God’s Cure for Worry

In case you haven’t noticed, there are tremendous differences between men and women. And the differences are more than skin deep. We seem to be wired differently.

Our basic psychological needs are different. A typical man is looking for something entirely different out of life than a typical woman. Your typical male is looking for significance - he wants people to recognize him and admire him; to think that he’s competent and worthy. He wants to feel as though his life is making an impact on the world around him.

Your typical female, in contrast, is looking for security. She’s looking for a safe, sheltered environment in which she can grow, and build relationships, and nurture others. Most men will readily trade security for significance; most women will trade significance for security.

This is why 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, competitive environment. They find that it gives them significance.

But meanwhile, their wives are on the sidelines watching them do this and they’re saying “Oh my goodness, he’s going to wreck his knee, or he’s going to have a heart attack!” They are seeing the whole situation in terms of security.

Now in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus deals with both of these issues: significance and security. In the passage we looked at last week, Matthew 6:19–24, Jesus talked about our relationship with money. Specifically, he warned 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.

Now when you think about it, that passage really hits us men where we live, because it is usually men who have this drive to accumulate things. The reason we do is that we believe having lots of neat things will give us significance.

Men are always measuring themselves against other men, and money is often the means by which they keep score. You’ve seen the bumper sticker—He who dies with the most toys wins. If a man can just accumulate more money and more things than his peers, then maybe that will make him appear to be successful; maybe that will give him that sense of significance that he’s looking for.

Of course, it doesn’t. You cannot find significance in possessing material things. Jesus says that if you give yourself to the pursuit of material things and money, you will become a slave. Your life will be spiritually dark.

Now if that passage was about a particular weakness that we men have, I believe that the passage we’re going to look at today is about a weakness that women have.

Remember, 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. A typical woman doesn’t really care if her name is ever in the newspaper—as long as she has her security, she’s happy.

But that exposes her to a different kind of spiritual danger - the danger of anxiety.

Women tend to worry more than men do. They worry about security. About the basic needs of life—food on the table, money to pay the rent, decent clothes to wear. They worry about the future—is there any possibility that they might lose whatever security they seem to have today?

Mothers worry about their children—how they’re going to turn out, how they’re going to grow up, when they’re going to grow up, and if they’re ever going to grow up!

Matthew 6:25–34 is all about worry. It’s about worrying over the basic needs of life.

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?

The KJV translates this verse: Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink. That’s somewhat misleading. Jesus is not saying that we should never think about these things, or make plans, or set aside money to buy groceries next week.

No, the idea that he’s trying to get across here is that we should not become consumed with anxiety about these things. We should not fret, we should not become burdened down with care about our physical needs.

Why not? Because God is our Father, and our Father has pledged himself to provide for our needs. Worry is when we assume a responsibility that belongs to God.

Worry is when we assume that God is either:

a. NOT going to take care of our needs at all, or…

b. he’s going to take care of them inadequately—in such a way that we will not be satisfied when he’s done.

Either way we are showing, when we worry, that we don’t have a lot of trust or confidence in God. Jesus gives us two illustrations from the world of nature to show us how foolish we are to think this way. He talks about the birds and the flowers.

Matthew 6:26 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?

I first became interested in birds when I was vacationing one summer Florida. We were staying in a place that was right on the Intracoastal Waterway. 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. It was not a good place to be a fish!

Those birds were all busy doing exactly what God designed them to do, but not one of them was worried about where his next meal was coming from. They worked hard and diligently to make a living, 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?” Because you are far more significant to God than any bird is. it’s the argument from the lesser to the greater: If he cares about the birds, how much more does he care about you?

When we worry about our basic physical needs, we are forgetting that we matter to God. We are, in effect, denying that he is watching over us and 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 though 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 principal of unbelief.

Jesus tells us in v.27 that worry is not only a sign of our unbelief, it is totally unproductive. He says “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

This verse can be translated in a variety of ways, because the word for “life” can also mean “stature” and the word translated “hour” is really the word “cubit”. It’s a measure of length. However you translate it, the point is that worrying doesn’t produce anything. It is futile activity. It’s a waste of time and emotion and energy. So don’t do it

The second illustration Jesus gives us is about the wildflowers, in v.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?

This illustration deals with my tendency to worry that God is going to take care of my needs, but he isn’t going to do it well. He isn’t going to do it properly. He’s going to give me a bum deal. Leftovers. Shoddy goods. Second best. Maybe I can’t really trust God to provide for me in such a way that I will be completely satisfied when he’s done. Maybe my standards are actually higher than his.

Carolyn and I were in Israel exactly two years ago this week. The middle of March is just at the end of the rainy season, when the desert blooms. That’s when we were there, and I have never seen anything so beautiful, and I have seen a lot of places.

The hillsides in Galilee were just covered with wildflowers—yellow mustard, and red anemones, and the blue blossoms of wild flax. Jesus was looking at these very same wildflowers as he gave this illustration.

He said “Look at how beautiful these things are—look at how exquisite the blossoms, how rich the color—and they’re just common, ordinary wildflowers.” When a baker wants to heat up his oven in a hurry, he just grabs a handful of this stuff, and throws it in without thinking twice about it.

“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?

God’s provision for us will be first class. He’s more concerned with quality than you or I will ever be. You just have to look at creation to see that. When you allow God to provide for your needs, you always find that he gives you better than what you could have ever provided for yourself.

Jesus says that when we worry about our needs, we are acting as though we don’t know God. This is what the pagans do. They run after these things (v.32) because they think that that is what life is all about, and they think that no one will provide for their needs unless they do it themselves.

Jesus gave us a negative command in verse 25 - Don’t worry. He balances that with a positive command in v. 33:

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

The word “seek” in v.33 comes from the same root in Greek as the word “run after” in v.32. The pagans are running after material things. This is where all their interests and energies are focused. What should we be running after? What should we be pursuing?

God’s kingdom. God’s righteousness. And if that is the direction of our life, “all these things”—all our life-needs will be taken care of as well.

Jesus concludes by saying in v. 34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” What does he mean here?

He means that God gives us grace for today. God doesn’t give us grace for tomorrow’s needs and tomorrow’s problems; he gives us grace for today. So we shouldn’t waste today’s grace by worrying about tomorrow.

Sometimes we worry that God will allow pain and suffering to come into our lives. We live in fear and dread of perhaps losing a loved one, or contracting some deadly disease, or being in an accident. Or we worry that God might allow that to happen to someone we love.

And when we worry like that, we fail to understand that when God allows trials to come into our lives, he also gives us the grace to handle them. And he sends those trials not to hurt us or harm us, but to make us better people—to make us more like Jesus Christ.

One day a man was watching a little butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon. He watched that little insect struggle and struggle for an hour or more, without seeming to make any headway.

Finally, the man decided to intervene and help that little butterfly get out. So he took some small scissors and carefully cut away the shell that was imprisoning the butterfly. Soon the butterfly crawled out of the broken cocoon. Its wings were all crimped and shriveled.

The man waited for the butterfly to spread its wings and begin to fly, but as he watched in fascination, the butterfly’s wings remained weak. It was never able to stretch them out and begin to fly. That butterfly could only crawl around in frustration with its limp wings folded, unable to be the beautiful creature that God had created it to be.

You see, the man did not understand that the struggle to emerge from the cocoon was an essential part of God’s design for that butterfly. The struggle would develop the muscle system of the butterfly’s wings and push its body fluids out into those wings to expand them and make them capable of flight. When the man intervened to take away the butterfly’s pain and struggle, he thought he was doing it a favor, but he was really dooming it to die.

In the same way, God allows adversity to come into our lives to help us to develop our spiritual muscles. We’ll never become like Jesus Christ without experiencing some pain and suffering along the way. But with the pain, God gives us his grace.

He giveth more grace when the burden grows greater

He sendeth more strength when the labors increase.

To added affliction he addeth his mercy.

To multiplied trials, his multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,

Our father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure;

His power has no boundary known unto men.

For out of his infinite riches in Jesus,

He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.