This article was written by Kevin De
Young and reproduced from www.thegospelcoalition.org,
6 January 2015.
Is there a sin
nice, middle-class Christians commit more than the sin of worry?
You wake up ten
minutes later than you had hoped and anxiety already starts to creep in: what
if I’m late? What about traffic? What’s the weather like? You pass by the
mirror and worry that your face has more wrinkles than it used to. You rush
downstairs and because you are in a hurry you let the kids eat whatever they
want, so then you start to worry if sugar really does cause cancer. As you get
the kids ready you realise one of your boys didn’t do his homework – again. You
worry if he’s ever going to get his head screwed on straight, and as you drop
the kids off you worry that they may fall in with the wrong crowd or fall off
the monkey bars.
Once you get
home you pull up Facebook just to unwind. There you read about how awesome
everyone else’s kids are and all the amazing cupcakes your friends make and you
worry that you might be a failure as a mum. Later in the morning you feel that
pain in yiour knee again. You worry about having to get knee replacement
surgery and whether your insurance will cover that and how you’ll pay for it
and who will take care of the kids if you are laid up for a month. Then you
worry that maybe the pain is something worse, so you check all the medical
websites and realise you probably have a rare case of whooping cough that’s
spread to your appendages.
Hours later
when the kids are in bed you turn on the television to forget about the day. As
you flip through the channels and get caught up on the news you start to worry
about the economy and the polar vortex and the rise in crime in your city. You
worry about the racial divisions in this country and how you’ll talk to your
friend who see things differently and maybe you worry whether the police would
treat you fairly or you worry about the safety of your brother who is a police
officer. So you turn off the TV and talk to your husband and worry about his
cough that doesn’t seem to get better and worry the layoffs they’re having at
work. And finally as you lay down for the night you feel a tremendous sense of
anxiety and you don’t even know why. For reasons you can’t even understand, you
start worrying about life and kids and your parents and your church and your
health and flying and driving and sleeping and eating and a general fear that
the days ahead could be really bad.
Can you relate?
Jesus can help.
Worry may be
the most common sin among your “regular” folks in the church. Now, you may
think that’s not very encouraging. “Great, I worry about everything. And now on
top of my worrying I am going to feel bad about worrying and I’m going to worry
about that.” But be encouraged: If worry is just part of your personality or
part of being a mum (or a student or a businessman or whatever), God may not do
anything to help you. But if worry is a sin, then God can forgive you for it and
help you overcome it.
Matthew 6: 25 –
34 is one of the Bible’s great passages on worry. Three times Jesus says “do not
be anxious” (25, 31, 34). But he doesn’t stop there. Jesus is interested in
more than handing down commands. He wants to get at our hearts. An so he gives
seven reasons why we should not be anxious.
Reason #1: Life is too important (Matthew 6: 25). We need to get our
priorities straight. Does it really matter that you have the good things in
life; fancy food, fancy drinks, fancy clothes. Are you living your whole life
for a little tag on the back of your pants or the inside of your shirt that
makes you feel cool? Are you going to look back on your life and wish you had
been more fastidious about your clothing choices? Isn’t life about more than
just a clump of cells trying to get sustenance, trying to feel good, trying to
look good.
We live in an
age where people freak out about food. While most people in the history of the
world have worried about whether they will get anything to eat, we worry about
the kind of life the chicken lived before we ate it. I’m not saying that we
shouldn’t be concerned with how animals are treated. But let’s remember that
life is more than food and the body is more than clothing.
Reason #2: You are too important
(Matthew 6: 26). We not
only insult God when we worry about food and clothes and money, we insult
ourselves. Worry says to the world, “I’m not valuable.” Anxiety is an affront
to kindness of God and the worth of men and women made in his image. Let the
birds and squirrels be your preachers. God’s feeding then. When you see them
peering at you through the window, they’re saying, “What are you looking at?
Trust God.” When you hear the birds sing, they are singing a song to remind you
of God’s provision, God takes care of little animals; he’ll take care of you.
Reason #3: It doesn’t do any good (Matthew 6: 27) Have you ever looked
back on the hard times in life and thought, “I don’t know how I would have made
it through that if I hadn’t worried?” Nobody reflects on the past and
concludes, “Money was sure was tight, but worry really pulled me through.”
“Junior High was difficult. I only wish I could have worried more.” “Well,
ma’am, it doesn’t look good, all we can do at this point is worry.”
Man knows not
his time. It is not for us to direct our steps (Jeremiah 10: 23). All our days have
been written in God’s book before any of them come to pass (Psalm 139: 16). You
and I need to admit we are powerless over some things. I am powerless to do all
sorts of things. I can’t make someone to believe the gospel. I can’t raise the
dead. I can’t sit at the crib all night making sure the baby is breathing. And
I certainly can’t live one more nanosecond than I am supposed to live. No one
has ever lived an hour longer because they worried about when they were going
to die.
Reason #4: God cares about you (Matthew 6: 28 – 30). God makes the wild
flowers grow. Why? Because he wants to. Because they’re pretty. Because he’s
creative. Because he likes beauty. Because he wants people to enjoy them. Because
he cares about flowers. And he even cares about grass. The grass is going to
die. Your lawn will be brown. It will be cold, frozen, dead – probably is
already. But in few months, it will all come back. And you won’t have anything
to do with it. Maybe you’ll plant some more seed. Maybe you’ll get a lawn care
specialist out to help make things super great. But even if you do nothing, the
grass will come back. Because God is God and he likes green grass.
Do you see what
Jesus calls worriers? He calls us ‘little faiths.” Our worry is an insult to
God’s character. When we worry we are not believing the truth about God. We are
doubting that he sees, that he knows, that he cares, that he is more than able.
Faith is more than a vague notion that Jesus existed and we are going to heaven
if we ask him into our hearts. Faith is a practical way of looking at the
world. Biblical faith extends to all of life, not merely to the salvation of
our souls. When we worry, we are telling God, “I don’t trust you to run my
life. I don’t think you are really in control. I had better worry about these
things. I need to do everything to take care of myself, because I’m not sure
you will.” But think about it: God takes care of wild animals. He takes care of
wild flowers. He even takes care of grass. Why wouldn’t he take care of you?
Reason #5: Pagans worry (Matthew 6: 30 – 32a). Some of us
worry, we might as well be atheists. We are living like God doesn’t really
exist. That’s what pagans do.
A pagan doesn’t
have to be somebody who worships idols and sacrifice frogs. A pagan is somebody
who thinks life is about what you will eat, what you will drink, what you will
wear. Pagans think that life consists in the abundance of one’s possessions.
Pagans spend their money and hoard their money like there was no God in the
universe watching over them or watching out for them.
Let me pause
here because some of you are asking the question the rest of us are afraid to
speak: “But what if God doesn’t care of me?” What about Christians starving to
death? What about Christians being driven from their homes? What about the
thousands of good Christians who will die this year from cancer or car
accidents or cardiac arrest? Doesn’t God promise to take care of them too?
These are fair
questions – and questions that wouldn’t surprise Jesus or any of the writers of
the Bible. Revelation speaks of a set number of martyrs. Paul told the Romans
that even in hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, and
slaughter they would be more than conquerors. Jesus told his disciples, “You
will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they
will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me. But not a
hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will gain life.” (Luke 21:
16 – 19). Jesus never told his disciples that being a Christian was a get out
of suffering free card.
So can we count
on God or not?
First, we need
to remember the context. Jesus is talking about people serving mammon instead
of God (Matthew 6: 24). In Luke’s account in Luke 12, Jesus is talking about
rich fools building bigger barns and worry-worts storing up treasures on earth.
His point here is that we won’t die on account of over-generosity. That’s the
first to note.
But that’s only
part of the answer. I think the rest of the answer is found in verse 32: “Your
heavenly Father knows that you need them.” What is “them”? Verses 30 and 31
suggest the “them” is food and drink. And what do we need these things for? For
life. God knows what we need to keep on living…so long as he wants us to live.
God knows that we need clothes, food and drink to live and he will give us all
the clothes, food and drink to live until he wants us to die.
This is based
on a profound theological truth: God is not stupid. God sees us. He knows we
are here. He hasn’t gone out for lunch. He isn’t taking a nap. He’s not like a
parent who loses a child in some other part of the grocery store. He is for
you, not against you. Jesus doesn’t promise all your wildest dreams will come
true, but he does promise that God will give you what you need to glorify him
and to live out all the days he has written in his book.
That might
sound sort of dumb, but it is really profound. There is more to life, Jesus is
saying, than living. We are going to die. So don’t make it your goal to simply
stay alive; you’ll fail at that. We are here to do more than avoid death. “God
will give you all the food and drink and clothes you need to live,” Jesus says.
“And when I want you to stop living, you’ll stop living. I’m in control. You
were put here for a reason bigger than just to live.” Be consumed, v. 31 says,
with the kingdom. Be consumed with seeing God’s reign and rule over your life,
and family, and church, and the lost peoples of the world. You’re not a pagan
after all.
Reason #6: The kingdom matters more (Matthew 6: 33). Jesus wants to set the worry wort free. When
we have nice cars, boats, tractors, and houses, we worry about them. What if an
accident happens, or lightning strikes, or a thief breaks in? Jesus says “How
about a better treasure? Why not lose yourself for the things that last?” As
Randy Alcorn puts it, “You can’t take the money with you, but you can send it
ahead.”
Don’t get rid
of all pursuits: replace your pagan pursuits with pious pursuits. Be consumed
with the kingdom. Be consumed with seeing God’s reign and rule over your life,
your family, and your church. Spend yourself for the lost peoples of the world.
Make it your priority to introduce more people to the King, get more people in
the kingdom, train people to live under the authority of this King and his
kingdom.
Jesus may not
make your life easy. But he will make your life joyful. He wants to set us free
from pursuing all the dead ends we’ve been driving down. If you live for money,
you have reason to be anxious. If the most important thing in your life is your
career, that can go bad. If your health or your looks or your kids are your
real passions, you may be colossally disappointed. You have reason to fret. But
if you seek first the kingdom, you can’t lose.
Reason #7: Tomorrow will be anxious for
itself (34). Today’s
grace is for today’s trials. And when tomorrow’s trials come, God will have new
grace waiting for you there.
Anxiety is
living out the future before it gets here. “The steadfast love of the Lord
never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I
will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3: 22 – 24)
What will
happen tomorrow?
I can give you
a thousand things we don’t know – medical reports, accidents, jobs, tests,
dates, babies, criticism, hard conversations, even death. We don’t know what
will happen tomorrow. But here is one thing you and I can count on: there will
be new mercies from the Lord when we get there.
How can I stop
worrying? Look to Jesus. But also look at
Jesus. He sees. He knows. He cares. He is a sympathetic high priest. And he
will never leave you nor forsake you.
Comments