Why Worry Never Works

1. 0:00 Good morning, good morning. I get the privilege of reading the word to you today, so if you don't mind, take a stand as we read from the word of the word. Today's scripture comes from Matthew 6, 25. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will pit on.
2. 0:22 For is life not more than food, and the body not more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, neither they sow nor they reap, neither gather into barns, and yet the heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to a span of life?
3. 0:38 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
4. 0:57 Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
5. 1:15 Sufficient is the day for its own trouble. You may be seated. Hello, Christchurch Miami family. Pastor Drake here, speaking to you from the Middle East. I wish I could be there in person, but I just had the privilege of leading three chapel services to our soldiers here, who are fighting on the front lines.
6. 1:37 And I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation with you this morning, as we look at what Jesus said in his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, and a series that we're calling Jesus Said What? Now, if you've been tracking with us for the past few weeks, you understand why we say what that way, because some of the stuff Jesus said is hard to understand.
7. 1:57 But what we do recognize is that it has a ring of truth to it, it stood the test of time, and it's something that you can build your life on. And so today, we turn our attention to how to deal with anxiety. Now, if you're like me, and I know I am, this hits very close to home.
8. 2:18 So let me ask you a question. What keeps you up at night? Maybe not the stuff that you talk about or share with others, but what keeps you up late at night, causes you to toss and turn? Is it your family?
9. 2:33 Is it your finances? Is it your future? What is it? Because here's the hard truth. Whatever we worry most about is likely where we trust God the least.
10. 2:49 And I got to tell you, if that's you, you're not alone. We live in an age of anxiety. Did you know that right now in America, two out of ten people, that's one out of five people have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, look to the person to your left or right and say, I knew you looked crazy.
11. 3:12 Don't do that. Mental health disorders are at an all-time high. Anxiety medication is at an all-time high. And more people, almost 50% of Americans today, feel more stress this year than they did last year.
12. 3:33 This is truly an age of anxiety. You know what's interesting is that this isn't just stats and theories and ideas. For me, this is very personal. And I got to tell you, there's a correlation between responsibility and anxiety.
13. 3:52 Like the more responsible you are, chances are the greater anxiety you have. If you're a leader, a soldier, a parent, a provider, you feel that weight of responsibility. And it can lead to sleepless nights. I know it did for me when I was in grad school, working full-time, and also starting a family.
14. 4:14 I had a lot of sleepless nights. And it wasn't just one night or one week or one month. It turned into years. And it took its toll on my health. In fact, I started getting ulcers in my mouth.
15. 4:30 I started having very poor sleep. And I was even diagnosed with the first signs of a debilitating autoimmune disease known as multiple sclerosis. And you know what that did? It made me more stressed out.
16. 4:46 I wish I would have known then what I know now. That anxiety and worry do not solve your problems. They multiply them. And biblical faith doesn't try to silence the anxious heart.
17. 5:03 It speaks truth to it. Will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, your word is true. It stood the test of time. It's something we can build our lives on. And so we ask that you would quiet our anxious hearts.
18. 5:20 You'd help us to understand what is good, what is true, what is right, what is pure, what is beautiful. And live in accordance to these things by the power of your spirit. And I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So our text begins in verse 25 with the word, therefore.
19. 5:40 And anytime you see the word, therefore, you should ask yourself, what is it there for? In this case, Jesus is saying, you can't serve two masters. You can't serve both God and money. And anytime Jesus starts talking about money, people get nervous. So then he jumps right in and he tells people three times to not be anxious, not be anxious, not be anxious.
20. 6:00 To not be worried, not be worried, not be worried. And guess what? They are. Because he is talking about the very basics of life. He says, don't worry about food. Don't worry about water. And don't worry about clothing. And listen, these people aren't like us trying to figure out what outfit they should wear or what they should pick on the dinner menu or what bottle of water that costs more than gasoline they should waste their money on.
21. 6:22 That's not them. All right. These people are literally living on the edge of a desert. So they understand what happens when there's no water around. There is not an abundance of food. And the only clothes they have, they are likely wearing. And Jesus is saying, don't worry about these things.
22. 6:39 And they're thinking, what are you talking about? What else is there to worry about but these things? And he's like, listen, you guys are crazy. You call him your heavenly father, right? He's the creator and sustainer of all things, right? You've trusted him with your eternity, right?
23. 6:56 But you don't trust him with tomorrow? That's crazy. And then he begins his arguments from lesser to greater. In verse 26, Jesus says, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them.
24. 7:13 Are you of not more value than they? In other words, what Jesus is doing is he's saying, if your father feeds the birds, will he not feed you, his children? John 1 12 says, yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
25. 7:32 And as children of God, we are the pinnacle of his creation. You see, in Genesis chapter 1, verse 27, this is before the fall, it says that men and women both bear the very image of God. And that is where our dignity and value and inherent rights come from.
26. 7:51 In verse 28, it then goes on to show that we've been given dominion over the created order to create and to cultivate. In other words, we're to make the world a better place for everyone. And that's the way it's always been intended. And then in John 3 16, we see that God loves us so much that he paid everything for us.
27. 8:11 And if you ever wonder what your worth is, know that it's whatever someone is willing to pay for you. And God sent his son to pay it all at the cross for you. You are of great value to your heavenly father. Certainly more so than the birds of the air, which God takes care of.
28. 8:29 Will he not also take care of you and me? That's the point Jesus is making. Next in our text, Jesus just exposes a big lie. Listen to these words, verse 27. And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?
29. 8:46 Worry has never fixed the future. It's never healed a body. It's never added a day. It feels productive, but it produces nothing. Worry doesn't take away tomorrow's trouble. It takes away today's peace. And then in verses 28 through 30, Jesus argues from greater to lesser.
30. 9:06 He goes from Solomon to the lilies of the field. And the point here is this. Solomon was this amazing king. Think of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. And you get a glimpse of Solomon's wealth. And his influence as a leader was far beyond any of those men.
31. 9:22 And yet Solomon, in all of his splendor, was not arrayed as a little wildflower of the field. Think about that. The texture, the color, the design of a little flower that's here today and gone tomorrow.
32. 9:37 God's saying that all the wealth you have can't even create something that beautiful and majestic. And what he's reminding us here is that he is in control and he's going to meet our every need in ways that we can never meet in and of ourselves.
33. 9:54 Now, what I want you to catch is at the very end of verse 30. Don't miss this. Oh, you. Oh, you. of little faith. That's certainly me at times, and maybe it's you. It's not the only place that we see this in scripture. Elsewhere in Matthew's gospel, Jesus says, oh, you of little faith, as he's pulling Peter out of the water.
34. 10:13 He says, oh, you of little faith, when he confronts the disciples wondering, how are we going to feed this crowd? And he's like, do you not remember what we did with the loaves and fish just a few months ago? And he also says, oh, you of little faith, when they wake him up as fishermen, because they think they're going to die in a storm on the water.
35. 10:32 And he calms the storm and says, oh, you of little faith. So you might find yourself as a person of little faith. And let me tell you, God meets us where we are, and he loves us, and he is addressing us who have little faith.
36. 10:50 He's not addressing no faith. He didn't say, you pagan, you heathen, you atheist, you doubter, because they have a lot to worry about, to be honest. An uncontrolled universe, nothing guiding it, no purpose behind their life. If they do have some sort of guide, it's something they created and whittled out of wood or stone or gold, and it has no power.
37. 11:12 And so they have a lot to worry about. But we, on the other hand, are serving our heavenly father, the creator and the sustainer of the universe. And Jesus is reminding us through the little flowers of the field that he's got us.
38. 11:28 He's got us. Now in verse 31, Jesus begins with another therefore. So he's connecting his logic from what he's just made about the lilies of the field, about the birds of the air. And he's saying, your heavenly father has you.
39. 11:43 He hasn't forgotten you. He's the creator and sustainer. He's going to meet your every need. So don't be consumed about what you're going to eat, what you're going to drink, and what you're going to wear. Because that is what the worldly people do. That's what the word Gentiles means there. That's what the worldly people are consumed with.
40. 11:59 That's all they think about. Where they're going to live, what sort of job they're going to have, how much money they can make, what they're going to eat, what they're going to drink. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. And don't live your life forgetting that you have an eternity ahead of you.
41. 12:19 That's really important. That's really important. And the concept that he uses here is so powerful because he does it through a relationship. Did you catch this? Your heavenly father already knows what you need.
42. 12:36 All right, here's an example I really want you to get your minds around because this helped me so much. All right, imagine your kids in your house walking up to your fridge. What do they do? They open the fridge, they help themselves to whatever they want. They usually tell you there's nothing in here, but they always find something to eat.
43. 12:53 They never ask how much it costs. They close the fridge and they go about their day. Why? Well, they know that mom and dad are going to take care of them and they're going to meet their needs. That's what mom and dads do. Now imagine you're a guest in that same house.
44. 13:09 When you see the fridge, you're probably not going to open up. You're certainly not going to help yourself because, well, you don't want to be presumptuous. You're a guest. Listen, this is the point that I think Jesus is making. Worry is what happened when children of God start thinking like guests rather than sons and daughters of their heavenly father.
45. 13:31 Now in verse 33, Jesus twists the plot just a little bit, which is amazing because up to this point, he's saying, don't do this. Stop doing that. Don't be anxious. Don't worry. But now he's telling us what he wants us to actively do, which is to seek first the kingdom of God.
46. 13:49 But the question is, how in the world do we seek first the kingdom of God? That just seems to be so abstract. Well, I spent a lot of time studying the scriptures this week, listening to a lot of theologians to try and understand that concept myself. And for what it's worth, this is the question that I think it really boils down to for me.
47. 14:09 And I hope for what it's worth, might be able to help you. So if you have a pen, I'd encourage you to write this down. All right. What does faithfulness look like to my heavenly father right now? Let me say that again. What does faithfulness look like to my heavenly father right now?
48. 14:27 All right. Here's why I think that is going to help me live in light of eternity. Um, it's going to help turn my worry into worship. It's going to transform my fear into faith because number one, I'm recognizing that I've just been called to be faithful, not successful.
49. 14:45 In other words, I'm not called to control or manipulate or try and figure out how I can leverage this opportunity or this misfortune to improve my circumstances. That's not my job. My job is to just be faithful. Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
50. 15:02 Those guys could have done a lot of twat, uh, you know, plot twisting to try and improve their circumstance as Nebuchadnezzar, that benevolent dictator created a statue of himself that was eight stories tall. And they were told that they had to bow down and worship it. By the way, I picked up some currency out here in the Middle East and, uh, dictators are continuing to put their face on all the currency as well here.
51. 15:25 So one thing has not changed is that dictators love to have their face publicly recognized. So there, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in their day dealing with a dictator. They really thought he was something special and everybody had to bow down and worship him, but they knew in their hearts that that wasn't the right thing to do.
52. 15:43 That's not how they were to be faithful. And so instead of trying to manipulate the situation and figure out how they can improve their circumstance, maybe compromise with God a little bit, God, if we just do this one time, like we pretend to pray or we pray and we just beg your forgiveness, it's going to give us such a greater platform down the road where we can really honor you.
53. 16:01 They didn't do that. They said, God, we're going to be faithful. And man, I would have been stressed out, but the scripture says that those young men just honored God. And the way they spoke to Nebuchadnezzar showed that they weren't afraid. They were bold. And Nebuchadnezzar was furious and he threw them into the fire.
54. 16:19 And the ironic thing is the men who threw them into the fire actually died and they didn't. And Nebuchadnezzar looked and said, didn't we throw three men in the fire? But I see four and one looks like the son of God. And I believe with all my heart that that was Jesus standing there protecting Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the flames.
55. 16:37 And because of their faithfulness, Nebuchadnezzar bent his knee to the one true God, which was not him. It changed his life. It changed the trajectory of history as we know it. And it all came down to those three young men being faithful.
56. 16:53 And so that's the question we have to ask ourselves. Like Mother Teresa said, we haven't been called to be successful. We've just been called to be faithful. So I think it's really important that we start with that. What does faithfulness look like to my heavenly father? Again, remember that relationship and the fridge?
57. 17:08 When we see ourselves as sons and daughters of our heavenly father, it hopefully helps us understand the world and everything in it is his, and he's going to meet our every need. And when we stop living like orphans, it'll change things for good. And last but not least, right now.
58. 17:25 How do I remain faithful to my heavenly father right now? Right now. We're not worried about the next five steps, the next five years, the strategic plan for long term.
59. 17:42 Just right now in this moment, Lord, how do I honor you? And that's where Jesus ends our text today. He says, don't worry about tomorrow. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. You know, the reality is Jesus can command us to not worry because he himself faced ultimate anxiety.
60. 18:05 In Gethsemane, Jesus' sweat blood. He stared down suffering, abandonment, and the cross. And then he prayed, not my will, but yours be done. You see, Jesus trusted the father perfectly so that when our faith is little, his faithfulness carries us.
61. 18:25 Our hope is not in the strength of our faith, but in the faithfulness of Christ our Lord. Well, as we come to the end of our passage today, I want to remind us where we started our time together with this reality that I wish I would have known many years ago, and I hope all of us get today.
62. 18:44 The biblical faith doesn't silence an anxious soul. It speaks truth to it. And I want to leave you with these verses that I pray strengthen you in your spirit, in your spirit, in your soul, in your heart, in your mind, when you feel anxiety and worry creeping in.
63. 19:03 Number one is Psalm 42 5. Why are you downcast, O my soul? And why are you at turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, the God of my salvation. Isaiah 26 3.
64. 19:20 You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. And 1 Thessalonians 5 16 and 18. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in every circumstance, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
65. 19:44 Again, biblical faith doesn't silence the anxious heart. It speaks truth to it. Will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you. That you, the Prince of Peace, offer us peace in the midst of all our anxiety and worries.
66. 20:05 And so, Lord, we cast our cares on you, knowing that you care for us. We thank you that you meet us where we are, and you take our little faith, and you grow it into a greater faith, as we recognize that we are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, not orphans.
67. 20:28 And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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