All right, you can turn over to the book of Matthew, chapter 6. I seriously, for a few moments, considered having Than play the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry Be Happy” as the intro, but I chose not to do that. Nonetheless, I did listen to it this morning. Whenever I think about worry, that’s one of the things that comes into my mind. And I realize that it’s not biblical, some of the things that he talks about, but nonetheless, the point is that idea that Jesus is trying to get his disciples to see how they don’t really have to consider a lot of the things that we do consider.
So, we’ll start with verse 25. It says, “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
And I suppose, to place this in the context we need to, we probably should read verse 24, which says, “For no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth.”
And so, Jesus, coming off that statement says “for this reason”; in other words: because you can’t have two masters – you can only have one – Jesus says, ‘I’m encouraging you to do this thing.’
Worry, in the Greek language, is the word merman, and it means “to worry anxiously.” This would not be a new thought for the disciples. It’s not like Jesus is telling them something that they would have heard for the first time. Any good rabbi would have taught the two principles of prudence andserenity. To live a live being prudent and serene- and that was a rabbi teaching, an old testament teaching, as we’ll see in some passages- but it’s the idea about peace isn’t about us not caring about anything, because we’re supposed to be prudent. Rabbis also said for a man not to teach his son a trade is to teach him to steal. So they understood that we need to actually be engaged in things and doing things, which I think we all agree with. And that’s the prudent part; but the serene part is the idea about being at peace in what we’re doing and then in the things surrounding our lives.
So, it wasn’t a new teaching, but what it was for the disciples- what Jesus was hoping was this was going to be (again, as we’ll see) a kingdom-based teaching in which their serenity is not based on their circumstances, but based upon the continued presence and deliverance, I guess we could say, even, of God as He constantly in our lives meets us and takes care of us in supernatural ways.
I’ve said this many times and maybe I’m saying it to myself and myself alone, but I do not think we comprehend how much God does for us. Scot McKnight says, “Anxiety is a barometer of one’s God.”And if that’s the case, then I confess that for at least half of my Christian life, my God was really small, because there was a lot of anxiousness and worry that went on. And then in the last half of my Christian life, the Lord is slowly helping me to get past some of those things – to get me out of that mess of making God so small that He’s not capable, nor desirous, to help me in things that – in my mind, I think ‘that’s just too little for God or too big for God’ or whatever the case may be. And I realize that we – again – we just do not comprehend the nature and the work of God in our lives like we need to. And by the grace of God I hope that maybe this little sermon will be a way in which we can start to move down the right road. But each one of us, ultimately, is going to have to experience God’s great mercy and deliverance, over and over and over again.
In our modern language, worryis: “an internal disturbance, at the emotional and psychological level, that disrupts life.” So, that’s what worry is and that’s a great definition of worry, by the way, because that’s exactly what it does. Worry causes us to shut out people, it causes us to go into ourselves, it causes us to lash out at people, it causes grief in families, it causes grief at jobs, it causes grief in virtually everything that you do. My mom – I’ve always been a calm kid; not calm in the sense of- like I could be rambunctious- but calm in the sense of not really fretting about things on the outward perspective. So much so, that my mom at one point told me she was concerned about me because she said, “Someday all that you internally bottle up is going to come out.” And by the grace of God, I met Jesus before that happened. So, Jesus- what happened for me, anyway, was all that stuff – whatever it was – was washed away by the blood of Christ and it set me free. So, I understood that then, at that point in time, that this is the way God expects us to live. The idea of being calm and serene is a part of a Christian life, or should be a part of our Christian life, and we need to understand that He actually- the cross of Christ, one of the things that it does is literally take that and It takes it from us and It destroys it in our presence if we allow It to, so that we can see that we no longer have to fret and fuss over things and carry these thing around in that eternal way. And in my life, honestly, to tell you the truth, even prior to my coming to Jesus Christ, I had numerous events in my life in which I would be fretting over things and then all of a sudden it would be done. Like, it was done. And I started to notice that, after I gave my life to Christ, this is God taking it. The fretting was over; there was no longer anything there, not even the residue of it was present. And I love that feeling of getting to the place – fretting, fretting, fretting and then finally there’s a relaxation and God says, ‘Give me that. And stop. Stop.’
And so, Jesus understands that His disciples are going to need this type of understanding or mentality to be able to get past the things that they’re going to need to do. As a matter of fact, the things that Jesus is telling them: don’t worry about what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to wear, or what’s tomorrow, don’t worry about the future; don’t worry about those things because you have more important things to be doing.
If you are worrying about the future, there’s one thing that I guarantee you are not doing, is living in the present. If you’re fretting about tomorrow there’s no way you’re present for today. And God wants us to live in the present time. He does not want us to be a people that is constantly looking ahead to what potentially would happen. Instead, He wants us to live that life that says, ‘Hey, we are not going to walk down that road; I’m going to live in the present.’ And by the way, this is not some sermon on- for instance, I think some people have taken the Sermon on the Mountand used it in a sense in which Jesus is telling us to eat the meagerest way and we need to clothe ourselves in the meekest way and that’s Jesus way of saying ‘this is how this is supposed to be done,’ and we forget that Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding feast. Jesus loved feasts; He loved giving. He was extravagant in certain things. As a matter of fact, at that feast, He was the one that brought the wine that was going to change the party from the standpoint of the person that was having it. And, by the way, another thing: I noticed that N.T. Wright, in one of his books points out – and I’ve never thought about this before, because people talk about, again, we want to think of Jesus as somebody who is downtrodden almost – and he points out that when Jesus was going to crucifixion they stripped Him of His clothes; His garments were of such a nature- in other words, they were so good, that they had to cast lots for His tunic. They did not throw it away. They did not say it was tattered. They did not think that this isn’t worth anything. They discussed it and they “divided up His garments” the Bible says and the Bible also says they “cast lots for His tunic”. So, the clothes Jesus wore, my point is, they were nice clothes. The Romans wanted them. They wanted to have that piece of clothing.
So, we don’t want to be a people who thinks that this is what Christ is trying to say: to be meagerly in everything, because that’s not what this is about. If, on the other hand, by the way, Jesus is leading you to strip yourself of some of the things that have had power over you (that’s what we talked about last week) and you need to lessen things, absolutely you should go down that road. But what you shouldn’t do is believe that this is the way of all people. This very well could be your way and it could be a way other people go when Jesus calls them to it, but for you, you need to follow Him. You need to follow Him. Like Jesus said to Peter, “What is that to you? Follow me.”
“What is that to you? Follow me.”
So, in Jesus day, 70 percent are believed to be – we can’t know for sure about some of these things – but 70 percent of the people in Jesus’ day would have been basically at a poverty level. It made me think about the middle class, so I looked up the middle class and things like that, and the middle class actually didn’t really exist until the 1700s maybe, and not in reality until maybe the 1900s, but nonetheless, there was believed to be, say 15 percent of the Jewish people in Jesus day would be called middle class. In other words, they had a savings and some money. But most of the people actually did live kind of day-to-day and so they were struggling farmers like Peter and them and they basically – there really was the idea that ‘what’s going to happen tomorrow or what’s going to happen next week’ – that was a real thing to them. I mentioned, I think it was last week maybe, that most of us if we’re really honest about it, most of us could live off what we have in our house right now, for maybe a month, by just being creative. We live in a culture and a society that is- we don’t think about food and clothing and things because we pretty much get and have what we need and even what we want in incredible ways. And not everybody is like that, and so it creates a real problem.
There was a day when I used to struggle a little bit with school meal programs. The lunch thing, I got; and then they started doing breakfast, and now they’re at a point where they’re actually doing some weekend things and some lunch things in the cities and I thought, ‘That seems a little bit excessive for the school to do that; it seems like we’re crossing a line,’ but then I was listening to a podcast and I realized the idea that children- for adults, to me, it’s a whole different thing. Adults, you should be adult in your thinking, you should be adult in your demeanor, you should be adult in the way you take care of things, but children, on the other hand, are learning how to be adults, and they talked about the idea that - what did they call it – I can’t think of the term, I think it was like ‘hunger anxiety.’ It was like they were consciously thinking about the next day on a regular basis. So, if you go to the inner city, for instance, where there is real poverty (not the poverty we have in our neck of the woods, but real poverty) then they would be thinking constantly about food and it would be so profound in their mind that that would take over thoughts and the point was then that if we can educate kids- if we can take that away so that you don’t have to think about your next meal, then maybe kids will be more apt to receive education. And that changed my mind. All right, I’m for that now. If McCook would ever say, “We want an extra tax so that we can start to give meals more” I would be, “yeah, lets do that,” because if we can take away an anxiety for a child, I’m all in for that. For an adult, I’m not there yet. Adults are supposed to be adults. And unfortunately in our culture- you know, let’s not go there. Let’s not go down that road. That’s a slippery slope; one that will not serve us today.
Jesus is telling his disciples that ‘I don’t want you to be fretting about these things’ and so what he does (Jesus) He comes with three arguments against worry. He lays out three arguments against worry; and the first one is, He says, “For this reason do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is not the life more than food and the body more than clothing?” His argument is that there’s so much more to life and so much more to the body than your outward arraignment and the food that you eat. These things are there but they’re there as a tool. What is actually necessary is those deeper things. What is your life? Your life is, in our case, our life is hidden in Christ; our life is lived in the righteousness of Christ and the glory of Christ, etc, etc. And so we have a sense about our life being something that is important to the world and to the people around us. And Jesus uses an example: the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. And, by the way, this is something I ran across this morning and it struck me because I don’t think about this from Christ and it’s absolutely true, is that Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air” and He didn’t say ‘look at the birds of the air’ like He was looking at them for the first time. Jesus is contemplating things all the time. Jesus in now a man. He’s fully man, fully God – beyond our understanding how that works – He is experiencing His creation as a full-on man and enjoying what He sees. And so, the thought is that Jesus obviously at some point, maybe many times, He sat down and He just watched the birds. And he thought about these things, and how God Almighty, His Father, and Him Himself took care of these creatures in such miraculous ways. He sat down and He looked at the grass of the fields and the flowers of the field. And our Bibles translate – like mine – translates it “lilies” and lilies is not- we don’t want to think of the lilies that we have today; the word can mean numerous different types of flowers, which would be wild flowers, by the way. But we translate it lilies because it maybe brings to mind something, but lilies is not the best translation. Flowerswould be the best translation, literally. But it’s a type of flower and Jesus obviously sat and He looked at it. He just stared at what was happening.
And I remembered just a few days ago, on Thursday night, when it was starting a little bit of hail storm, and I was standing inside the building and it was just a little before 7 o’clock and I noticed that the rain wasn’t hitting on the outside of the building so I went out and I just sat there and I watched and listened. And I thought to myself about- you know we think about man’s power and we think about atomic power and bombs and man’s ability to destroy, and then you listen to a thunder storm and you watch the rain and you feel the hot go cool all of a sudden and you start to realize- again, I was reminded that man, there is nothing – nothing – man has done or created that is like this. A power so immense – so immense. A single cloud in the sky – a single cloud in the sky – weighs 1.2 million pounds. 1.2 million pounds! And that thing is floating up there. And to think about what man is capable of doing, it’s like ‘oh my gosh, we are so ignorant and small of the things of God.’
I don’t know which president it was who used to go out at night and stare at the stars and they said, “Why do you do that?” He said, “At the end of the day,” when you’re President, he said, “-at the end of the day, I want to make sure I’m small enough.”
I’m small enough.
When you look at the clouds- what else is there to do but look at nature; look at the heavens, stare at the stars – you realize how small you really are. Kept him humble. Kept him humble.
So, Jesus’ first argument is that: look at creation; look at the birds, look at the flowers. The same flowers that one day you would walk into the field and you would be amazed at. I mean, you’d be in awe at the incredible beauty. If you could think about a field of flowers, and occasionally you see those kind of things where something has grown up and it takes over a field and it’s just like a full-on one-color purple or yellow and they’re beautiful! I get it that they’re weeds, most of them – or that’s what we would think of them anyway, but they’re beautiful – and how the next day, or a couple days later, in this case, those same flowers would be used to start a flower. They’d wilt, dry out, some lady would walk out into that same field she was in awe of a few days ago and she would grab a bunch of stuff, come in, put it in her little oven and it would kick- the fire would kick off- and that would be how she started.
Jesus is saying, ‘if God does this to flowers, why would you concern yourself with anything, because you are so much more than that.’ And that’s His first argument. The human being is God’s highest creation – highest creation. Scripture makes that abundantly clear. And worry is blind to the love and grace of God in reference to His creation. He will take care of you. He WILL take care of you.
When I think about the statement Jesus says: Solomon in all his glory was not arraigned as much as this flower. And why is that so? It’s because the flower has a natural beauty to it. And human beings have a natural beauty to them. We are made in the image of God, and I get that sin has entered in an wrecked our relationship with God, but that doesn’t negate the fact that we’re made in the image of God, with the ability to reason, to love, to honor, to do all the things that God can and will do. We need Christ in order to center us into what that really means (for us to be made in the image of God) but it exists nonetheless.
You know, we profess to be a theistic people, a people who believe in a personable God who is “intimately acquainted with all my ways” as the scripture says, but we live like deists. We live like people where God is a distant, impersonable, unresponsive God. And that’s sad, because our God is not- we do not serve a deistic God. We serve a God who is ‘intimately acquainted with all your ways’. He loves you, He adores you, He will take care of you. Don’t fret.
The second argument was: worry adds nothing to your life – nothing to your life. “And who of you, by being worried, can add a single hour to his life?” We were chuckling last week about the idea of people who drive kind of crazy; and as a UPS man, there would be so many people when I’d be coming home at night- somebody would roar around me. They come up on your tail and they would roar around you on the highway. You’re five, six miles out of town and they’re in a hurry. Like, they’re in a hurry and they don’t have time for this UPS truck to be in their way, going the speed limit. And he’d roar around and then, minutes later, we’re at the same stoplight. And every time that happened I thought, ‘Yes! Yes!’ Your anxiousness, your fretting, your ‘gotta-get-there’… it’s useless to you! We’re at the same place again! And in ten miles we’d be at the same place again! It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way.
I used to drive fast, but then I contemplated one time- well, I take that back; the Lord said ‘stop it’ so I did- but I contemplated one time- because somebody roared around me- and I thought, ‘All right, how much do you save?’ This guy is going into McCook, we’re six miles out of town; how fast is he going to get there ahead of me? We’re talking seconds – we’re talking seconds. But, worry causes us to think – anxiousness causes us to think – that we’re actually doing a good thing by that specific thing, but more seriously, worry causes us- does not help us one iota in the things of our life. Like Jesus said, it adds nothing to your life. As a matter of fact, science now tells us that worry actually will take away from your life, much more so.
I was thinking about things that worry actually does create for us and I thought about ulcers, coronary issues, digestive problems, insomnia – these are the things that worry provides for us. They do not help you! It has no benefit to you. So, Jesus second argument is – it’s an antichrist, to tell you the truth – Jesus second argument is: Why would you worry; because it’s not benefitting you? He is reasoning with his disciples. The scripture says, “Come let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as snow.” Jesus is more than willing to reason with us, and He is reasoning with them, ‘Why would you do that? Why would you worry? Because it adds nothing to your life; it gives you nothing. It provides nothing for you.’ So, that’s His second argument.
That reminded me, by the way, of the Serenity Prayer– the twelve steps – it says, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”, which I’ve always felt was a great way to think about life, but I ran across a quote a couple years ago that I prefer better. And I’m not sure if this came from that or that came from this, I’m not sure which order it is, but somebody said, “I do not worry about what I can change, because I can change it. I do not worry about what I cannot change, because I cannot change it.”
And I realize: that’s like a mantra to live your life by. An oversimplification, maybe, sure. But when you think about it, isn’t all of that true? “I do not worry about what I can change, because I can change it. I do not worry about what I cannot change, because I cannot change it.”
The last argument Jesus gives us is verse 32. He says, “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things.” His argument at that point, was, this is- from our perspective, He says to us, ‘this is what pagans and unchristian people do.” They worry, they fret. But you are not like that, because you know – you know – that your God knows that you need all these things. Your God knows that you need all these things. So Jesus lays out these three arguments and then He comes along and Jesus then lays out for us a solution to the problem.
In the economy of God, one of the things that I’ve always appreciated is that for every ‘do not’ there is a ‘do’. Our Christian life is never lived in the do not’s. The Christian life is always lived in the do’sand biblically, I don’t think you can find do not’sanywhere in the scripture that don’t have a doattached to it somewhere really close by. And in this case the ‘do not’ is ‘do not worry’ and then, but He says, what you do need to do is seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So He takes what He began the sermon with, was ‘the kingdom of God and the characteristics and the nature of the kingdom’ and this is what He’s been talking about the entire thing and He just continues on that path; this is the characteristics and the nature of the kingdom that we’re talking about here. To His disciples, just showing them ‘This is what you’re coming into. This is what you have now that you’re with Me. This is how your mind is going to have to be trained to think.’ And think about Isaiah 26:3; says, “Thou does keep in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.”
“Thou does keep in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in Thee.” It’s a scripture that has been constant in my life and I take it literally; which, again, I don’t think we seriously do. I think we look at things as, ‘Oh, that’s a novel idea. To have a mind stayed on Christ is a novel idea. Not possible in the present world, but a cool idea. Maybe it’s for preachers or people in monasteries, or for quiet times, but that’s not how normal people live their life.’ And I disagree. I agree that’s not how normal people live their life, but it’s now we should live our life. Because there is nothing you encounter in your day – there is nothing – that you encounter in your day that you cannot see the mercy and grace of God, or God’s wisdom somehow being active in that. If you’re a believer, your mind should be stayed on Christ. And there should be a perfect peace that comes from that. And I get it, we’re all in process; we’re gaining insight into it but this is a goal that we should have. A powerful goal that should change who we are and how we deal with the situations and the people around us. If my mind is stayed on Christ then there will be a peace that surpasses all knowledge and understanding. So, Christ says to us that you seek His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.
Some things just quickly about the kingdom: John 18:36 says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” It’s otherworldly. We spend a lot of time trying to fix things around us doing natural things instead of allowing the supernatural to be operative in us. We use natural means to do it, which is very unfortunate. Romans 14:17 says it is “not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy.” The kingdom of God is not about food and the things you have and how the Lord has blessed you with finances and all the things you’re able to do. It’s about righteousness, peace, and joy. That’s what it’s about. Could God bless you with immense wealth, of course He can! He’s God. He gives to whoever He wants to, and He takes away from whoever He wants to – He’s the God of the universe. He can do amazing things like that! But even then – even if you’re the wealthiest man on the earth – you’re going to have to come to grips with: this really is not about the kingdom. Because the kingdom is about righteousness, peace, and joy.
First Corinthians 4:20 says it “does not consist in words, but in power.” Does not consist in words, but in power. It’s not about us talking things through; it’s about the power that comes behind it. The power that comes from it. If we spend our days simply trying to talk ourselves through things, or away from things, or whatever the case may be, ultimately we’ll be woefully disappointed. But when we rest in that God is a God of power – He’s not here to just to talk to me, He’s here to engage in a powerful expression of His love for me – then that’s a whole different thing. And when I mentioned before about the times in my life – numerous times in my life – that I sensed, all of a sudden, something went away; something that I was in anguish about just disappeared; that’s what I’m talking about. The power of God says, ‘No! No, no, no. We’re not going to go there with that. We’re not going to go there with that.’
Hebrews 12: 28 says it “cannot be shaken.” Romans 3: 21, 22, speaking of the righteousness of God, it says righteousness of God “comes through faith in Christ.” Righteousness of God comes through faith in Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says, actually, “He is my righteousness” speaking of Jesus Christ (or God), that he IS my righteousness. So this idea of that righteousness thing comes in to play about- because we think of righteousness often times as ‘me doing a right thing.’ Righteousness isn’t about me doing a right thing, it’s about Christ living through me. I’m just a vessel, and Christ actually gets to dwell in me, and live His life through me. And that’s a difficult thing for us to grasp, I confess. Difficult thing to make sense of, but nonetheless, it’s the way the Bible lays down our present life in Jesus Christ.
And lastly, in verse 34, Jesus says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” These are the passages of scripture that, maybe it’s sad, but I like them because they reveal truth to me. Jesus is telling me, at this point, He says ‘You don’t have to worry about tomorrow, tomorrow is going to take care of itself.’ What that means is that He will take care of tomorrow. But you need to work in what’s happening today, because today is the present. You can’t fix the future, but you can fix the present. You can, by the grace of God, overcome whatever it is that’s causing you grief and you can come out a better person on the other edge. We engage our troubles- and by the way, another thing I appreciate is, Jesus did not tell me I will not have trouble. I think sometimes when we come to Christ, we hear messages that say ‘your life is going to be great and perfect and nothing will ever happen to you bad,’ and nobody experiences that. Nobody. And if they say they do, they’re lying to you. So, we do have trouble; we’re pilgrims passing through. This is not my home. This is not my home. I’m going to have trouble. I’m going to have trouble with other people, I’m going to have trouble with me, I’m going to have trouble with physical things; because the Bible says my body is wasting away but my spirit is being renewed day by day. There’s trouble that’s going to come my way for sure. I can’t help that. But what I can do is, through faith in Christ, not let those troubles overcome me.
A couple weeks ago, Cherri and I were in a hailstorm and our Jeep got totaled. As we’re driving away our first thought is, ‘We’re going to get a new vehicle!’ We’re trusting in insurance, you know? But, nonetheless- that was my thought, actually, not Cherri. Cherri was thinking, ‘No, let’s drive it and let’s just get the windshield fixed and let’s pay off some bills.’ Anyway, nonetheless, we- but we did both those things, by the way- nonetheless, we’re driving away and Cherri says, “Now, do you have your comp on it?” because I paid it- it got paid off last year- and I said, “I think I did.” And so, as we’re driving along I’m thinking- I told her, “I’m not sure, because I was thinking about taking comp off because it was paid for.” And, the cool thing about was that, even though I wasn’t sure, there was no anxiousness. I thought, ‘Well, that’d be a bummer. That’d be a real bummer. But! If that’s what happened, that’s what happened.’ I don’t want to worry about the things I can’t fix. I can’t fix that, if that’s the case. And I got home and actually called Scott, my insurance agent, the next day and he said, “Oh yeah, you have comp,” and I thought ‘oh well, that’s good,’ but it wasn’t like this immense relief; it was like, ‘Well, if he says “no”, that’s a bummer. I guess Cherri’s right about the part about me driving the Jeep for a long time but she’s wrong about the part about paying off some bills.’
Nonetheless, my point in that little story is, there was a day in my life where I would have anguished over that. Because I couldn’t call Scott and ask him, and I couldn’t have anybody check into it for me. So I would have spent that afternoon Sunday, evening Sunday, waking up in the morning, until I could get a hold of my insurance guy, wondering if I actually did that. And, because I did not anguish over it, I realized that God honestly is helping me to get past my own worry or fretting. He will, honestly, take care of things. And if I had axed comp, then the Lord would have done something else. He will take care of things. He will take care of things.
I want to do- this is something maybe strange- I thought of it this morning; I almost pushed it out of my head, I thought, “Nah that’s…” but we’re going to do it anyway. Watchman Nee, in one of his books, tells a story of- and by the way, I would like you guys to close with a song, too, if you would. That would bless us. Watchman Nee, in one of his books, talks about a time – and I can’t remember; I think it was a physical thing that was going on inside of him – but he was concerned about it and it was causing his mind to be taken away from the important things of the gospel message. And he tells the story of: he was walking on a beach and he was- this thing was bothering him- and we have an enemy, by the way, who I guarantee you, wants you to fret about every little thing. This enemy is very real. He’s very real, and he wants your life to be miserable about every little thing. And Watchman Nee was having one of those experiences and so, what he did was, he stopped and he took a stick and he dug out some sand and in his mind, he put that thing in the sand and then he closed it over. And he said ‘there’; and Watchman Nee says he didn’t get 50 yards down the beach and the enemy was saying the same things to him that he had said before, so Watchman Nee stopped and he went back and took the stick, and he pointed at it and he said, “This is dead. Dead and buried,” turned around, walked away; he said it was done. Now, I don’t know if some other time in his life it came up, but at that moment, he stopped the enemy from the ability to convey to him that his faith is useless. And he trusted Christ to deal with it.
So, what I want us to do today; I want us to close our eyes for a second. And I want us to think of something that we are fretting about. Something that’s in our mind that we, as Saints of the Living God, realize that ‘this should not be part of who I am.’ And I want you to, instead of putting it in the sand, if we can visualize this for just a second- we’re just going to take a couple minutes to do this- I want you to visualize yourself giving this to Christ. Because if you give it to Christ, the worry part of it will go away. I’m not saying that the situation will change; I’m saying that the worry part will go away. We’re not a people who are dictated by circumstances because we have faith in Christ, we’re a people who our lives are lived dictated by our faith in Jesus Christ. And because Jesus asks us not to worry about things, if there’s something your worried about, I encourage you to give it to Him. It’s on the cross; it will disappear. It will be buried in the deepest reaches of the earth; as far as the east is from the west – all those things the scripture talks about sin – this is what that is about. So, I want to take a few minutes; think of that thing and then, as a final thing, I want you to- sometime in the next couple of days, I want you to tell somebody what you buried, so that that somebody can then ask you in the weeks to come, ‘Is it still buried? Have you gone and allowed this to be resurrected?’
So, I encourage you just to take a few minutes in the quiet, and we’ll think of whatever it is.
. . . .
Okay, now can we close with a song?
Rob Putz, Pastor
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