God's Cure for Worry

Have you ever noticed that there are tremendous differences between men and women. There are differences which go far beyond skin deep to the very center of who we are. Take for example our basic psychological needs - what we’re looking for in life. The typical man is looking for significance - he wants people to recognize him and admire him. He wants to feel that his life is making an impact on the world around him. The typical woman looking for security - a safe, sheltered environment in which to grow and to nurture others. The proof of that is that most men will trade security for significance; most women will trade significance for security.

This is what makes middle aged men go out and play football or baseball with their buddies and act as though they were teenagers again. Men love that high risk, win-lose environment. They find significance in it. But meanwhile, their wives are on the sidelines saying “You idiot. You’re going to wreck you knee, or you’re going to have a heart attack!” They’re seeing the whole thing in terms of security.

Recently I heard an interview with Susan Baker, the wife of Secretary of State James Baker. She described how she struggled with the demands of her husband’s rising political career. The higher he got in government, the more uncomfortable she became. Because as he became a major player in world affairs - a role that any typical male would relish - she saw this as pulling her and her family into a high-risk, high-threat environment of the public limelight. She saw this as a threat to her security. Her comfort zone would have had him being an anonymous Washington bureaucrat, not the Secretary of State! She was ready to trade significance for security, while her husband was ready to trade security for significance.

The Bible has a lot to say about these basic needs of significance and security. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about our relationship to material possessions - to money. And he warns us about our tendency to look to our possessions for significance or security.

For example, in 6:19-24, he warns us about greed, about storing up treasure on earth, about serving money, and making the accumulation of money the be all and end all of our existence. That passage seems to be primarily addressed to men, because it is usually men who have this drive to accumulate things. The reason they do is that they believe having lots of wealth will give them significance. Men tend to measure themselves against other men, so if they can just get more “stuff” than other men, that’s supposed to make them feel that they are somehow superior to them. But that’s a lie. You cannot find significance in your possessions, Jesus says, and if you give yourself to the pursuit of money, your life will be spiritually dark. You’ll be blind, and stumbling around as though you had a twenty dollar bill taped over your eyes.

Now if that passage is primarily directed toward the weakness of men, I believe the passage we come to today is directed primarily toward the weakness of women. Women are not looking for significance as much as they are looking for security. A woman is happiest when she has a comfortable home, a secure environment in which to live and grow, stable and fulfilling relationships with other people. This is what she’s looking for in life. She doesn’t really care if her name is ever in the newspaper - as long as she has these things, she has her security blanket. But that exposes a woman to a different kind of spiritual danger - the danger of anxiety.

Women tend to worry more than men. They worry about security. About having enough food to eat, and clothes to wear. They worry about the future. They worry about what’s going to happen to them tomorrow - are they going to lose that security they have today? That’s what this passage is all about - worry.

Jesus tells us three things about our basic needs as men and women in this passage. The first thing he tells us is that each of us matters to God.

Matthew 6:25-26 “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? Look 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?

Jesus is talking here about significance. He’s talking about our intrinsic value and worth as individuals. He says that we matter to God. God is concerned about each one of us. When we worry about what we’re going to eat and what we’re going to wear, we’re forgetting that it was God who gave us the gift of life itself, God who gave us our bodies in which to live.

You matter to God. You are significant - you have intrinsic worth, not because of your accomplishments, or your accumulated possessions, but simply because God made you.

Jesus says “Look at the birds.” Have you ever stopped to look at the birds? I became very interested in birds a few years ago when we vacationed in Florida. We stayed in a house that was right on the Intracoastal Waterway, and every day we could watch a teeming variety of birds going about their business. There were herons and egrets, ibises and spoonbills, pelicans, storks, cormorants, seagulls, terns, gallinules - I had to buy a book so that I could learn all their names.

But the thing I noticed about them was that they all worked hard to make a living. None of them were lazy. The herons and the egrets would walk slowly around in the shallows searching for crabs and fish. The ibises and spoonbills would root around with their long beaks, trying to stir up a meal. The cormorants would swim and dive after fish. The pelicans and terns would fly around and when they spotted something in the water, they would crash dive after it. But they were all busy doing what God designed them to do. And not one of them was worried about where his next meal was coming from. They worked but they didn’t worry.

Now Jesus says “If your heavenly father cares that much about the birds, to make sure that they are fed, don’t you think that he’s going to take care of your needs too?” But when we worry about our basic physical needs, we are in effect denying that God cares about us.

Said the robin to the sparrow

“There is one thing I must know.

Why these anxious human beings

Rush around and worry so?”

Said the sparrow to the robin

“Friend, I think that it must be

That they have no heavenly Father

Such as cares for you and me.”

When we worry, we are acting as if we don’t have a heavenly Father who cares about us. We’re acting as though God doesn’t exist. Worry is the interest we pay on the debt of unbelief.

There’s a second thing that Jesus tells us in this passage. He tells us that our needs are God’s responsibility. God has made himself responsible for our basic needs.

Matthew 6:28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If 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? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

Someone has said that the trouble with many Christians is that they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but they do not believe him. They believe on Jesus for salvation, but they do not believe Jesus when he says that God will supply our needs from day to day. So they worry, and in doing so, they act like pagans. Pagans are people who do not believe God exists, much less that He can supply their needs. So they take upon themselves a responsibility that was never meant to be theirs.

But the Bible tells us over and over that God has made himself responsible for the meeting of our daily needs. He’s responsible for our security. That’s why Jesus prayed in the Lord’s prayer “Give us this day our daily bread.” Because that’s God’s responsibility.

But when we worry, we place ourselves at the center of our lives in the place where God is meant to be. We’re saying in effect “Step aside God. I cannot really trust you to provide for my needs. I need to step in here and take over, or my needs might not be met.” We insult God by taking upon ourselves a responsibility for our security that is meant to be His. And that has devastating effects on our whole lives.

Worry has been defined as a small trickle of fear that meanders through the mind until it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. When we let worry get a foot in the front door of our lives, it smashes the door open and comes in and takes up residence.

What is God’s cure for worry? He gives it to us in this passage.

Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

It is God’s responsibility to provide for our security. It is our responsibility to seek his kingdom and his righteousness. That is to be our priority.

There’s a well-known story in Luke about two women who were Jesus friends.

Luke 10:38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Now I’ve always noticed that the women in the audience identify more with Martha than they do with Mary. Most women take sides with Martha. They agree that Martha has a point here. Pretty inconsiderate of Mary to just sit around in the living room with Jesus when there’s work to be done in the kitchen. When there’s needs to be met, you’ll find that most women are like Martha - they’ll roll up their sleeves and tie on their apron and get busy.

But the whole point of the passage is that there are times when that’s the wrong thing to do. Jesus himself said that Mary was right and Martha was wrong. Because Mary sought first to be with Jesus. That was her first priority - she wanted to be with him and learn more from him. She was seeking his kingdom and his righteousness.

Martha isn’t a villain, it’s just that she made the wrong choice. She had the wrong priority. And it showed in her life - she was anxious, she was upset, she was resentful, and if you read it closely, you’ll find out that self had snuck in to the center of her life. In her busyness to serve and to provide for the needs that were there, she had put her self in place of God, and she was interpreting the whole situation in terms of her self being hurt.

It’s so easy for us to shift our focus away from God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness onto other concerns. In the parable of the sower in Mark 4, there’s the seed that falls on thorny ground. The seed grows up for a while, but then the thorns and weeds grow up around it and choke it and make it unfruitful.

How many Christians there are who start out in the Christian life to serve God. But then they become preoccupied with other things. And the worries and cares of this world choke out their spiritual life.

Stephen Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, describes how we all have a circle of concern and a circle of influence. In our circle of concern are all of those things that we think about, that we invest our mental and emotional energy in - everything from the situation in the Middle East, to the state of the economy, to how our kids are doing in school, to what we’re going to have for dinner tonight. Those things are all found in our circle of concern.

But then inside that circle of concern is a smaller circle of influence. You see there are lots of things in our circle of concern that we have have no control over. We may think alot about the national economy, but we have no control over it. We may worry about the weather, but we have no influence on it. Our circle of influence contains only those things in our circle of concern that we can do something directly about. For example, there are things that we can do to help our children get better grades in school, so that would be in our circle of influence. We can decide what we’re going to have for dinner tonight, so that would be in our circle of influence.

Covey’s point is that highly effective people invest their time and energy in their circle of influence. They don’t squander their mental and emotional resources thinking and worrying about things that they have no control over. They are proactive rather than reactive. They get to work doing positive things in their circle of influence, they don’t sit around bemoaning and griping and worrying about all the things that they have no control over.

Now if I hear Jesus correctly in the Sermon on the Mount, he’s saying that ultimately our basic security as human beings, is not in our circle of influence. It’s in God’s circle of influence. It’s his responsibility. So let’s let him take care of it. And let’s get busy working on something that is in our circle of influence, namely pursuing God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness in our lives.

1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Psalm 55:22 Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.

Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.