Sermon Tone Analysis

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June 28, 2015
*Intro* – Americans are the most stressed-out people who have ever lived.
We ooze anxiety!
Some of us even organize anxiety.
Lucy asks Charlie Brown if he’s worried about the world blowing up.
Charlie responds, “It all depends – what day is today?”
Lucy reports, “It’s Tuesday.”
Charlie replies, “Well, on Tuesdays I worry about personality problems.
Thursday is my day to worry about the world blowing up.”
If we don’t have something to worry about, we’ll find something.
One guy went to the psychiatrist to get cured of worry.
The psychiatrist hypnotized him and wiped out every anxious memory.
A week later the guy was back.
“It’s worse than ever, Doc,” he said.
“What’s the problem now?” asked the psychiatrist.
The guy replied, “I’m worried because I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to be worried about!”
We know anxiety kills, but we just can’t seem to help ourselves.
The late advice columnist, Ann Landers, received 10,000 letters a month in her heyday.
When asked the most common topic, she answered fear.
People feared losing their health, their job, or their family.
They were afraid of upsetting a neighbor, alienating a friend or committing a social faux pas.
Our world is filled with fearful, anxious people, and we are not immune.
The Mayo Clinic reports that statistically 80% of their total case load were ill either in reality or artificially due directly to mental stress.
80%!
Not long ago there was an article in a leading medical journal entitled, “Is Stress the Cause of All Disease?”
It suggested that while medical attention centered on bacteria at the turn of the 20th century, today mental anxiety has center stage.
So how does the gospel we believe as Christians inform this trend to anxiety?
Well, I Pet 5:7 suggests, “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
Phil 4:6 commands: “Be anxious for nothing.”
It’s a command, and yet we find ourselves as anxious as anyone else.
Why?
Because we have a small God.
We have depreciated God to the point that He is basically irrelevant to daily life, and when we have done that we have removed the one possibility to live differently.
We have brought God down to size, and now, when we need Him, we are amazed that we cannot find Him.
George Mueller, the great man of faith who used to literally pray food onto the table of his orphanages in London in the late 1800’s, said, “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.”
Another way of saying that is, “When anxiety walks in the door, faith walks out.”
The two simply cannot co-exist.
Worry, anxiety, fear – they are all red flags that say “faith is absent.”
We can’t live in faith and anxiety at the same time.
Worry depreciates God.
Worry cuts God down to size.
Not that we by our actions can either actually add to or take away from God.
He could never be increased nor diminished by His creation.
Impossible.
But what we can do is diminish God in our own life.
We can cut Him down to size as far as we are concerned.
We can render Him ineffective to us.
Let me say it another way.
Worry makes us big and God small.
Worry inflates the wrong thing.
Faith makes God big.
Worry makes me big.
That’s what this passage is all about.
Jesus has just been talking about money and materialism.
This section is a continuation of the same subject, only now Jesus is specifically targeting worry.
And He is saying it has no place in the life of a believer.
Faith builds God up in our eyes; worry diminishes Him.
Jesus shows us 7 ways that happens.
I hope as we examine those, we will be motivated to get serious about the sin of worry and eliminate it in favor of faith.
Seven ways worry makes God small.
*I.Destroys God’s Peace (22, 29, 32)*
V. 22: “And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.”
Now, notice, Jesus isn’t saying, “Don’t be anxious about the luxuries of life that you have or don’t have.”
No – He’s saying, “Don’t be anxious about the necessities.”
Food and clothing are pretty basic, and Jesus is saying – actually commanding – Don’t worry about it.
That pretty much eliminates anything from the worry list, right?
Now, notice that He doesn’t say, “Don’t do anything about the necessities.”
He’s not saying, “Sit back and relax.
I’ll take care of you.”
We know that Paul often made tents to finance his missionary work.
He says in II Thess 3:10, “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
Jesus is not encouraging laziness or irresponsibility.
But He is commanding against the attitude that is worried about whether or not there will be enough for next week, or next year or for retirement.
He’s saying don’t get uptight about even the basics, like food and clothing.
In the previous section, He has warned about covetousness.
In fact, they are to store their treasure in heaven.
But if I do that, now I’m worried that I won’t have enough, right?
And Jesus is saying to His disciples, “Don’t go there.
Go do what you can to meet the need, but don’t worry about it.
Leave the worry to me.”
V. 29 extends the thought: “And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried.”
In v. 30 He tells us what we are to seek: “Instead, seek his kingdom.”
So, when Jesus says, “Do not seek what you are to eat, but seek his kingdom” is He advising against working for food?
No, He’s not.
He’s using hyperbole – exaggeration to make a point.
How do we know?
Matt 6:33 gives us a parallel passage to this.
There Jesus says, “But seek first the kingdom of God.”
That clarifies the intent.
He’s not saying, “Don’t seek food and clothing for this life,” but He’s saying, “Don’t seek that first.
Don’t let that be your priority.
Seek God’s interests first – then seek what you need and He’ll make sure you’ve got all you need and more.”
Now, we get a little more help on this when we unpack the word “anxious.”
It’s the Greek μεριμναω which comes from a root μερις which means to divide, to draw in different directions – to distract.
Jesus is saying, “Don’t be torn apart with worry about this life – about food and clothing.”
His point is the same as it was to Peter when he was walking to Jesus on the water.
Peter was fine as long as he kept his eyes on Christ – fully trusting Him.
As soon as he began to look around at all the things that could go wrong, he became divided with torn allegiances.
His anxiety went thru the roof as he began to consider, “Who do I trust?
Jesus or my common sense that says people don’t walk on water.”
Anxiety destroys the peace of God because it gets us focused in multiple directions.
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