A message from the series “Why Worry.” Why Worry?, Message 2: Don’t Go There Sermon preached by Dr. Rick Mandl at Eagle Rock Baptist Church, November 7 & 8, 2020Recorded in Los Angeles, CA.
I’m not gonna ask you how many of you have done what that guy in the video did and slid out of a bathroom without touching anything. In the era of COVID it’s just kind of become something we do. Today we’re talking about worry. . . Kind of seems like an appropriate thing to be talking about this week because for several months we’ve been anticipating this week. And we knew that no matter what happened with this election, there would be half our folk who would be in need of grief counseling. We just didn’t know which half. So that’s one of the reasons we’re looking at worry.
Worry is nothing new. Worry goes all the way back to Jesus’ time. Jesus talked about it 2,000 years ago, and today we’ll continue our look at what he had to say… Before we do… I just want to remind you that worry is a universal problem. Everybody worries. Everybody who is here with us watching today worries. Some of you, don’t just worry OCCASIONALLY; some of you are CHAMPION WORRIERS. Some of you are WORLD-CLASS WORRIERS. If you ever happen to find yourself not worried, you get worried that there’s something you should be worried about, and you worry until you figure out what that something is. And messages like this can do more harm than good because what you take away from it is, “I shouldn’t worry so much…” Then you begin to worry about, how much you worry.
Worry is something that all of us are familiar with… Some of us worry a little, some of us worry a lot. In case you’re WORRYING WHICH GROUP YOU FALL INTO, and whether maybe you ‘Worry Too Much’ – – – this week I came across a list of:
Top 10 Signs You Worry Too Much
Check this out and see where you find yourself. . .
Top 10 signs you worry too much
You have to replace your carpet annually due to excessive pacing.
Antacid tablets have become your sole source of nutrition.
You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you’ve said it before.
Number 7, even though this is 2020, you still find yourself . . . .
. . . stockpiling food in case that Y2K bug ever hits.
Number 6, you check the call history on your cell phone, and you discover that since Tuesday, every call has been a call home
“just checking in” to see if everyone is still okay
You made three trips home this morning making sure you turned the iron off.
You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you’ve said it before.
Your dreams of what could be are replaced by fears of what might be.
And the #1 sign that you worry too much . . .
You’re stressed out that I skipped #4.
I don’t know where you find yourself on that list, but whether you worry a little or whether you worry a lot, the word of God has something to say to you. I like what one pastor said about worry . . . Worry is like prayer in reverse. Prayer generally makes issues smaller; worrying generally makes issues bigger. Because when we worry, what have we done? We’ve sort of cleared out all of the other arenas, and all the other issues of life and we’ve focused our attention on one thing. And typically, it’s the one thing we want to avoid seeing happen: Am I going to get into that school I applied for? Am I going to pass that exam? Are they going to keep me at my job? Will my company survive this pandemic?
We get hyper-focused on one thing, and it gets bigger, bigger, bigger, and bigger, and very often the thing we’re focusing on, is something we can’t really, in most cases, do anything about. So, Jesus, knowing all of this 2,000 years ago… Jesus spoke to the issue of worry… And he gives us a solution. Not a coping mechanism – a solution. And this is what sets Him apart from everything else you’ll read about worry. All the other things, basically, that you find on worry, will help you medicate your worry, or help you deal with your worry, or help you cope with your worry. Jesus says that there’s actually a solution for worry. And we find that solution in His words in Matthew chapter 6 in the Sermon on the Mount.
We began looking at these words last week, and in case you missed that, let me give you a quick review. Jesus told us . . .
YOU CAN’T ADD ANYTHING TO YOUR LIFE BY WORRYING.
No matter how good you are at worrying. You might be like a world-class worrier, Jesus said, “You’ve never added anything to your life by worrying.” You’ve never been able to harness the future, or reach into the future, or manipulate the future through your worrying. You’re not able to add even one minute, or one second, or one hour, to your life by worrying. You’re not able to impact the things that are worried about, so basically, it’s a waste of time, which means it’s a waste of life. Because your time equals your life. When you run out of time, you run out of life. Jesus says that first of all, even if you don’t believe there’s a solution, we can all agree on this: Worry is a waste of time and life.
A second thing we saw. . .
NOT WORRYING is not the same as NOT CARING
One of the pushbacks you’ll sometimes hear, when it comes to Jesus teaching on worry, is that when folk read the verses where Jesus says don’t worry, they misinterpret that as Jesus saying, “Don’t care.” In other words, “I have a big test coming up. . . “Jesus says, “Don’t worry, so I’m not going to study because Jesus said, “Don’t worry.” “I’m not going to worry about it.” “I’m not going to care about it.” Your marriage is in crisis, your wife says, “We need to go see a counselor.” “You say, yeah but Jesus said, “Don’t worry,” so I’m not going to worry about our marriage. It’ll just all work out.” That’s not what Jesus is saying
Saying “Don’t Worry” is not the same as saying “Don’t Care.” God expects us to everything we can do, to affect the things that we’re concerned about. But once we’ve done all we can do; we don’t need to worry about the next series of moments. Jesus taught we’re to do all we can do in the now. Have you studied for the test? Have you filled out the application for the job? Did you show up for the interview? Have you done everything you can do? Once you’ve done all you can do, you don’t have to worry about the next series of moments or days or hours, because your heavenly Father cares for you. Jesus isn’t advocating irresponsibility, “Don’t worry” doesn’t mean, “don’t care.”
THE LAST THING, we saw has to do with what we’re looking at today which is that
THE THINGS THAT YOU’RE MOST DEVOTED TO ARE THE THINGS YOU WORRY ABOUT THE MOST.
If you want to know what you’re really most devoted to, just follow your worries, because your worries will lead you to the point of your greatest devotion. That’s what we worry about. So, one of the best questions that we can ask, as we think about the things that we worry about, is this: If the things I worry about reflect my devotions, what am I most devoted to? That’s where Jesus kind of picks up the thought as He takes us to a solution. Because if what we’re devoted to determines what we’re worried about, then if we could REDIRECT our devotion we would conquer, in many cases, our incessant need or feeling like we need to worry about the future.
So, we’re going to pick things up in verse 27. We touched on these verses last week, but they lead into what we’re looking at this week. Matthew 6, verse 27 Jesus says . . . Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? The answer to that question is “No.” And Jesus could equally have said, “How many of you have worried so much you’ve taken hours off of your life?” And we would all raise our hands.
And then verse 28… “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.” And yet, he says . . . “Not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-30). Don’t miss those last four words… “You of little faith” And with those words He’s pointing us to what is the Big Idea in what he’s teaching here. And that big idea is that there is . . . an inverse relationship between the size of your faith and the size of your worry. He says the reason your worries are so big, is because your faith is so little. If your faith were bigger, your worries would be smaller.
Again, for a moment look back at the end of verse 30, where Jesus says, “You of little faith.” Jesus is using a word there that doesn’t show up anywhere else in Greek Literature. This is the only place. It’s actually a word he made up. He’s coining a word, by combining two other Greek words. It’s as if he’s making fun of those who are listening to him. He’s saying, “You believe that God cares for the birds… You believe he cares for the flowers . . . But you don’t believe he’ll care for you? He said, “Oh, you little faithers, you. Little faither, little faither, little faither. . . He says, “The reason you’re so worried is your faith is so small.” You’re a little faither.” Because there’s a relationship between the size of your faith and the size of your worry.
People with huge faith, they don’t worry much. In fact, truth be told they kind of bother you. And the reason that they bother you is because very often they have the same set of circumstances you do and yet, they’re not worried. And you’re like, “Come on – get with the program – take a look around – – Don’t you see what’s going on in our world? Didn’t you see what happened with the election this week? You need to join the worry club. The rest of us are worried; You need to worry. What’s wrong with you?”
And some of you have had the privilege of interfacing with, people whose circumstances are worse than yours. Their future is darker than yours. And you talk to them, and they’ve done all they can do, and yet they don’t seem to worry. They don’t even seem to be afraid. And when you meet those people: you think, “I don’t know how I would handle the stuff that you’re going through. I’m glad I’m not you. Because if I was you, I would be a nervous wreck. If I was going through the stuff that you’re going through I don’t know how I would get out of bed in the morning.” And they just seem to be – – – NOT FINE. . . But they’re just NOT WORRIED. Why? Because they’ve got BIG FAITH. And the bigger your faith the smaller your worry.
In this section of his Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, the way to “Stop Worrying” is not by trying to STOP WORRYING. That doesn’t work. You don’t stop worrying by trying to stop worrying. That’s like trying to go to sleep. Remember when you were a kid and your parents were saying, “Now, just try to go to sleep.” And you’re like “How do you TRY to go to sleep? I don’t know how you do that. Same thing when it comes to worry. If your husband or wife or your kids say, “Mom, you worry too much; stop worrying.” How do you do that? Jesus says, “Okay, I’m going to tell you how.” But we’ve got to see this connection.
Part of the problem is, and if you don’t understand the problem then you’ll never embrace the solution. And the problem, at its root is a faith problem. Your faith is small. You have not even followed your faith to its logical conclusions. Jesus says, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ Stop there for a moment. . . Why should we not worry about those things? Should we not worry about those things because those things are not important? No, those things are very important. Jesus is not calling us to be careless and stop caring. He’s telling us that we shouldn’t be worried about these things. And then he tells us why. . .
Look at the next verse. He says, For the pagans…. Who are the pagans? The pagans are people who don’t even believe there is a God. They’re the people who don’t believe there’s a personal God. They’re the people who don’t believe there’s a God that answers prayer. He says, For the pagans run after all these things… When he says, “the pagans run after,” that’s just another way of saying they WORRY. And that makes sense. If they believe that it’s all up to them. If they DON’T believe there’s a God who cares for them, they have reason to be worried. But that’s not you. You’re not them. But when you worry, you’re acting like them. Regardless of what you SAY you believe, when you worry, like it all depends on you, you’re LIVING YOUR LIFE PRACTICALLY AS AN ATHEIST. You say, ‘Wait a minute. I’m not an atheist. I believe in God.” Yeah, I hear you saying that, but I also see how you’re living. And you’re living life like, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” You’re acting like a person who doesn’t even believe there is a God.”
Jesus, the way to “Stop Worrying” is not by trying to STOP WORRYING. He says the way to stop worrying is. . . The way to “Stop Worrying” is to transfer your devotion. Transfer my devotion? From where? To what? He tells us in verses 33-34. He says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. . .” He says, STOP making your number one priority, YOU, and YOUR kingdom, and YOUR stuff, and Transfer your Devotion to His Kingdom and His Agenda for your life. Because we’re all living in the same country, going through the same pandemic, we’re all dealing with the same divisions and the same racial tensions, and the same wait, waiting to find out who won the same election.
We all have the same worries and the same concerns. But you know what ought to separate God’s people from those who don’t know him? It’s not that we don’t have the same problems and the same challenges as everyone else. It’s the way we respond to those problems and those challenges. When you make a transfer of devotion, something happens to your worry. He says, “If you seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness . . . Even if nothing changes in your circumstances, something will change in you. One of the things that will change in you, even if your circumstances don’t change, is that you’ll receive God’s peace. Take a look at the last verse on your notes, from Philippians chapter 4. It says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:8-7). When we’re tempted to worry, Jesus wants our default response to be to run to God.
I was looking for a way to illustrate this, and I remembered something that I shared with some of you, some time back . . . It was an experiment that a researcher – a doctor out of Stanford… named Harry Harlow… was doing in the area of our human need for love and the ways in which we respond and react when fear strikes us. And Harry Harlow did a bunch of experiments that involved little monkeys, and he discovered that even monkeys need something like love. They were breeding monkeys for research and they found that these monkeys, even if they were protected from disease, even if they were supplied with all the food they needed and everything else, what they found was that IF THEIR MOM WASN’T WITH THEM … they didn’t do well.
As a part of this research, over time, they created two artificial moms in these little monkey cages. Two MAN-MADE MONKEY MOMS (try saying that 5X fast). They created A LITTLE WIRE MONKEY MOM that the baby monkeys could get milk from, and then A LITTLE TERRY-CLOTH MONKEY MOM. What these behaviorists thought was that these little monkeys would spend all their time with the monkey mom that gave milk, because after all that’s what a monkey wants. And they figured that the little monkeys wouldn’t be nearly so interested in the TERRY-CLOTH moms. The researchers were surprised to discover that the little monkeys spent less than an hour a day with the wire mom that gave them milk, and VIRTUALLY ALL THEIR WAKING TIME…17 or 18 hours a day…with the terry-cloth mom who gave them what was called CONTACT COMFORT. Then they dreamed up an experiment to scare a monkey and see which mom it would run to, and what it might do. I want to show the results of that experiment Take a look at your screen.
(Video here)
As I watched that video, a couple of thoughts came to mind. First – – – What kind of a sick mind designed that mechanical monster to scare that poor little baby monkey? And then SECOND, when you watched what the monkey did and when Harlow said… “This is not running away; it’s running to.” When that little monkey had contact with the one he trusted, it drove away the monkey’s fears and that contact with the one he loved changed his entire personality.
This is what Jesus wants to do for us through His Spirit. When you’re anxious… when you’re worried, and when you can’t make the thing that is worrying you go away. . . You can let it cause you to draw near to God, and to realize the promise that when you do that, he in turn draws near to you. Whatever your mechanical monster is, whether it’s the pandemic, or the fear of unemployment, or concerns about your health, or betrayal or being alone or money worries or whatever it is… You can run to God and he welcome you with open arms.
See, all of us, to one degree or another, are living side by side with people who have the same problems, and the same needs, and the same concerns about their jobs and their homes and their families and about about future, about marriage—you name it. We’re at a place as a nation, we’re at a place as a people where there is more to worry about than there ever has been before. Or at least, that’s the perception. Which means for those of us who face those same circumstances but refuse to be bound by worry, God has given us a golden opportunity for our light to shine a little brighter.
What do I mean? What I mean is when we face those same circumstances that everyone else is facing, but we lean into God instead of freaking out. . . And when we experience His peace. . . That peace that exceeds anything we can understand… And on of the things that will happen then is that the people around us will not understand that. . . Because it’s a peace that exceeds anything they can understand, and it won’t make any sense to them. And they’ll want to know why you’re not freaking out. And you’ll have an opportunity to share with them, the difference it makes to have personal relationship with the one who controls the future. May we seize those opportunities as God provides them. Let’s turn to Him in prayer… Would you pray with me?
Recorded in Los Angeles, CA.
