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How to overcome worry How to overcome worry
I believe that worry ranks up
pretty high on the list of things that Christians struggle with on a daily
basis. The reason this is the case is because we have so many things that we
can worry about. We worry about our health, our possessions, accidents that may
happen, growing old, criticism, terrorism and the list could go on and on.
How about you? Do you find
yourself worrying about every little thing in your life? In other words are you
are worrywart? Did you know that Jesus teaches us that as Christians that we
are not suppose to worry about such things in Mat. 6:25.
- 25 "Therefore I tell
you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your
body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than
clothes?
The word "worry” in the Greek
means divided or distracted. This is what happens when a person worries their
mind because distracted by their anxiety and it can get to the point that it
consumes them making it to where they cannot think or do the things that they
should be doing. You see there are many problems that can come from worrying to
much.
1. Worrying can affect your
health. Medical experts
tell us that prolonged worrying or anxiety can lead to serve physical
problems. It can produce
(ulcers, headaches, backaches, change of blood pressure, heart attacks, and
depression). Worrying can
become crippling if it is not properly controlled.
2. Worrying can disrupt our
spiritual productivity. When worries consume our thoughts, we tend to
focus only on those worries. By
doing this, we tend to leave the Lord and His Will out of our lives. We find little time for prayer or
Bible study; and it will lead to a reduced interest in assembling with the
saints.
3. In (Phil. 4:6ff),
Paul explains that if we worry to much, then God’s Peace will diminish.
4. Worrying affects the way we
treat others. When we worry a lot, we tend to be harsher towards our
family, friends, and co-workers. We
get so wrapped up in our worries, that we lash out to those we love the
most.
You see, worrying doesn't
accomplish much. Just as
someone once said, "Worrying
is like a rocking chair; it will give you something to do, but it won’t get you
anywhere.”
So this morning we are going to be
looking at several ways that God’s word teaches us on how to overcome worry.
Our first point comes from the
apostle Paul in,
Philippians
4:6 Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your
requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
This word anxious carries the same
idea as worry and Paul clearly teaches us not be anxious or worry but instead
bring everything to God in prayer. So what we need to do is when we find
ourselves starting to worry about something we need to take worry and turn into
a prayer to God and let God deal with our problems. Thats exactly what he wants
us to do. Peter tells this,
1 Peter 5:6 Therefore humble yourselves under the
mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He
cares for you.
Psalm 55:22 Cast your burden on the LORD, And He
shall sustain you;
You see God wants us to put our
problems into his lap. He wants us to have enough faith in him that he will
make the best of our problems. Now this is very important. Once we turn our worries
over to God we must leave them there and allow ourselves to be free from our
worries know that our problems are in very good hands.
Now the rest of lesson this
morning on how to overcome worry is going to come from the master teacher Jesus
Christ when he was preaching his sermon on the mount. We will are going to be
specifically looking at Mat. 6:25-34.
Now everything that Jesus is about to say in these verses is built upon what he
said leading up to this point. Jesus had been emphasizing that we must learn to
trust in God and lay our treasure up in heaven instead of putting our faith and
trust in this old world. Now Jesus is going to give us 4 reasons of why we
should not worry and why we should trust in the providence of God.
1. Matthew 6:25 " Therefore I say to you, do not
worry 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?
So many times we get wrapped up in
worrying about material things such as clothing or worrying about what we will
eat or drink that we forget about the more important things such as life and
our body. Many times we put to much emphasis on physical lives and what effects
when our first priority should be spiritual lives and what we are doing to grow
in our relationship with God. When we allow ourselves to become so preoccupied
with our physical selves this pushes us further and further away from God. So
one thing that is important for us to do as Christians to follow the words of,
Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God
In order for us to every overcome
the worries in our lives we must take time out our lives to really think about
God almighty and what he is capable of doing for us. We must learn to trust in
wisdom and to allow him to direct our steps. When we develop this kind of trust
then it will make it much easier for us take the following passage to heart.
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work
together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according
to His purpose.
So we should not worry because God
is control. Jesus makes his second point in,
Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air,
for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father
feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Here Jesus is teaching us that God
provides for his creation. The birds have to rely upon God’s providence to
survive. One thing I have noticed about birds is that they are always singing
and you don’t find any birds with worry lines. Birds don’t worry they simply
live each day to it fullest. Now God does provide them with food but he doesn’t
make it appear in their nest they have to go search for their food. The same
thing hold true for the Christian. God provides us what we need but like the
birds we must seek it out.
But not only is Jesus showing us
the providence of God with the birds he also teaching us that we are a far
greater value than birds and if God will take care of their problems how much
more do think he will take care of us? Jesus makes a similar statement in,
Matthew
10:29 "Are not two
sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart
from your Father's will. 30 "But the very hairs of your head
are all numbered. 31 "Do
not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
You see it important for us to
realize that we are children of God and that he loved us enough to give us his
best, his only begotten son. Don’t you think that it speaks volumes that if God
loved us enough to give us his son as sacrifice that he going to be there for
us. Thinking about God’s care should keep up from worrying.
Jesus 3rd point is this,
Matthew 6:27 And which of you by being anxious can
add a single hour to his span of life?
Worrying about things will never
add to your life. Think about this. Can you name one time in your life where
worrying added any benefit to your life? Can you think of a time that worrying
about something changed the outcome? The way I see it there are only two things
that you can worry about.
You can worry about things you
have no control over or you can worry about those things you do have control
over. However it makes no sense to worry over these things because first of all
you cannot change the outcome of those things that are out of your control and
so you should not worry about them. Now for those things have control over you
should not worry about them either just simply do what you need to do to get
the desired outcome.
Besides all of this most of things
that we worry about never happen in the first place. So we waste a lot of our
time on senseless worrying which can distract us from what should be doing. A
great example of this is found in,
Luke 10: 38 Now it happened as they went that He
entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into
her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who
also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with much
serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my
sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me." 41 And Jesus answered and said to her,
"Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42 "But one thing is needed, and
Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from
her."
In this story Martha was so
concerned about cooking and cleaning and other things that she missed out the
greatest use of her time, listening to the Word’s of Jesus. You see all the
worrying that Martha did not add one thing to her life but Mary who did not
allow herself to be distracted by the worries of this life would reap benefits
from wonderful words of Jesus.
Now Jesus makes his 4th point of
why we should not worry,
Matthew 6:28 "So why do you worry about
clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil
nor spin; 29 "and yet I say to you that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 "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? 31 "Therefore do not worry, saying,
'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 "For after all these things the
Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
Once again Jesus makes a similar
point as he his did with the birds. Now one thing I want to point out is that
lilies could be found just about anywhere in Palestine and so Jesus uses this
common plant for his illustration as compares their beauty to that of Solomon’s
grandeur. Again we need to keep in mind that the Jews thought very highly of
Solomon and his glory and so Jesus was driving the point home that God
providence of providing for these lilies was even greater than glory of
Solomon. Just as God provides for lilies the grass in field he will also
provide for us. Then verse 30 Jesus tells us that those who worry about food
and clothing have very little faith and compares these people who worry to the
gentiles of that time who worried about such things themselves because they
were so worldly. Then he sums up the providence of God by saying that the
farther knows that we need these things. And so we have 4 different reason from
Jesus why we should not worry.
Now Jesus continues on and gives
us 2 ways on how overcome worry.
Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Now this word "seek” menas to
search for or strive for. This means that we are doing our best to put God and
kingdom first in our lives. This means we must train ourselves to be looking
out for ways that we can serve God and we do so Jesus tells us that everything
else will fall into place. Whatever it is that we truly need will be provided
for us.
Another important thing to point
out is if we are focus our attention on serving God with our whole heart, mind
and soul we are going to have less time for our minds to fixed upon worrying.
In addition to this when we are looking for more ways to serve God this means
that we are going be more active in studying his word, living our life for him
and we will spend more time in prayer and all these things combined will
increase our faith and trust in God and make it easier for us overcome the
problem of worry and it will give us a peace in our life beyond measure.
The second way Jesus tells us to
overcome worry is found in,
Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not worry
about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for
the day is its own trouble.
This of course is great advice.
It’s important that we stay focused on today because there are plenty of issues
that we have to deal with today without trying drag in possible problems we
will have to deal with tomorrow. We need to understand that worrying about
tomorrow is very unproductive because we can not change the future of those
things that out of our control. The more we worry about tomorrow and the next
day the less time we have to deal with the problems that need to be taken care
of today.
Now I hope from this lesson you
have learned that there is real problem with being a worrywart. Not only cause
you physical harm it can also cause you spiritual harm. We looked at 4
different reason from Jesus of why we shouldn’t worry. He basically tells us
that we must learn to trust in God and his providence to provide for us and
help us with our problems. Then we learned 3 different ways to overcome worry.
First Paul told to turn our concerns over to God through prayer and allow him
to take of our problems. Second Jesus tells us to seek the
If we can learn to apply these 3
solutions to our everyday lives we will be well on away to overcoming the
problem of worry.
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