Myths That Make Us Miserable IX, The Truth About Worry

Welcome to Lifeline Tapes, a ministry of North Lake Christian Community in Wexford, PA. Dr. Jay Passivant is Senior Pastor. All of our teachings are available on cassette tape from the Lifeline's Resource Center by calling the church office at 412-935-6800. The following message from Dr. Passivant is from the Sunday service of January 1, 1995. It is part nine in the series Exploding the Myths That Make Us Miserable. The title of his message is, The Truth About Change. Matthew 6. If you don't have your Bible, please get your North Way notes. Actually, either way. And use your teaching outline. And I'm going to need one of those. Unless I threw one in here someplace. Oh, I have mine. Okay. You may notice my voice is a little ragged. If this had been yesterday, Scott would have had the thrill of trusting God spontaneously. I had the battle of the bugs yesterday. And the Lord prevailed. And I'm grateful. But I appreciate your praying just to keep my voice going here. Let's read. And I think the scripture is powerful. I want to read it. It's a little bit of an intriguing section. And if you're new to us today, we've been studying the Sermon on the Mount. The greatest sermon that Jesus ever preached. This is, by the way, the longest passage on one topic in the whole sermon. That says to me it's important. How about you? Read it with me, would you? And if you have your Bible, read along. Matthew 6. 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 important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow? They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that 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, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things. Say that with me. For the pagans run after all these things. And your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. What do you think the topic of this message is? Worry. And I want to look at the issue of worry at a very personal level. Two weeks from now, my message is going to be about North Way's corporate future, but I want to talk today about you and about me. But in order to set the groundwork for that, I want to look at something that we have gone through together in 1994. You know, the year in review kind of thing? I want to look at what 1994 was like, because it was very challenging. Ruth, do we have some of those overheads? Three things. I saw in 1994, first of all, a transition. Big time transition, and that had three components. Maybe you were with us, maybe not. Back in February, we left our old building. How many of you were part of that transition? And we slowly lost parts of the building until eventually, end of February, we had to pull everything out of there and leave. And then we had the middle part of that, which was into Marshall Middle School for a season. And that wasn't easy, folks. That was, for you, maybe you just showed up and said, well, this was nice. But for some people, it was very difficult. Setting up and tearing down, the children's ministry, lots of coordination, lots of challenges. And it was a long seven months. And then we moved into this building. And again, it seemed to go pretty smoothly, but it was an enormous amount of work and challenge. Moving our offices, our computers, telephones, all the resources that we have, let alone everything that it took to get in here. I mean, if we had just made a transition from an old building into an already prepared new one, that would have been a challenge enough. But alongside the transition, Roman numeral two, we had a big challenge of construction. The whole year was an enormous challenge. Dating back to the first of the year, what was our number one challenge in the winter of last year? Weather was awful. It was terrible, 20 below zero. Then the requirements of the local, and regulations of all the local authorities to just get in and make everybody happy. You have no idea how many people were in our face all the time. Do this, don't do that. Do it this way or don't do it that way, and it was just awful. Adding to that, then we made the leap of faith to add the gym wing, which we ended up being the right move and a great blessing that's going to just give us many opportunities. All the volunteer and donated services of last year for the parking lot, and the landscaping, and the painting, and cleanup, and all those many, many, many things that were obstacles that we overcame together. Then the permit procedure process. Fire marshals and occupancy people, and you can't put that chair that way, it's got to go this way, and you can't have that door like that. It has been just on and on. Financially, the whole year was a stretch. A couple people took some shots at us talking about money, like this just happened. When you purchased your home, was it a stretch for you? Thank you. Now let's get real. Was it a stretch for you? Yes. It was a stretch for us, but we rose to that occasion. Those two things were enormous, but alongside of that, internally, we were also stretched and challenged because we had some developments going on in our music and worship area. That whole thing went through change. Lee Kreitzer left and Dave came in, and there was big changes there. Then in our youth ministry, kind of midstream, gone through change there. Our home group leadership. Add those things, plus construction, plus transition, and folks, that was a year that I'm happy to say is behind me. Amen? I'm glad it's behind me, but I'm also grateful for the end result. I'm so grateful to stand up here and see you here today and realize that we stand now on the verge of a whole new thing. I share all this with you for a purpose because you may have looked at all that and said, that's enough to give anybody a major league case of ulcers. People would come up to me midstream and say, how are you holding up under all this? I said, well, you know what? I'm tired some because it's long, long meetings and all that stuff, and I'm a little overwhelmed with all the decisions, but I'm not worrying about it. I'm not drinking my land all day and night or popping Rolaids. I'm sleeping at night. I'm not worried about it because I can tell you, God's in it. When God's in something, even if you don't know what to do, you know he's going to do it and show you how to do it. I share that, not because I'm some glorious, holy saint that could do it all, but just because God, I knew, was saying to me what he wants to say to you. Because, folks, many of you today are also just about to take a step into the new year and trust God for something much bigger than you ever have before. I really believe that if you want to step out of the shadows of mediocrity as a Christian into the bright sunlight of God's purpose, into the fullness of what he wants you to be and become, that you're bound to face obstacles and challenges and difficulties, no matter what your personal arena is. It just comes with the territory of growth. And I'm convinced, you know, that it was the same way back here in Scripture when Jesus was giving this sermon and talking about things that we didn't get onto yet, talking about, hey, where your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be. I mean, when he stood in front of that crowd and said to them, you can't serve God and mammon, they got a little bit fearful. They began to say, what's he talking about? And anytime you're about to move forward in God, you realize it means I'm going to have to let go of one thing and grab onto another one. And there's that gap when the trapezes don't quite meet. And that's the time that fear can overwhelm your faith. And you can roll right on down to the bottom. Jesus knew that. That's why he said in this passage, don't worry. I've got it under control. Because he knows what we're made of, folks. If I took a little poll here today, how many people want this year to be your greatest year of Christian growth? How many people want to be passionate for Christ? How many people want to establish a new level of faith? How many people want to resolve an issue or do some exploit for God? How many people want to make a difference? Who put up their hand? Practically the whole place. I know that's true because I know most of you. I know your heart. I know what you want to do. But you also are facing the reality that if you do that, something's going to change and you're kind of wondering, what's that going to mean? And fear is lurking on the precipice. It reminds me of a time many summers ago when I took my family on a vacation. And we were on our way to Virginia Beach but we thought we'd stop about halfway. So we went to Harrisburg and the kids said, Dad, the motel has to have a swimming pool. Okay. We took the big splurge and went to a motel with a swimming pool. It was a warm August night. We all went out to the pool and it wasn't all that crowded so the kids were pretty free to romp around. I think Jonathan was probably four, maybe five years old, and David seven and Amy nine, something like that. And David and Amy were decent swimmers and they could handle themselves. So they were running on the diving board and jumping in and having a blast and splashing. And Jonathan had tons of heart but very little skill. Couldn't swim yet. So he said, Dad, Dad, I want to jump off the board. Go out and catch me. He looks and backs up and looks around and comes up. And you know what I saw when I looked up into his eyes? Fear. Because what's going through his little mind is what if? What if? Inside he wanted the thrill of that little free fall and he wanted to splash in the water and he wanted to do what his brother and sister were doing and he wanted to have all that fun. But he realized that if he did that he was taking a risk. Well, a line started to back up and there's no getting off then so there he comes at the end of the board and finally says, Jonathan, just jump. Jump. And he did. And that little squirrel went right through my arms like a greased watermelon. Just went, boom! Right through my arms and right down to the bottom and I had to dive over down and pull him up and he came up and, no, you let me drop down and he was just... He got over it and by the time we got to the side and he was fine and he said, Jonathan, let's do it again. Now, as we face the new year and you look at what you're facing and you know that the Holy Spirit is saying, go on. Take the leap. It could be in any area. It could be just in a commitment to get into a group and start to be a little transparent with somebody and grow. It could be to reach out and care for someone in your neighborhood that's been hard to reach to. It could be to financially get on board with God's program and make a difference. It could be just to repair a relationship with someone that's rebuffing. I don't know what it is but God is saying to all of us to do something and you know that if you do that, it may mean that you have to let go of something that's been real important to you. And you know what I find here at North Way? I don't usually find resistance. I don't usually look out and see defiance but I do look out when we talk about commitment here and I do see a little bit of fear. What's it mean? What's it going to mean? Let me share with you what Jesus said. May I? Let me share with you what he said about fear because if we can't overcome fear and worry, we're not going to go anywhere in this new year. And so here's what Jesus said about worry which is basically the byproduct of fear. He said, number one, and if you're taking notes, fill this in, worry is the byproduct Worry is unreasonable. Verse 25, he says, life is more important than food and the body more important than clothes. He's saying, listen, we are beings not just bodies. He's saying what really matters is not just the externals but the internals. If life is just 70 or 80 years and it's all over, hey, we might as well fixate on these things and make them work as long and as well as we can. Life, Jesus said, is on the inside. Paul says it this way, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. The word really is clay pots. Turn to your neighbor and say, you have a nice cloak and clay pot. Don't abuse that now. But Jesus is saying, I've given you a soul and a spirit and affections, aspirations, the capacity to love. I've breathed my image into you. If you read Genesis 1, the image of God was breathed into that clay pot and that's where God puts his treasure. Jesus says, I relate to the inner person. I created and loved and wooed and redeemed the inner man, not the body. The body is going to pass away. That's why it's, I'm sure, puzzling to God that we fixate on our bodies the way that we do. I mean, the enormous investment in cosmetics the amount of time we spend on the body. The panic attacks we have if we do something to our body that's just, you know, spill a cup of coffee in our car, whatever. God cares so much about our body that he's saying, we don't have to worry about it. He'll take care of us according to his plan. Imagine, if you will, a cardiologist here in Pittsburgh, the best, and you need open heart surgery. In fact, you're in such bad shape, you don't just need a bypass or a valve. You need a transplant. And he takes you in and does a 12-hour operation and gives you a brand new heart. Kind of like, you know, Governor Casey had. Imagine that cardiologist then, after 12 hours with his team sewing you up and then just walking out and not even caring about what happens to you after that. I mean, is he going to care about the fact that you've got a room and that someone's watching out for you and that you're going to get food and liquids and a warm bed and all that? Is he? Of course he is. He's got far too great an investment in your life to just let you go down the tubes because of some little external things. Well, that's the way it is with God, dear one. He loves you so much, he's given you a whole new spirit. He's not going to let this outer shell waste away without him caring for you. That's what Jesus is saying. We're being not just a body. Trust him in that. People say, I don't like the way I look. I don't like this clay pot. Well, listen, to worry about something you can't change, that's useless. To worry about something you can change, you're stupid. Just change it. But just don't worry about it. Number two, worry is unnatural. Here, the Lord goes from one analogy to a more comparative one. He talks about birds and flowers. Birds. How many of you have a pet bird? Do you pet it? No. You watch it, though, right? Some people love, I'm not sure, I read again in Genesis, when God created birds, I know they're part of the plan. I don't know if I always understand fully what they're about. I don't know how to observe them. I do know I observe them going north and cranberry, the pigeons have a convention right over that one light standard. If you live north, you know exactly what I mean, they'll be there on your way home, kind of waiting to drop a bomb as you drive underneath them. A lot of rather useless birds out there, but the Bible says, nonetheless, God the Heavenly Father cares for them, doesn't he? What does he mean? He means, here's the question for you, have you ever on a nice autumn afternoon taken a walk out in the woods and seen a bird in full flight crash and burn because they ran out of fuel? Have you ever seen that? No. Why? Because God the Father feeds the allowed to care for them and to supply their needs. And the point is, these little tiny creatures don't have anywhere near the importance in God's system as you do, dear one. Worry is unnatural, because God cares for you far more than the birds, and the birds don't go hungry, and you're probably less. But verse 28 and 29, the Bible says, I take care of them. In fact, I give them clothing that's far better than anything you'll ever be able to find even on sale. In fact, In fact, on your best fashion days, you can't get close to what God's given the flowers. Look at some of these. And by the way, if you know someone in a hospital or shut in or a loved one, you're welcome to take one of these after the service today and bless them with it. The Bible says that Solomon, in all of his glory, was not as beautifully adorned as the lily. I read 1 Kings 10 today just to compare that. Solomon was such a dude that the queen of Sheba, who herself was pretty hot, came to Solomon and said, you know what, Solomon? It's not even halfway true what they say about you. You've got so much. And the Bible says he wasn't even close to that beautiful lily that God adorned. If that be the case, then Bible's saying, how much more can you be assured that God is gonna watch out for your needs? It's unnatural to worry. It's unnatural to think, if I make a commitment, somehow God is just gonna sort of let me fall to the ground and wither up. Number three, worry is unproductive. What does worry produce? Positively. Nothing. It does produce negative things. I mean, ever hear someone say, I'm worried sick? Yeah, well, you can get sick worrying. But it doesn't produce anything positive, does it? I mean, here the Bible is saying, if you're short, or vertically challenged, and you want to be tall or taller, does really worrying hard about it make you taller? That's what it says there. Or if your life's gonna end prematurely and you want to live longer, does worrying, I mean, really just like ferocious worrying, does that make you live longer? No, it doesn't help at all. Worry doesn't produce anything at all. Worry's like being in a rocking chair, you know, just lots of energy going nowhere. What's a much better use of that energy? Don't worry, pray. Some of us who have parents, how many of you have teenage drivers in your family? You know, we're in that season right now when one of the sweetest sounds you ever hear if you're a parent of a teenager is the sound of the car engine turning off in the driveway. And there've been times even recently, you know, with the weather a little bad and foggy and rainy and sometimes slippery, and I wake up and maybe I'm in bed before one of my older kids gets home. It doesn't do me any good to worry them home, but I'll tell you what, I do pray them home. And I say, Lord, wherever they are, watch over them, protect them. When I hear that car, glad you're home. See, worry doesn't produce anything. It just keeps draining from you the very energy God put in you to help make a difference. You can only, those things you can't control, why worry about them? But you can pray about them. And we are prone, listen, many of us are prone to worrying about things we have no control over. I was on a flight a while back and I overheard a man ask a flight attendant, it was a bumpy ride, and we were going into some real turbulence, and you know, all this discussion about planes going down, and he turned to the flight attendant and he said, how often does a plane like this go down? And she looked at him and said, usually only once. Why don't you just rest, sir, it'll be fine. He had no control, I've never been in a plane, I've never helped a pilot land safely by worrying them. But I have prayed. Worry is unproductive. Number four, worry is unnecessary. You know, when I think about it, I don't need to worry because I know my heavenly father has me in his care. And he has enough for me out at church. The parallel here is so important, this is the crux of the whole issue. How many of you when you were growing up got an allowance from your father or from one of your parents? Okay. I mean, when I needed something from my dad, I used to go and say, dad, I need money for this or money for that. And I never even gave a thought to where he was gonna get it. You ever have your kids come up and say to you, hey, dad, I need this, and you say, what am I? You know, a money tree, where am I gonna get it? He said, well, just write a check, you know. Like somehow that check magically creates the money. Kids don't worry about where their dad's gonna get it. That's my point, right? And your heavenly father wants you to know you don't need to worry about where he's gonna get it because he's got it. And it's unnecessary to worry about God supplying whatever it is that you need because God knows and he's got the resources in hand for you. Worry doesn't help God be your father. He is your father. He does care for you. People, you know, who don't have God as their father, they have reason to worry. I mean, it is a really, really nasty world out there. Dog eat dog and rhino bullets. But those of us who have God as our father, we need to know, if you'll just follow the analogy, our heavenly father is deeply committed to your wellbeing. And if I just gathered a whole bunch of focus groups here and took all the dads all over the room and put you in a group of four or five men and I went around the little circle and I said, how many of you dads here would give anything you could to your son or daughter if they had a need? Every single dad, 201, would say, I'd do it. I'd give anything I could for my son or daughter if they had a need. I'd sell my possessions, give up my toys, work two jobs, do what I had to do if my son or daughter had a need, a bonafide need. What makes us think that our heavenly father would do any less for us? He loves us more perfectly than we love our own children, yet somehow we can't seem to trust him that if we take the leap off of the end of the board, he's not gonna be there. We're his children. We have a verse, 1 John 3, verse one. Read it out, go ahead, just put the whole thing up. Read it out loud with me, please. How great is the love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God and that is what we are. We're his children. God doesn't need you to worry to bring it to pass. He loves you. And you know, I'll tell you, a couple years ago, I went into an inner city neighborhood with one of the ministries that we support here at Northwood and walked into some homes where little kids without a father and sometimes without a mother were barely surviving. I looked at places where there were mats rolled out, not beds. I looked at places where the table was in the corner of the room and not by the window where it should have been because they were afraid of getting shot when they ate dinner. And I saw kids that didn't have much to wear and very little to eat and I thought, how much I'd love to just put my arm around one of these little kids and take him home and they wouldn't have to worry about their next meal or what they were gonna wear or where they were gonna sleep and I'd be their dad. How much more our heavenly father loves us? You gotta get that straight, church. God the father is incapable of failing you in this. Got that? It's not in his nature to let you fail. In your provision, he'll take care of you. He doesn't have a gear that ignores you. He always cares. Sometimes he makes you wait, but he always cares. He always provides. He's always faithful. And you won't slip through his hands like Jonathan did through mine. Number five, worry is unbelieving. Basically, when you choose to worry, you're slipping into what I wanna call practical atheism. What you're saying is, you know, I can trust God for those religious things, but I can't really trust him in the practical things, in my relationships, in my finances, in my job, in my school choices. Dear ones, that's being an unbeliever. That's being like a pagan. That's running around trying to do the things that only God can do. And in effect, if you wanna know the truth, it's playing God. That's what it is. It's playing God in those things that God wants you to trust him in. The whole of the Christian life in the year ahead for us is, Lord, how can we trust you this year in this way? It's the whole thing. Most of our lives, you see, are beyond our control. You know that, don't you? We'd like to think. I mean, a recent poll said the number one things that Americans want is to be in control. And you know what's so ironic about that? It's the thing that we least can achieve. You might have everything lined up perfectly right now, and today could be the worst day of your life. You can't control it. And despite what all the self-help people tell us, you can't be anything you wanna be. You can read all the books and listen to all the tapes and watch all the infomercials. I wanna be the greatest golfer of all time. Wouldn't that be great? How many of you would like to be a professional golfer where all you have to choose is which resort are you gonna spend the next week relaxing and then going out and playing golf and making a million bucks and doing it? How many of you, I'd like to do that. But I can read every book and listen to every tape, and I don't have a minute chance of being a pro golfer. In fact, I've been asked to leave courses from time to time, okay? So you can't be anything you wanna be. You know, you're not gonna be Beverly Sills. You're not gonna be Michael Jordan. But you know what? You will be what God wanted you and created you to be if you learn how to trust him for the things that matter to him. And folks, here's the irony of it. Even those people that achieve all those things at the world, they inside don't have what you can have of the fulfillment of God's destiny in your life. That's the great thing about it. Now, on your sheet, I want you to write the greatest worry that you have for 1995. Right there above where it says the antidotes, before I end the message, write down the greatest worry that you have. What is it? Okay, no peeking here. Write it down. You know, if it's the person next to you, put a little arrow and then just cover it over, all right? What is it for you? Is it a relationship? Is it finances? Is it physical health? Is it job? What's your greatest worry? Is it like a bad habit, stress? What is it? Write it down, got it? Now, let's see in conclusion quickly what three things can we do to overcome that worry, overcome that fear, and take the leap to trust God in 1995. Number one, seek him, everyone say it, first, okay? First in your life, let's make prayer seeking God, let's make it the court of first resort, not the last resort. How many times do we pray after it already goes wrong? And I just wanna say, let's be the kind of people that put God first in every area of our life, especially as it relates to that area of worry that you have right there. Pray about it every morning first. Put it right up on the top of your list. Can I tell you this? Whatever you're worrying about has already bumped God out of number one in that area. If you're worried about your dating life, then God is not number one. If you're worried about your job, then God isn't first. If you're worried about your financial condition, then God has been pushed out of the Lord, lordship of your finances. It's a very easy measurement. If you're worried about it, God's number two. If you're not worried about it, then he's number one. And that's a clear way to get the message through as to what is the order of your priorities. Determine that today, day one, I love it. This is day number one, 1995. Determine that today is gonna be the day that you put God number one in every area. Establish Jesus as Lord of every area and turn it over to him every day. And you'll begin to see that every day, God has the capacity to take care of the things that concern you. Pray, thy kingdom come. What is his kingdom? It's his righteousness, peace, and joy, Romans 14, 17. It's his rule. It's God, how many of you, if God ruled in your job, things would be different? If God ruled in your relationships, it would be different. Well, that's what you're gonna pray first, his kingdom and his righteousness. It says right there, give us this day our weekly bread. Monthly bread, what? Daily bread, every single day. Number two, savor his promises. I like that word. When you savor a great meal, what do you do? You eat it slowly, right? You draw all the flavor out of it. When's the last time you savored a promise of God? I mean, you really drew out the meaning. I just wanna encourage you. The Bible has approximately now 7,000 promises in it. Savor the ones that you need for that worry area you put on your paper, okay? I have a promise on the mirror in my bathroom about a healing that I know God has for me in an area in my life. And I savor it every single morning and every single time I stand there. Because I know that that's what's gonna bring me past that point where I'm afraid to trust. And when I'm free falling down, which I am right now in a couple areas, I'm savoring the promises because I know that at the end, God'll be there. You say, I don't know how to get the promises. Oh, there's lots of ways. Lots of ways. Lots of books in our resource center there to help you find the promises of God. There's one that I love, Philippians 4, 6, and 7. If you'll put that up, please. Look at this promise. If you're struggling right now, you're not, how do I trust God? Here's what it says. Let's read it together. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, in prayer, with thanksgiving, present yourself to God and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, will cause your hearts and minds. And the peace of God, not the worry of the world, but the peace of God. Oh God, that we might have your peace in this year. That's a promise from God to you. Number three, sing his praise. What I really mean here is the best way to substitute your worry for something far better is to worship God. Worship, not worry. Faith, not fear. That's the way to overcome what could choke the life out of you. In the sense that worship is the active expression of our love for God in a demonstrable fashion, worship is what focuses your eyes on God and not your problem. And the greatest need that I have, and maybe you have too, is that when it comes to that little area, I get all consumed with seeing the problems out there and not on God. And worship, literally singing, praising, being before God, exalting him in your life, that focuses you on him. You know what I said to Jonathan? You know what I said to him that day? I said, John, just look at me. Don't look at how far it is. Don't look at the water. Look at me. That's when he jumped. You're thinking, I'm just like that greased watermelon, though, gently, but right at the bottom. No, God's gonna care for you. And you wanna know one last thing I've learned? When you're on the very edge of the board, whatever area of your life we're talking about, not only is God your father gonna receive you, listen, listen. If you hold out your hand, you're gonna find that there's someone there who's gonna grab your hand. And his hand has a scar in it. And when you squeeze real hard and you jump, he's gonna jump with you. And you're never alone. Whatever the new year has, take the leap for you. Put fear and worry behind you and trust God. Trust your father and God'll meet you. And we'll be changed, every one of us, in the year ahead. Let's stand and commit our way to God.