Confessions - Worry Matthew 6:25 08/15/10

Sermon –confessions – worry - Mt. 6 25-3444444

Do Not Worry
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? 26Look 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? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If 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? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Today I would like to confess, that I can be a worrier -

My mind goes back to that childhood icon: Alfred e neuman
Who said, What, me worry?

What is worry

Worry is fear for tomorrow.
worry invents that which has not yet happened
I have had many toubles, most of which never happened.

Worry drains the energy that god gives us to live & fulfill our potential

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but it does empty today of its strength.

It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit to cope with it if and when it comes.

The anticipation of joy or sorrow. If pleasures are the greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble. Most powerful part of a problem is the worrying about it

I worry
About what
Kids, church, employees, if you like me, if you like the sermon

When I don't have anything to worry about, I begin to worry about that. Something is wrong, because nothing is wrong

Handles on this

1. It is a sin- jesus says don’t do it

2. Understand that it is not healthy
We are built for faith, not for fear.
Worry is sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil.
In worry, my being is gasping for breath—
But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely--these are my native air. worriers die sooner than the non- worriers,
We are inwardly constructed for faith and not for fear.
God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality.

3. busy yourself
Connie Mack was one of the greatest managers in the history of baseball.
Mack had another secret of good management: he didn't worry. "I discovered," he explained, "that worry was threatening to wreck my career as a baseball manager. I saw how foolish it was and I forced myself to get so busy preparing to win games that I had no time left to worry over the ones that were already lost. You can't grind grain with water that has already gone down the creek."

Hudson Taylor, missionary to China - "Let us give up our work, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into [God's] hand; and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about."

4. pick a day to worry
Pick a day. Write down your worries and put them in a box.
Open the box on worry day.
When you open the box, u will find that most of the things that had disturbed him the past six days were already settled.

5. Bob Walls Advice
In 480 B.C. the outmanned army of Sparta's King Leonidas held
off the Persian troops of Xerxes by fighting them one at a time
as they came through a narrow mountain pass. As seen in the
movie 300.
"Suppose Leonidas and his handful of men had gone out into the wide-open plain and attacked the Persians--why, they would have died at once, even though they might have fought like lions."

If we choose to battle every difficulty at once, they're sure to suffer defeat. But if they trust God and take their troubles one by one, they will find that their strength is sufficient.

6. Differentiate you from them. I am not them. They don’t define me. God tells me that he loves me. That is enough.

7. Take care of yourself:
Get plenty of rest; sometimes we get so tired that we don’t
even recognize we are tired . get some rest. Odd as it
sounds sometimes problems resolve themselves in our sleep.

Sometimes I still worry. I still worry. It is human nature.

So what to do? Take advice of the scriptures-

Mt 6:34 each day has enough trouble of its own

2 timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

psalm 46 1-4 1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake because of the surging water. 4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.

Mt 6:33 Seek ye first the kingdom of God
My wife, in times of severe stress…….seeking the kingdom of god

You have to keep going back- to the well.

In the dark valley, the shepherd is with us.