdom of God

Let's just look at the second therefore for a minute. Therefore, again, Jesus said, Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink,.

Or what shall we wear?

For all these things the Gentiles seek, and your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things. You want to know another reason that Jesus sets before us about the things of this life and how they can cause us distress?

It's just that's the principle of this life. That's what the Gentiles are seeking, and the Gentiles would have been who? Anybody but the Jews. And that you and I ought not to follow the footsteps of this world and become overly anxious about things that really, again, in the big picture,.

Doesn't mean a whole lot.

That you and I would consider that God will supply every one of our needs, that you and I would not become like the men of this world. Because I still think, and you might not think that way, but to many, the things of this world are the very things that cause them great anxieties and worries.

Gotta have it, gotta have this, and I gotta have that, and if I can't get this and I can't get that, it's driving me crazy. I think that's, and again, foolish Andy, but I think that's one of the things that really works on kids, young people, is peer pressure, that peer pressure leads to worry and anxiety.

And before you know it, worry and anxiety leads you down a dark path. And Jesus says we ought not to be like that. For all these things the Gentiles seek, but your Father, your Heavenly Father, knows you have need of these things.

I think of it with cell phones, especially. You ever see people go crazy over cell phones?

Yeah, they do.

Gotta have it, gotta have an iPhone 42B12 with 16 cameras, and gotta have it. Listen, God knows which cell phone we need. God knows everything about us. Why do we become distressed? Why do we become worried?

Why do we become anxious?

Why does the chaos of this world hinder us?