Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon On The Mount

“Wy Worry?”

Matthew 6:25-34

We need everyone to understand that we are struggling to get donations for the ministry. With so many people all around the World struggling to make ends meet, because of the COVID pandemic. Many businesses all over the World have shut down, causing billions of people to lose their jobs. So, they now struggle to make ends meet. Even in many of the Western Countries like Britain, France, and the United States, people who used to have extra money to hjelp ministries like ours around the World, do not have that extra money. In America, and in Western Europe, many are struggling to make ends meet from Month to Month.

It is a time when we all must have faith that GOD will provide for our needs. A time where we must have faith that GOD will be with us, just as HE has always been with those who have more faith in HIM through Christ Jesus than they do in the World. Thus, today's lesson is on the way we worry. We worry we will eat, we worry we will have shelter, we worry we will not find a job, or that we will lose the job we have. Throughout history men have worried about many things. So let us look into the problem of worrying and what Jesus has to say about it.

1. It has been said that

1. Money is the biggest stumbling block to the rich

2. Worry is the biggest stumbling block to the poor

3. However, I have read about many rich people worrying about their money

4. And I have known many poor people who have stumbled with what little money they did have

2. We live in the most powerfully affluent society the world has ever seen

1. Not since Solomon ruled Israel, has a country been so affluent as America is today

2. Why even the poor are wealthy when compared to the poorest people in places like Bangladesh

3. Considered what the so called poor in America own

1. New cars, cell phones, computers, televisions, stereos, they even have money in the bank

4. We also have the best health care system the world has ever seen

5. On the average Americans may live longer than anyone else on the planet

3. However we Also worry more then anyone else on the planet

1. Which brings me to today’s scripture

Matthew 6:25-34

4. While cardiovascular troubles may be the biggest medical problems in the world, In America the #1 reported medical problem is anxiety attacks. Basically, Americans worry too much

1. Americans worry so much, that we make up maladies just feel special and to get sympathy

2. We even have web sites dedicated to the discussion of anxieties and our daily worries

3. There are over 200 million web sites dedicated to the subject of worry or anxiety

4. I found one web site that asked people to email in their biggest worry, I jotted down a couple of them

1. One person said

They worry that the day they do not pay to be in the lottery, they will win, then everyone will quit and they will be stuck doing all the work.

2. Another one said

they worry that my cat will lie on my face when I am sleeping and I will suffocate

3. One person, obviously suffering from arachnophobia, wrote in and said

they worry that there might be spiders and other bugs in my bed, and that when I am asleep they will crawl all over me and get my mouth and nose

4. This one must like winter sports, they emailed the site saying

they worry that when I am ice skating that I might fall, and when I am lying on the ice another skater will go by and their skate blade will slice off the tips of my fingers

5. Then there was my favorite, I’m sure it was a woman, but I could be wrong. You decide. It said

I worry that one day they will stop making chocolate and I will starve to death

6. The #1 thing people worry about is things that will never happen

5. Paul says to be anxious about nothing, but in prayers and supplications to let your needs be known to the LORD Philippians 4:6-7

6. If anyone had a reason to worry it would have been Job, let's consider what happened to him

1. God asks Satan to consider His servant Job

2. Satan asks God to remove hedge protecting Job and he will curse Him

3. God agrees but 1st tells Satan he cannot harm him, then lets Satan harm but not kill him

4. Job loses everything in five tragedies that strike almost simultaneously

1. 1st his oxen and donkeys are stolen by Sabean raiders

2. 2ndhis sheep and herdsman are burned up by fire

3. 3rdhis camels are stolen and his servants killed by Chaldean raiders

4. 4thhis sons and daughters perish in a mighty wind when the house they are in collapses on them

5. 5thJob is struck with terrible case of boils, possibly leprosy or elephantiasis

6. To make matters worse his loving wife tells him to curse God and die

7. Finally three so-called friends tell him to repent for sins, he knows he has not committed

5. After all that, you would expect Job to at least start worrying, but what does he do?

Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped, and he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD."

Job 1:20-22

7. We are told by Jesus that it is a sin to worry

1. If we worry we are not trusting in God to care for us, thus we have no faith in Him

2. When a mother holds a baby in her arms does that baby worry what will happen? No!

3. A little boy learns how to ride a bike because his father says do not worry, I will be right next to you

4. A child eats something a parent says is ok to eat because the child has faith the parent would not lie

5. Apart from the exceptions to the rule, most parents love and would purposely do no harm to their child

6. Why do we think God would care any less?

1. Jesus tells us;

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these”

Matthew 6:28-29

7. If God cares so much for plants that are here today and in the fire tomorrow, how much more does He care for us, who will not only judge the earth and the angels, but also inherit His Kingdom?

8. Besides being a sin, worry is a total waste of time and energy

1. Worry can become a substitute for action, instead of acting upon our need we just sit and worry.

2. We begin to think that nothing is worth living for so we stop living and curl up inside ourselves

3. Worry is a misuse of the imagination

1. Imagine the inventions not invented because of worry

2. How about pictures not painted

3. Music not composed

4. Books not written

4. Worry warps our perceptions of the world, we begin to think this moment in life is all that matters

1. That’s when some people turn to drugs

2. Others turn to bad relationships

3. Still others end up committing suicide because everything feels utterly hopeless

9. Worry kept the Israelites out of the promised land for forty years

1. We all know the story

2. Moses sent 10 spies to check out the promised land

3. Only two came back with a positive report, Caleb, and Joshua

4. The people believed the twelve

5. God punished the whole generation except Caleb and Joshua for their lack of faith

6. They worried God could not defeat the Canaanites for them

7. Worry left a generation of former slaves to be buried in the desert

10. It is calculated that over 50 million Americans suffer health problems directly or indirectly related to worrying

1. 19 million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders related to worrying

2. Loss of sleep is the first direct noticeable effect of worrying

3. In time stress will breaks down a bodies ability to resist disease and fight illnesses

4. In a recent study of memory loss, stress caused by worrying was the #2 cause of memory loss

5. A study of students @ 21 universities found that worriers get lower grades then non-worriers

6. A British eye clinic reported that 30% of all vision problems were directly related to stress or worrying

7. An American Dental Association study showed that worrying restricts the proper flow of saliva in the mouth keeping the body from neutralizing the acids that eat away the enamel on your teeth

1. 1. So, worrying can cause tooth decay

8. Then we have the American Medical Association that says stress is the #1 cause of heart attacks

1. Worrying causes a person’s heart to work harder

2. This puts extra stress on a person’s cardiovascular system

3. This extra stress can lead to strokes and heart attacks

11. I guess if you want to be a sleepy, blind, forgetful, unhealthy, person who has bad teeth then just keep on worrying

12. The German word for WORRY is ‘Wurgen” “VERGEN” which actually means to “Strangle” or “Choke”

1. I like this because Jesus said in the parable of the sower, that the seed is like the word of God

1. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them Matthew 13:7 and Matthew 13:22

2. This is he who received the word but had it choked away by the stress and worries of this world

13. Jesus tells us that we should be like the birds of the air, they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather to barns

1. Ever see a bird flying about complaining and worrying about tomorrow

2. Ever hear a bird in the morning wailing and carrying on that he cannot find any worms to eat?

3. Have you ever seen a bird out in the yard crying because he has no place to lay his feathery little head?

1. I can just see a little bird sitting on the ledge of a window with his little head in his wings

2. Crying and moaning that all the worms are gone and he knows not where to look for more

14. "O YE OF LITTLE FAITH" Jesus did not say “YE of NO Faith”, but “YE of LITTLE Faith”

1. Remember this is the sermon on the mount and Jesus is talking to and about Christians of Faith

1. So, unlike non believers,

2. hristians have faith

3. God is our Father, and Jesus is our savior

4. The question isn't IF we have faith, but how much faith do we really have

5. Jesus desires for all of us to enter into a deeper faith

6. the faith of a mustard seed

Jesus tells us

“for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Matthew 17:20

15. So the ultimate result of worrying is becoming a Christian of “Little Faith”?

1. We become mastered by the circumstances around us, instead of mastering those circumstances

16. Are you satisfied just to be out of Egypt, but stuck in the desert?

17. Are you afraid to face the Canaanites and possess the Promised Land?

18. Goliath kept all of Israel at bay for 40 days, because Saul worried no man could defeat the giant

1. A young teenager was not afraid, he had Faith in God

2. David slew the philistine and cut his head off with his own sword

19. A prophet from God challenged 850 of Jezebels prophets of Baal and Asherah to a contest on Mount Carmel

1. Each side was to offer a sacrifice to their God without starting the fire

2. The first one to have their fire started would prove who was the real God

3. The 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah danced and cried all day, cutting themselves and singing all kinds of chants

4. When the sun began they knew their god had failed them and it was Elijah’s turn to call on his God

1. He told his young helpers to fill the trench with water so the wood was floating in water

2. He stepped up and said a simple little prayer of faith

"LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that You are the LORD God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again."

1 Kings 18:36-37

3. Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench

20. When the chips are down and it all seems hopeless, just ask yourself

1. Did Elijah worried?

2. Do you think Job worried?

3. Do you think Caleb and Joshua worried?

4. Do you think David worried?

5. How about Daniel when he was put in the lion’s den, do you think he worried?

21. No! They had total faith that God would be there for them, but if they perished

22. Then they knew He would just brought them home to His Kingdom

23. So I say to you Saints of the God Most High

Do not let the worries about tomorrow’s problems, rob you of today’s joy

Corrie ten Boom

1. Be confident that He who has begun a good work in you, will continue it until the day Shilo returns