The Antidote for Worry |01.10.23| Stress Free School Year Pt.3
Matthew 6:25-33
Pastor Drew Williams
I wonder how many of you are worried right now.(…) Maybe there’s a concern that’s weighing you down,
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a friend or relationship that burdens you, someone you love, someone you care about, something that you really want to change but you don’t know how to change it.
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Do you feel worried right now?
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Do you feel worried often?
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We’ve been studying the last few weeks talking about mental health with the help of a few outside experts and Pastor Craig Greshell from Life Church and we’ve been specifically looking at stress and anxiety and worry, all because these things are common in our world but they are not the types of things that make our lives better. These are the types of things that actually sap life out of us. And because God cares for you and because He sent Jesus to show us the true, fulfilling way of life,(…) we’re talking about how we can respond to stress, anxiety and worry as followers of Jesus.
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And today the focus is on worry because it is one of the more overlooked mental health problems in our world today. According to the World Health Organization,
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America,(…) over and above, deals with worry more than any other country in the world. So, woohoo, we win, I guess. I don’t know if that’s a thing that we want to be known as number one for.(…) The most affluent country in the world with the generation that has the most stuff and money and the most momentum going for us and yet we’re constantly worried. In a national Gallup poll, about 60% of adults in the United States struggle with worry and stress daily.
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That means over half of the people in here right now and over half the people joining us online deal with worry and stress daily,
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which is why your mind usually drifts during my message.
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Because you’re worrying about something, like your kids or something with your house, or you’re worrying about an upcoming doctor’s appointment.(…) And last week, Pastor Eric taught us about how the default emotion that either leads to stress and anxiety and worry or comes from stress, anxiety and worry, the default emotion is fear.
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And because of the way that our world is broken, because of our sin nature, we often default to fear instead of faith.(…) Most of our lives are built around our response to fear.(…) And the reason that I know that that is true for you is because no one in here ever lays awake at two in the morning trying to figure out how to manage all the peace and joy you have in your life.(…) That’s not what keeps you awake at night. No, you’re not preoccupied all day at work thinking about all the patience and abundance that you experience in your day to day.
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No, you’re thinking about your kids. Are they making the wrong friends?(…) You’re thinking about health concerns.(…) You’re thinking about job stress or aging parents.(…) You’re thinking about all the big things that plague our world like war and terrorism, economic instability, division in our country, the price of eggs, big things.
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But seriously, worry is something that all of us deal with. And a few weeks ago, I got to sit down with a local therapist here in Dixon named Jeanette Trotter, and I asked her, what are the things that cause worry? So let’s listen together. What are the cause that leads towards overwhelming worry? I think I see that in a variety of ways. It can be things as awful as trauma that has occurred in the person’s life either early on or later in life or whatever that people already have. If such and such happens, there are already tennis stuff that I’m concerned about. I’ve got to protect myself to go into that situation or to deal with that. And I’ve also seen people have grown up with great upbringings, and they worry.
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I think, again, going back to the fear of something could happen. They’re not wrong. Yes, it could. But it’s like there has to be a cutoff point on something. They just keep, like you said, fixating on what could happen and get balled up in this cycle about that specific thing.
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But generally those people, not all the time, but generally those people don’t have just one thing. It’s like what’s the next thing that someone talks about? Oh, let me, you know, are you going to do this or you got to do that to make sure that everything is okay?
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As Jeanette was talking, maybe you were thinking about someone that you know who always seems to be saying something like, “Have you thought of such and such a thing that could go wrong?” Or, “How are you planning for the outcome of such and such?”
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Now, if you couldn’t think of anyone in your life that normally does that, that means that you are the person in your circle of influence that is the one that’s worrying about stuff.
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But others of you might be wondering how worry is different from anxiety or stress. And you’re right that they’re closely related. And I’m not a medical expert,(…) but here’s how I would do my oversimplification for where worry and stress anxiety overlap and what makes them distinct.
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We tend to experience worry in our minds.
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And we generally experience anxiety in our bodies.(…) Now, last week, Pastor Eric was talking about how we can experience anxiety as a sense of unrest or unease, kind of like even like a feeling of sickness,(…) right? We don’t feel right, our blood pressure is up, but we can’t sit still. We’re not sure exactly what is causing us to feel that way, but something is causing us to feel that way.(…) And that generalized nature is something else that typifies the difference between anxiety and worry, because worry is often specific while anxiety is broad. Because you can worry about missing your flight or missing the off-ramp on your road trip,(…) whereas other people might feel just an overall sense of anxiety about the whole enterprise of traveling in general.
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But today, we’re talking about worry,(…) because our Jesus story is from a section of Matthew where He tells us multiple times, “Do not worry.” That’s why I want to invite you to open up your Bibles to Matthew 6, if you’re using the Black Seatback Bible in front of you. I believe it’s on page 3 of the New Testament. So you’ve got to flip through a couple hundred pages of the Old Testament and then right around page 700 is where it’s switched over to the New Testament. And Matthew 6 is where we’re going to be today. And as you’re finding that, I want to remind you that this is in the middle of Jesus’ famous section of teaching called the Sermon on the Mount, where He’s giving all kinds of practical teaching about what it looks like to live in the Kingdom of God. See, if we believe that God is actually in charge, then the question is, what would it look like for us to live as if He’s King right now? And so in our passage today, Jesus covers five of the biggest topics that most of us worry about. He talks about finances, food, fitness, fashion, and the future.(…) And I did not come up with that list of five things to start with F, but can we just take a moment to appreciate the pastor that came up with five things to start with the same letter? They work hard on that. And, you know, I don’t know about you, but it tickles me to no end when it all alliterates like that.(…) So let’s read together from Matthew 6. We’re going to start in verse 25. It reads, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?(…) Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?(…) Now why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?
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Therefore do not worry, saying, what will we eat or what will we drink or what will we wear, for it’s the Gentiles who strive for all these things. And indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today. And this is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God. And if you want, you can keep it open. We’re going to be walking through it together. We start right there in verse 25, and it says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry.” And I was always taught in seminary that when a passage starts with “therefore,” you got to look before it to see what the “therefore” is there for. So we got to look back at verse 24, and we see right at the end there it says, “You cannot serve God and wealth.”
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Jesus says, “Don’t worry about finances.” That’s our first “f.” You can’t love both God and money.
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So don’t overly focus on money. Don’t overly obsess about money. And then we get back to our passage starting in verse 25, and He says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, food, or about your body, fitness, or what you will wear, fashion.” See, Jesus starts by saying, “Don’t worry about food.” The crowd that Jesus was originally talking about probably did worry about food because they weren’t sure where their next meal was going to come from. There’s a lot more poverty in that area and in that time. They didn’t know for sure if they were going to have a paycheck or a meal coming again, but that’s not the experience of the majority of people here in America. See, most Americans don’t worry about whether they’ll eat.
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We mostly worry about where we’re going to eat next. We worry about eating the wrong kinds of food or eating too much. “Oh, man, that has too much sugar.” Or, “That has too much carbs and I’m on a keto thing, so I can’t do that right now.” But Jesus says, “Don’t worry about food. Don’t worry about your body. Like, don’t obsess about your health.” Because, yes, it’s good to take care of yourself, to be mindful, to make healthy choices, but that can’t be your highest focus in life.(…) And if it’s causing you to fret and wring your hands, well, that’s a clue that there’s an issue. And don’t worry about what you wear, your fashion choices. Another way to say this is, “Don’t worry so much about what other people think of you.”
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I wonder, maybe, is this one of the things that you worry about(…) before a big event or before you’re getting together with someone important?(…) Do you go through your mind on the different outfit choices, testing the different combinations? “Do I like this one or do I like this one?”
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There’s a couple of you elbowing each other next to each other right now. See, I used to think that I was someone who I thought I had fashion sense back when I was younger, like, especially when I was younger, I would try and keep up with the trends to try and look cool, to fit in with different groups of people. But now, I don’t have to worry about that as much anymore because I have two women in my life that keep me, make sure I’m dressed well, my wife and my daughter. Megan will often make sure that my shirt, the color matches the pants or that the fit is right. And she’ll let me know if I need to go back and try again. We were talking before service that I have a good handful of just black t-shirts that if she’s not around, I know I can just grab one of those and I’ll be safe. But otherwise, she keeps me straight. And a couple of weeks ago, actually during the summer, I was home alone with the kids and I needed to get them out the door to go to some activity.
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And so I was telling Andy, “Hey, come on, get your shoes on, we got to get going.” She said, “Wait, Daddy, do you like my outfit?” So she picked it out herself that day. And I said, “Why, yes, you did such a good job coordinating that outfit. Do you like Daddy’s outfit?”(…) And she paused.
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And she looked me up and down.
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And she went, “No.”
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Those shorts don’t match that shirt.
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My four-year-old gave me the elevator up and down and the stare of judgment saying, “That’s not good. You need to go change, Daddy.” And I was like, “Gosh, I used to care so much about how I looked and what I wore. And maybe I’ve just swollen the pendulum too far now into the dad who doesn’t care. So I’m glad that I have people to keep me on the straight and narrow.” But that’s the type of thing that Jesus is talking about. Don’t obsess about that. And he actually continues, and if we jump down to verse 34, he continues and says, “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” Don’t worry about your future.(…) Don’t worry about the economic landscape or your next big work project.(…) Don’t worry about what job you’ll get next. Don’t worry about what might happen if a loved one gets sick or worry about what might happen to your marriage if your spouse is unfaithful. Don’t worry about what might happen if you gain too much weight or lose too much weight or if your preferred political party doesn’t win the next election.(…) Don’t let those things be what overwhelms your life.
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But how do we not worry about these things that are important and are big?
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Well, Jesus shows us how. Go back with me to verse 26.
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He says, “Look at the birds of the air.” “They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” Are you not of more value than they?
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See, Jesus shows us that we don’t have to spend our life worrying because God loves us and provides for us. I mean, look at the birds. Look how God has set up creation to be this bountiful provision for all animals, but especially birds. And one thing I can tell you about birds is they don’t worry.(…) But that doesn’t mean that they don’t do anything.
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I’m appreciative of the pastor Craig Gershell because he illustrates the difference between concern and worry. Here’s how he describes it. Concern focuses on challenges and moves you to action.
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Now, if you think about it, that’s what a bird does when it’s hungry. Right? It goes looking for food. That’s what we’re supposed to do if we’re concerned about something. If we’re concerned about our marriage, then if we feel like it’s struggling, then we do something about it. We seek out counseling or we find some mentors to help us. If we realize that we’ve gained more weight than we should have, concern moves us through the action of cutting out the sugary soda drinks.
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Concern focuses on challenges and moves you to action.
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But worry?
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Worry focuses on what’s beyond our control and results in inaction.
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Worry is when your mind is just consumed with all the what-if questions that you can’t do anything about, and so you just feel powerless.
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Pastor Craig talks about it as he’s saying, “It’s stewing without doing.”
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And that’s why Jesus asks this profound question in verse 27.
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That’s what he says. He says, “Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?”
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See, that’s the lie of worry, isn’t it? We think that by spending all that time stewing, then that means we’re able to be more prepared, right? We think that makes us more protected.(…) Maybe it’ll make us more able to respond.
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Maybe it’ll help us make things better if that thing that we’re worrying about actually happens.
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But we all know the truth is that worrying doesn’t actually make anything better.
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If anything, it makes your mental health worse.
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And birds don’t worry, but they don’t sit around doing nothing either, right? Concern moves you to action. The way that they live in trust of God isn’t just by sitting back and waiting for God to just drop food into their laps. Number one is because I don’t think they have laps, but number two, because that’s not how you live in trust of God. See, birds are moved to action when they’re hungry or cold, right? They get up, they fly around,(…) they find a worm, they eat the worm, they fly around some more, they find a spot to sleep, and they sleep at night. And when they’re sleeping at night, usually you don’t hear a bird going chirp, chirp, chirp at two in the morning, pacing their nest back and forth, wondering if the latest state legislation is going to result in more worm shortage in the supply chain. That’s not what typifies these animals because they have this trust in their creator.(…) Because worrying doesn’t make anything better.(…) It doesn’t make you safer. It doesn’t help you prepare.
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Worry just consumes you and paralyzes you.
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And that’s why it’s similar to how we’ve been talking about stress and anxiety, because worry isn’t a sin.
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It’s a signal.
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Just like when the check engine light comes up on your car.(…) The light isn’t the thing that’s wrong.(…) But it is a signal that there is something wrong in your engine. And if you’re smart, you’re going to pay attention to that signal, and you’re going to take your car to the manufacturer. You’re going to take your car to the one who made it because maybe they are able to help you figure out how to fix it.
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And if we’re wise,(…) worry is also a signal for us that we need to pay attention to. It’s a signal that we need to go to the one who made us, because only he is the one who knows how to heal us and fix us and help us. Worry isn’t a sin. It’s a signal that it’s time to pray. And so that’s why Jesus tells us in verse 33, he says, “But seek first the kingdom of God, strive for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
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Because worry leads to inaction.
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Worry keeps us trapped in all of the what-ifs. Worry is a signal that something is wrong.
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But the truth, I mean, if you really want to know what worry says about us,
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when we are worrying, what we’re telling God is, “God, I don’t trust you.
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I don’t know if you’re actually there for me.
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God, I’m not sure if I believe that you’re really good.
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I’m not sure if I’m willing to wait around for your plan.”
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Pastor Craig talks about the fact that where we worry the most
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reveals the place where we trust God the least.
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See, what you worry about the most reveals where you trust God the least.
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That’s why I wonder, what is that for you?
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What do you worry about the most?
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What most often keeps you up at night?
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Is it a relationship with your spouse or another family member?
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Is it a health concern that fills your heart with worry?
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Is it your finances?
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Maybe you’re living in that constant hamster wheel of trying to stay on top of your expenses but you always know that you’re one job away from missing a payment.
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Maybe it’s personal insecurity that keeps you worried. You’re worried that you won’t measure up, that you don’t have what it takes, that others will reject you.
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What is it for you?
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What do you worry about the most?
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And really,(…) what are we supposed to do when we realize that that means we’re not trusting God in that area of our life?(…) Like, am I just supposed to flip a switch and just immediately start trusting God with my finances?
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Like, I’m supposed to just cross my fingers and trust God with my future and trust Him with my family because I’ve got a family to provide for by… I mean, how do I just trust Him?
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Jesus shows us how? In verse 33,(…) He says, “But seek first, strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well.”
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Jesus is telling us that our job is not to worry.(…) It’s not our job to control everything, to fret about everything, to stress about everything.
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No, our job is to seek God first,(…) to turn to God first, to pursue Him first in everything.
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So I’ve got to ask you, how’s that going?
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How’s it going in your efforts to seek God first? Because you might have been following Jesus for your whole life,(…) but is He first in your life?
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I wonder for myself, is He first in my life? Like, really first?
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Is He first in your day?
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Do you start your day turning to God and asking Him to lead you towards His plan?
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Do you put God first in your finances?
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Recognizing that everything you have is a gift from Him already, and He’s calling you to trust Him in your finances by investing it into His work around you? Do I do that?
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Is God first in your relationships?
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Like with your spouse or your friends or even your kids? Or is your relationship based around whether or not you’re taking care of each other, or whether or not you are acting the way that you expect the other person to act?
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Is God the first place that your mind drifts to?(…) Or is it rather the things that normally worry you so often?
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See, our passage today is showing us that God cares for you.
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We are so important to Him, and He has proven what an amazing, intentional, detailed creator and sustainer He is with the way that He takes care of creation. And yet we’re the ones that He came and died for.
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And so when we worry, one, we don’t have to worry, think about it as like this big, awful thing, because it’s not sin, but we don’t have to just accept it either.
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Worry isn’t a sin, but it’s a signal that it’s time to pray. See, we get to bring our worries to God in prayer so that He can reassure us, so that He can address the places where we lack trust, so that He can give us His peace. And if you do,(…) there are three things that I guarantee could happen with what you’re worrying about. No matter what worries you, it will result in one of these three things.(…) Number one, what you’re worried about might never happen.
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There’s a study done at Penn State where researchers got a couple thousand people(…) and asked them to write down all the things they were worried about over the next month. And then they journaled daily over the next 30 days to figure out how many of those things actually came true.
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And over the course of the 30 days, all the things they worried about,(…) 91%(…) of those worries never came true.(…) Nine out of ten things that they were worried about never happened.(…) Only 10% of the things that you’re worrying about might ever happen, but 100% of the time that you’re worrying, it’s robbing your life of peace and joy.
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One thing that might come from your worries is that it might never happen. But the second thing is, it might happen, but it won’t be as bad as you thought.
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I mean, yes, the project that worked didn’t go as well as you thought, but it ended up not meaning as much as originally you had thought.(…) Or you had that confrontation with your friend, right? The family member that you had that disagreement with and it’s been eating you up,(…) and you had that confrontation, but guess what? You didn’t explode on the spot.(…) Yes, it was tense and awkward, but now you’re moving forward together.
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See, what you’re worried about, it might never happen. Or it might happen and not be as bad as you thought.(…) And the third outcome is whatever you’re worrying about, it might happen,
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and God will carry you through it.
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This is especially true of anyone who’s ever lost a loved one. You know exactly what I’m talking about, especially if you knew that they were going to pass for a while, because you saw it coming on the horizon, you’re worried about what that would mean, you began the grieving process even before they were gone and then they passed.(…) And it might have been the darkest time in your life.
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You felt alone,(…) abandoned,(…) sick to your stomach,(…) so mad that you could cry,
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so sad that you couldn’t even be mad.
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And yet, God brought you through it.(…) And even though there are still some dark days, God has proven to be faithful in helping you heal and move forward.
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See, stress, anxiety, and worry, they’re all common experiences in our lives. And they aren’t sin, they’re just a signal that we need to turn to God in prayer. And we need to commit to the habit of prayer, because through that God’s actually able to transform our minds and heal the pathways of our brains so that we can experience freedom from the old patterns.
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So what are you worried about today?
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Because maybe God is trying to get your attention to show that where you’re worried the most is actually the place where you’re trusting Him the least.
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Maybe God is inviting you to finally trust Him by turning to Him in prayer about that thing.
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Maybe He’s been trying to get your attention for a while now.
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See, if that’s you, at some point today I want you to grab that green card that’s in front of you and just write down what it is you’ve been worrying about. And then maybe you can even write a prayer, something like, “God, help me to trust you more in this area.
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Help me to see that you’re a good Father who provides for me.”(…) And you can keep that card if you want, or if you want you can drop it off in the wooden box on your way out. And Pastor Eric and I would love to pray with you about that. If you’re joining us online, you can just type into the comments section, “I want prayer,” and someone will reach out to you this week to continue partnering with you in that journey.
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See, we get to bring our worries to God in prayer because the good news is that God already knows all the things that are burdening us. And He’s already calling after us, trying to get us to let go of those things that weigh us down so that we can take hold of Him.
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So what is holding you down?
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What is God inviting you to give to Him in prayer so that He can help you carry it?
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What do you need to write down on that green card in front of you?