Alright. Top 10 Sins and Struggles. This is lesson number nine and so we begin
with a countdown of our top ten sins and struggles according to the surveys that
we have taken. Here's our list so far: number ten, laziness; number nine, anger;
number eight, cursing and gossiping, they came in together; number seven, pride;
number six, neglecting church; number five, coping with change, also
coping with conflict, those two were tied, when I say tied we had as many people
mentioned that as a particular issue as the other; number four, easily discouraged;
number three and that's tonight's lesson, over anxious or worry, dealing with
worry. And if you notice, interesting, another struggle issue. We said
the top ten sins and struggles. Laziness, anger, cursing, gossiping, pride, neglecting
church, those are in the sin category and then coping with change, that's not
necessarily a sin, but obviously it seems to be a struggle with
a lot of folks, coping with conflict, same idea. Easily discouraged, another struggle
issue and number three overanxious, another struggle issue here. Worry all by
itself is not a moral issue, although in one sense when we as Christians worry, we
are disobeying Jesus who said not to worry. 'Don't worry,' He said, 'don't be
anxious.' So when He tells you don't do something and you go ahead and
do it, well, it's kind of a sin isn't it? But it's not a moral thing, it's
not like fornication or stealing or things like that, but it is a
problem and it does cause problems in our lives and many times can lead to
a loss of faith. So it's a kind of a dangerous thing. Of course, that this
struggle was named by so many people is no surprise, because it has always been a
common human reaction by both believers and non-believers. If I gave the same
survey to people who are not church people and I
didn't call sin sin, we just call it your top 10 problems, let's
just say, but we had the same thing, dealing with worry usually is
at the top. I've done this several times and worry's always in the top five. So
it's something very common. It's not just us here in this particular place, it's
something that all people struggle with. So tonight we're going to look at this
issue and as always there are no easy fixes, but hopefully surface some
Bible ideas that we have to be able to deal with this particular thing. So
let's start. So what are we dealing with here? What is worry? Well,
basically it's a feeling and if I had to boil it down to it's most simple
thing, what is worry? It's a feeling. It's a feeling of fear or unhappiness
regarding someone or something, because worry's not a good feeling, right? We
don't feel good when we're worried. So what is exactly, if you're trying to
name the feeling, I would say it's a feeling of fear, some say anxiety
perhaps. It's not a happy thing. Usually it's a negative speculation about
something that may happen in the future, because the things in the past, we don't
worry about the past. We regret the past, that's the feeling we have about the
past, we regret the past or we feel guilty about the past.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda. I should have done this, I shouldn't have
done that, that's how we feel about the past, but when it comes to
worry we're not actually worried about the past. We worry about the future and here's
the interesting thing, we worry about the future whether it's one minute from now
or one week from now or one year from now, but the thing about worry is it's
always forward, it's always ahead of us. That's what drives
worry and what do we worry about? Well, health,
family, security, right? What are most of the prayers about? People offering prayers
about health. All the things we're reading about. Young people want to
stay healthy, older people want to stay as healthy as long as they can. We worry
about family, the crisises in our family, can we take care of our family,
there's a division in our family, whether it is husband,
wife, children, whatever. We worry about security. Those are the top three: health,
family, security. We're able to worry about something or anything that we
focus our negative speculation on. So to worry about family, well you'd
say, 'Well, family is important,' or worry about our health, 'Well, health is important.'
You know what they say? If your not healthy, you just can't enjoy anything else, right?
Youcan be a billionaire, but if you're not
healthy, what good is it? So those things are normal to worry about, those big
things, but we can worry about the smallest things. We can worry about
having a good hair day on the right day. Of course, that's not one of my worries,
but you know what I'm saying? For those of you who still have your hair, I mean
people worry about stuff like that. They worry about their reputation. They worry
about...they worry about their car being driven by their children, Paul, and
if their car will come back to them in the same condition that it left the
house in. You parents who have children who drive your cars know exactly what
I'm talking about. I'm being a little facetious here, but we can worry
about a lot of stuff if we just focus on it, right? Now there's a difference
between worry and concern. It's not the same thing worry and concern. Concern is
focused attention, concern is a good thing. I mean if I'm a student
and my exam is coming up in two weeks, I don't have to worry about it, but it's a
good thing if I am concerned about it, if I focus my energy.
So we have to make a difference. I've often said to God in my prayers,
'Lord, I'm not worried, I was just wondering if this is going to happen.' So
focused attention or concern, that's like a good thing. You've got to take care of
your business. Focused concern about your health, your weight's not right, you're
going to take care of that. You get a blood test, whoops, too much sugar
in the... you need to cut down on the soda pop or whatever, that's
focused attention, and that's okay. But worry, however, is destructive. So let's
think for a moment. What does worry accomplish? You've always heard this,
people say this, 'Well, what does worry accomplish?' Well, let's think
about that for a second. What does worry accomplish? Well, worry produces
absolutely nothing except over stress, that's the only thing that worry produces. The
only tangible thing that it produces is over-stress, not just stress. Everybody
needs stress like the adrenaline is running because you got to
work, you got to do this, going to take care of the kids, that's
OK. Over stress is when the needle's in the red, you know what I mean? And you're
getting close to burn out. Well worry produces... you know like there's good
cholesterol and bad cholesterol? Well, worry produces bad stress, over stress.
Worry also saps us of energy. People who are worried all the time don't have a
lot of energy because so much of their emotional energy is sucked up by their
worry. It wastes time. It's discouraging. It robs us of enthusiasm that we need to
spend on on positive things, positive projects. Worry takes up time.
All that stuff going around in your brain that you're worrying about,
that eats up the clock. We worry about tomorrow, but we have no idea what
tomorrow will bring. Now we can assume. Well, tomorrow I know what tomorrow
brings; I'll get up, I'll go to work and I know I have these things that I need to
do, and I'm meeting Susie for lunch, like we kind of have our plan for
tomorrow, but do we really know what's going to happen tomorrow? Well, no. You know,
I mean, I use Paul as an example. Just a couple of weeks ago his day was planned.
I get up real early because I've got to go to the yard to pick up a truck or
something like that, I got my lunch, I got my day planned out, blah blah blah, except
at the corner of Douglas and 29th a car pulls out and totals his car and
could have killed him on the spot. That wasn't planned for. He didn't know that
was going to happen. He didn't know. So we don't know what's going to happen
tomorrow and of course that day was completely different than what he had
planned it to be. So we worry about tomorrow, we don't know what tomorrow
will bring. If we did, we could do something about it and change worry into
action, but we don't. So we waste energy and time worrying and we create unneeded
stress and that unneeded stress leads us to burn out. Now here's the thing, we know
all of this. Nothing I've said to you, you don't already know. We know all of this,
but we continue to worry anyways. That's the problem. So is there anything we can
do? Well, Jesus and James teach us valuable lessons about worry that show
us that worry is not a requirement of life.
Worry is not a requirement, it doesn't have to be in our life. People
say, 'Well, worry's a normal part of life.' No. Focused attention, that's a normal
part of life. Worry, that's an aberration, just like cancer. Yeah, people
get cancer, but it's not a normal part of life. So let's open to Matthew
chapter 6 if you have your Bibles. Otherwise, I'm just putting a slide up
here. Let's read Matthew 6. A very familiar passage, but I think it's worth
just reading the words again. Jesus says, "For this reason I say to you,
do not be worried about your life." Do we understand that? "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! Don't 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 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." Notice He
doesn't say, 'Don't worry, because there won't be any trouble.'
He guarantees you that there's going to be trouble. He says focus on today,
today's trouble, don't you be investing your emotional and spiritual energy into
focusing into tomorrow's trouble, because then you won't have anything left to
deal with today's trouble. We've talked about that before.
Notice that in this passage Jesus deals head-on with the problem of worry which
suggests that stress caused by worry is not just a 21st century problem. If
He's teaching this, it means that those people there were having the same kind
of worry issues that we're having today. Isn't that amazing? It was such a
different culture, a different society, different everything; language, finances,
education, everything was different and yet this passage here
speaks to us exactly as it spoke to them at that time. So Jesus gives us the
correct perspective on worry as well as an alternative action. So in dealing with
worry, here's the things that He's telling us if we can discern from
this, the first thing we need is a correct perspective. Now the new
perspective that Jesus is offering here is found in verses 25 to 32 that I've
just read and basically it's this; here's the, not the new
perspective, the correct perspective. The correct perspective is that we need to
understand that God knows exactly what it is that you need in every area of
your life, that's the correct perspective. Whether it be food or clothing or work
or housing or sex or medical help or family or recreation, so on and so forth,
God knows, God cares, and God can provide everything that you need. That's
the correct perspective. Notice He goes out of His way to say, "for these things
the Gentiles eagerly seek after." Non-believers, they're all about house,
car, food, getting up, taking care of myself, they're all about that
He says but don't you be like that. When we look into the future and we begin to
worry about having the wherewithal to finish the job or provide for our family
or the strength to face illness and death, we are taking on a responsibility
that belongs to God. That's why worry is so heavy. It doesn't belong to us. We have
no right to carry it, we're taking it from God and putting it on to ourselves.
That's why it weighs so much. He is responsible for the future and He has
promised to provide the resources to meet that future, but only when it comes.
As human beings we're saying to Him, 'Hey, I believe that you're going to provide,
could I have a little down payment today? You know a little seed money? A little
some some now, make me feel OK?' And He says, 'No. You only get it when you get
there.' So I can be attentive to the future, absolutely. I can prepare for the
future, absolutely. We encourage our children, right? Get a good education, stay
in school, prepare for the future. That's wisdom.
I can be hopeful about the future that things go well and so on
and pray that health will be good and kids will behave, I can do all
of those things, but to worry about it is not only futile, it's sinful because
Jesus says, "Do not worry," verse 25. So once we have a correct
perspective, verse 34, the correct perspective is using today's
resources to take care of today's needs because God always provides enough today
for today. For today. That's the correct perspective. You're a worried person,
worry gets to you, what do you do? Begin cultivating in yourself the correct
perspective. I'm taking care of business today, God will give me what I need today,
if I don't have something, then somehow I'm going to manage to get by without it
today. The second thing that we need is an attitude shift, verse 33. For those who
are overstressed, the major attitude in their lives is usually that of worry
about the past, especially about the future. So Jesus explains how things are
in the real world and remember the real world is not the world of politics and
entertainment, that's not the real world; the real world is the kingdom of God on
earth, that's actually the real world. Hollywood, the Kardashians, the
Trump mobile, Iran, that's not the real world, that's the physical world. The real
world, the world that will never be destroyed, the world that God has created
for us, is the kingdom of God, that's the real world, OK? And so Jesus explains
how things are in the real world and how are things in the real world? Well, God
supplies what we need one day at a time, that's how things are in the real world.
If you don't know this, then you worry about having enough
and you worry about being OK and you worry about surviving in the home or
work or society or whatever, because you're the one that has to make it
happen, it's on you; but once you're presented with this fact about God and
His Providence your attitude needs to shift from worry to faith and your
lifestyle needs to shift from, listen, your lifestyle needs to shift from
acquisition to righteousness. Let me explain. We worry because we think we are
responsible for providing everything and in this world that's a pretty scary
thought because so many people fail at that. So we focus on acquiring and
stockpiling so that we'll be able to feel safe and secure and this attitude and
this activity creates worry which produces overstress which leads to burn
out. Got that? So to avoid the over- stress that comes from worry, we need to
concentrate on God's promise to provide each day what we need on that particular
day and change the focus of our lives from creating and maintaining wealth to
creating and maintaining a pure conscience before God because that is
the true work of a Christian, doing God's will. What do you think He means by "seek
first the kingdom?" He means find out what it is that God wants from you and do
that, that's your work, that's the heavy lifting in your life, not acquiring
stuff, that's not your life, that's like you're here, you got to do that, we got to
eat, they want money, so I go to the plant and I make the money and I
give the money to the guy, the guy gives me bread, yeah,
but that's not what I'm about, that's not what my emotional and spiritual energy
is invested in. My emotional and spiritual energy is invested in knowing
what God wants from me and I don't just mean going out knocking on doors and
telling people about Jesus, although that's OK, maybe He just wants me to
focus so that I learn something about Him. Maybe He's putting me through a
situation in my life so I'm going to discover how merciful He is or how just
He is or how pure He is. My job as a Christian is to get to know God and to
get to know what He wants me to do, how He wants me to act. Sometimes it's not
just I'm going to do some great thing where people are going to say, 'Whoa, oh
you're a great [Christian]' No no no. Sometimes how He wants you to act is how He wants you to
deal with an insult by someone you work with, and so your work, your real work is
how are you going to deal with the insult from someone at work, there's your
work, there's the real world. Now you still have to do your job and stamp the
invoices and put it in in box and in the outbox and put in your...
sure, of course, but that isn't your real work. This is your real work. How am I
going to reconcile with this person? That's my real work. Why? Because I'm in the
real world, I live in the kingdom.
This means that we will have the normal stress that comes with working at the
challenges that face us each day like everybody else, but avoiding the over
stress that comes with either the concern that we have to be alone to
provide or the worry over the non-existent concerns of tomorrow.
Because I live in the real world I'm not thinking about tomorrow because
my attitude is God promised that He's going to provide what I need tomorrow so
I'm not going to to worry about that, I'll stay focused
because I want to take care of my business, but you know what? I want to
take care of my business because Christians take care of their business.
They don't show up late for work three out of five days, they don't
drink on the job, you know what I'm saying? We don't do that; we're good
employees, we're good bosses, we're fair supervisors, we give... Whoever
hires us has hired a good thing. They're getting their money's worth when they
hire us, yeah. So let's go even further. A correct perspective, an attitude shift,
the shift of attitude is instead of acquiring and hoarding to provide my
security so that I won't worry which simply creates more worry, the
attitude shift to my work is righteousness, my work is knowing God, my
work is knowing what God wants me to do in every situation. That's two and then
three, converting stress and worry to joy. Converting stress and worry into joy,
that's the third thing. So this is James' approach. James' approach to
worry and stress is to demonstrate that even negative things
that happen to us don't have to create worry and consequently over stress and
all of the negative things that come from overstress. So let's read James
chapter 1 verses 2 to 4. So here, again two very familiar passages, so James says,
"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that
the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its
perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
So in verses 2 to 4, James explains how to short-circuit worry and it's negative
effects. He says the way you do this is you understand that when trials, and
these could include physical things, temptations, disappointments, those are
all trials, when trials come your way, understand that they can be the cause of
some good in your life. Now if one meets them with perseverance, perseverance is
patience, they say be patient. Patience is... The quality and virtue of
patience is the willingness to bear under. When somebody says
can you be patient? Yeah. What does it mean to be patient? Some people
say, 'Well, I'm patient. Come on let's go. I've been here five minutes. Now let's
move it along here,' and they say, 'Well, I'm being patient.'
No no. Patience isn't just waiting around, patience is the
willingness to wait, the willingness to put up with incompetence, the
willingness to put up with incompetence by other people without losing your
bearing, the willingness to put up with waste, the willingness to put up with
unkindness, the willingness to put up with time when something that should
have taken two days has now taken two weeks, the willingness to put up with
that without losing your Christian bearing, that's what patience is.
So if one meets the trials of life, according to James, with patience, then
the constant perseverance mode, it's like you have a switch and
sometimes you're meeting a trial and how will I react? My job, remember my job, is
I'm here to to find what is you know God's will. What is God's will as far
as me reacting to this situation here? Oh, God's will is that I switch on the
perseverance switch, the patience switch clicks on which means I'm willing to
bear under and wait as long as it takes to take care of this or to work at this
until I solve it or to whatever, OK? And so the constant perseverance mode in us
will eventually produce a mature character and experiencing this mature
character will create in us peace and joy and love and patience and kindness.
All of these experiences will become a joyful thing for us. The thing is we want
the peace and the love and the patience and the kindness, we want all of these things
created in us without any pain and that's not possible. Those things are
created in us through fire, through trial. So don't you love it when you
can be patient through something and just wait it through and not lose your
bearing, then the thing finally comes about and you're able to say, 'Thank you
Lord. Thank you for finally... this has finally come through for me. I appreciate
it,' and you look back at your conduct during that period of time, whether it's
a day or a week or a month and you say, 'You know what? That was pretty good. No
cursing, no swearing, no whining, no feeling sorry for myself, no blaming
other people, no shaking my fist at God, I just hung in there and I waited for it
and I believed He would give it to me and He did I'm feeling good, I'm feeling
joyful, I'm feeling confident, I'm feeling hopeful. Wholeness, maturity
is what our spirit craves for. Whether we realize it or not, unfortunately we're
usually distracted by the things of this world, we're usually distracted by the
the task of hoarding and collecting and and taking care of ourselves, we have no
time for this spiritual cultivation, takes time. So he says in verse 5, he
continues, he says, "But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives
to all generously and without reproach, and it'll be given to him. But he must
ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of
the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he
will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in
all his ways." So in these verses he explains that doing this is not always
easy and so if one desires to do this and has problems, he should ask God for
help and do so with faith knowing that God who provides for each day's needs
will also provide spiritual help for everyday challenges. I don't know how
strong I could be if one of my grandchildren were deathly ill or if
some drunk driver hit one of my babies, I don't know how strong I would be. I have
no idea. I mean if I think of it today, I think I'd collapse. I'd be good for nothing,
but I can't know that unless that happens on that day and on that day,
that's the day I'll say, 'OK, God you have to hold me up.' He won't give me that
today, because that hasn't happened today, but I have to have the confidence that
He'd give it to me on the day that I needed it, just like you give it to you
on the day you needed it too. So many times we won't quit a bad habit or we
won't attempt to give up a sin which is blocking our spiritual growth because we
feel that we'll never be able to bear an entire lifetime without it. I remember, I
always I use this as an example because I was a smoker for many, many years
and the thought of me quitting smoking, the problem was it wasn't
health-related, I could care less about the health, I loved to smoke; the thought
was 'I will never again inhale the smoke, never. If I give up that means
never in my life will I.. Click... Oh that's good. That'll never happen to me again,'
and that thought was the thing that was holding me back until I understood
this here. I only have to quit for today, I don't know about tomorrow, I could be
dead tomorrow. Today He'll give me the strength to do it today, tomorrow's
another day and I'll ask for the strength. That's how I quit. According to
the scriptures that we've just studied, we should get help for only
today and we will get help for today and tomorrow God will provide the help we
need for tomorrow's temptation if we still need it. The same strategy works
for the help we need to develop our talents, reach our goals, convert our
family and friends, so on and so forth. So James tells us that trials don't have to
be an enemy producing not only pain and inconvenience, but also causing us to
worry and producing damaging stress in our lives. No. Trials, he says,
can be used to develop the spiritual maturity that we need and desire and
which will result in peace and joy and knowing this short circuits the worry
caused by the trial. It's like what I do, I call it. You know what I'm saying? I
call it. Like if I'm in the day and something happens it'll be like, 'OK, I
know what's happening here. This is my trial for today,' whatever that
is, but I mean I call it. 'OK, alright. It started. The devil threw it
down. Alright, it's on. Let's do it,' like I call it and I use what I
know to deal with it. So the stress that comes from our worry caused by two
things, let me kind of wrap up here, we worry about the responsibility to
provide for ourselves and then we worry when trials interfere with our efforts
to acquire and hoard in order to provide for ourselves which we think will make
us happy. The Lord and His earthly brother James provides the answer for
those who are stressed out because of worry. Two things. Remember God will
supply what we need each day when we focus our attention on doing His will
rather than just acquiring and hoarding. And then secondly, we shouldn't worry
about the suffering brought about by trials, we should invest our energy into
perseverance when we suffer. Uou know when I say, 'OK, it's on. OK, this is the
trial. This is what's happening. The perseverance. Looks like I'm going to have
to flip on the perseverance switch,' and I flip that thing on. If we worry, it'll
make the suffering worse and accomplish nothing, if we choose to
persevere however, it will create in us a greater maturity and joy which will help
us to endure the pain, lower the stress level caused by the pain, and just one
last thing, of course there'll be things that will happen in
lives, of course, He didn't say nothing will ever happen to you to cause you
stress or worry or pain, He's just telling you, 'When that happens, remember
that I'll be there to help provide for your needs.' OK, a lot more we can say
about that, but we're going to have to cut it short here.