WHY NOT WORRY?

(2): DEVALUATION AND DENIAL

(Luke 12:22-34)
Date ???
Intro Need a cure for anxiety? Maybe the Psychiatric Hotline will help.
Their message goes something like this: Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly. If you are codependent, please ask someone to press 2. If you have multiple personalities,
please press 3, 4, 5, and 6. If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you
are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call. If you
are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which
number to press. If you are depressed, it doesnt matter which number you
press. No one will answer. I think most of us have felt that way at some point
in time. Weve placed a call for help but no one is listening. Anxiety builds.
Well, Jesus has a response to anxiety. Its not at all the answer you would
expect. His answer is in Lu 12:31, Instead, seek his kingdom, and these
things will be added to you. Worry diminishes God. Faith enlarges God in
my life and crowds worry right out of the room. So Jesus answer to worry is,
Get over yourself, and get on with Gods agenda. When we do that, little by
little, anxiety has to leave the building. But when we let anxiety reign, bad
things happen. Jesus cites 7 to help encourage us to change our outlook.
Destroys Gods Peace (22, 29, 32) V. 22 says, Do not be anxious about
your life. The word anxious means divided, distracted, or fractured. It
pictures someone whose mind is taking off in all directions, lacking focus and
thus worried about everything. Jesus is saying, Get focused in one place.
Leave the worry to the Lordship of Christ.
Defies Gods Perspective (23) Gods view is v. 23, For life is more
than food, and the body more than clothing. That truth underscores this
whole section. Life is more than what you see, hear, smell, taste and feel. If it
were not, survival would be the name of the game. But in Gods forever
universe, physical survival ranks way below being prepared for Gods
kingdom. Seek that, and the rest will take care of itself.
III.

Devalues Gods Provisions (24, 27-28)

Worry not only diminishes Gods person, it devalues Gods provisions. Worry
says, What God has given me is not enough, and I dont trust Him for what
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I need, so Ill worry about it. It sounds stupid when you say it that way
because it is stupid. If Gods promises are true, then worry is a waste of time
at best and an insult to God at worst. Thats Jesus point in these verses. His
command in v. 22 is do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor
about your body, what you will put on. So, work for what you will eat and
what you will wear, but dont worry about them. Dont let those become the
focus of your existence. Thats the command. Jesus gives two examples.
V. 24 concerns food: Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they
have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more
value are you than the birds! Jesus chooses the most despised of unclean
birds for His illustration the raven. Despised by man, declared unclean by
God, and yet with no means whatsoever to provide for themselves, God
feeds them. So why would you who are the apple of His eye worry. Certainly
you must work. As the bird must hunt, you must work, but trust the Father
rather than worry about what you do and dont have. If He feeds the despised
raven, He will surely feed you. Jesus is really asking here, Who do you think
keeps all of this going? Why do you think you can help yourself by worry?
Thats the general state of things. Certainly there are times when in Gods
providence drought comes, birds die of starvation and so do people even
believing people. Does that mean He has failed of His promise? May it never
be, Beloved. It simply means that for some greater kingdom good God has
seen fit dry up the resources. Because life is more than food. Rom 8:35:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine? To meet His greater ends, God may withhold
food. But even that cant separate us from His love. A little poem makes the
point: Said the Robin to the Sparrow,/ I should really like to know / Why these
anxious human beings / Rush about and worry so. / Said the Sparrow to the
Robin, / Friend, I think that it must be / They have no Heavenly Father, / Such as
cares for you and me. Worry devalues what God provides.
Vv 27-28 makes the same point regarding clothing: Consider the lilies, how
they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28But if God so clothes the grass,
which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how
much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! Once again, Jesus point
is that God not only clothes the flowers with great beauty He even clothes
the grass that has a short existence and then becomes fuel. How much more
will He care for His eternal beings!? So, dont worry! The question isnt do I
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have all the food I want and the latest in fashion? The question, do I have
enough food and clothing to fulfill my mission? Thats the question.
What do the ravens and the lilies and the grass have in common? They are all
doing His will. They are all doing what they were made for. Theyre
fulfilling their lifes mission, however lowly. They, of course, have no choice.
We do. And what Jesus is urging is do like them. Fulfill Gods purpose for
your life rather than your own; Hell take care of the rest. Put His will first
and Hell make sure you have all you need and more. It may not look like you
think. It may not be caviar and oysters Rockefeller. But youll have all that
God intends for your best good and for His glory. It may not be designer
jeans and Gucci purses but it will be what you need. Let Him do the
worrying. Youll be amazed how when His agenda becomes yours, some of
the things you thought most necessary drop off the list altogether. Seek His
kingdom first. Thats the principle. So, do I have the food and clothing
necessary to seek His kingdom to fulfill His intention for my life? Thats the
issue.
Let me show you what happens when we get anxious about the wrong things,
Beloved. Turn to I Kings. This is King Solomons story, and it follows a
typical Hebrew literary structure (a chiastic pattern) that bookends beginning
and end and builds to a climax in the middle. So, in I Kings 1 Solomon
inherits the kingdom from his father David. At the corresponding end to the
section in chapter 12 a majority portion of the kingdom is taken from
Solomons heir, Rehoboam, by Jeroboam. In chapter 2 Solomons kingdom is
established under God. In chapter 11, Solomons kingdom is disestablished
because he has gone after other gods. Therefore God says, Since this has
been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I
have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it
to your servant (I Kings 11:11). You see the symmetry between sections.
In chapters 34 we see Solomon's wisdom and literary gifts, which God uses
for good. In chapter 10 Solomon's wisdom is misused for selfishness and
splendor and his own glory. In chapters 56 Solomon builds the shell of the
temple, but the utensils have not yet been crafted and set up. In 1 Kings 7:15
9:9 Solomon finishes the utensils for the temple and dedicates it. Bookends.
So, whats the climax in the middle? In the middle Solomon interrupts
building Gods house, the temple, to build his own palace. Note I Kings 7:1,
Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished his
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entire house. (Skip to 7). 7 And he made the Hall of the Throne where he was
to pronounce judgment, even the Hall of Judgment. It was finished with cedar
from floor to rafters. 8 His own house where he was to dwell, in the other court
back of the hall, was of like workmanship. Solomon also made a house like
this hall for Pharaohs daughter whom he had taken in marriage. So, in the
middle of building Gods house, he got focused on his own further
emphasized by the fact that while it took 7 years to build the temple it took 13
years to build his own. What happened? He lost sight of God as his first love.
So all that had been built in the first 6 chapters unravels in the last 6
because of Solomons failure in the middle. Put simply he got worried
about food and clothing and lost sight of Gods kingdom. It became his
agenda, not Gods, and it all came apart. Dr. Jekyl became Mr. Hyde. He
devalued Gods provision which required a king not have many wives. He
took 700 wives and 300 concubines and never had a worry-free day in his
life. Did that make him an unbeliever? No but it made him unfruitful,
unproductive, unfaithful and unhappy. Read Ecc if you dont think so.
Professor Bruce Waltke shared that during the 1990s when he taught on these
chapters at his church it was at a time when the stock market was going
gangbusters. Remember? Several elders in his church resigned from
leadership to seize the moment focused on making money. One said, I was
thinking of resigning too until I saw what happened to Solomon in this
passage. I decided I was not going to put my portfolio before God. Good
decision. I guarantee it saved him a lot of anxiety beginning about 1998.
IV.

Denies Gods Providence (27)

What does that mean? It means anxiety tries to control the uncontrollable.
Anxiety is a denial of Gods providential working in my life. Look at v. 25,
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of
life? There is some debate whether the language used here
means add a single hour to life or add an inch to your height.
Either way the answer is pretty obvious, isnt it? I cant add an
hour to life or an inch to height not by worry. I can eat
healthy and exercise and from a human perspective extend
my life a bit. But I cant worry myself to greater height
or to a longer life. Thats Gods decision; thats providence,
and I cant change it. I can worry myself to death; but I
cant worry myself to life. Neither can you! Neither can I
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worry myself to great height. But that doesnt stop people

from trying.
I had a guy who worked for me one day call me into his office.
I sat down and he said, Well, do you notice anything? I
said, No. Oh, think about it, he said, you are shorter
than me. This guy had gone out and found a short chair for
visitors (or a tall chair for himself, I forget which now) to make
himself taller than his visitor. I later found that he wore lifts in
his shoes. Frankly, I hadnt paid any attention to his height
one way or the other, but that was of greater concern to him
than his work. He didnt last long, by the way.
Beloved, to worry about that which is beyond our control
is to deny Gods providential care. Listen, we are not perfect
and we are not going to live physically forever because of the
Fall. It has had a devastating effect on all we know. But even
given those effects, God says in Psalm 139:15, My frame was
not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in
the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book
were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as
yet there was none of them. That means that even in our imperfect state and
limited lifetime, God has made us to be just what we need to accomplish His
chosen purpose for our life. He has. We are perfect for His purpose. And
when we worry about that which is outside our control, we are denying His
providence. In doing so we are diminishing His value in our eyes, but in the
end it is we who are diminished, not He. To the extent that we worry about
the uncontrollable, we diminish ourselves for we are wasting time that could
be devoted to some positive good that He has planned for us.
Jesus point is simple. Worry never ever in the long history of the world
changed anything. Never. If there is something you dont like and you can
take some action to change it, go for it. But to worry about it is a fools game.
And when we are worrying about things that are out of our control, the
underlying assumption of our existence is, God isnt big enough for this. So
I had better worry about it. We diminish God by denying His providence.
Weve all heard the serenity prayer made famous by the theologian Reinhold
Neibuhr: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Thats a prayer to stop playing God about the things that are out of my control.
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You know what worry does? Worry assumes that God has stacked the deck
against me. It assumes that I know better than He, so I must worry this
situation back into line. Worry takes trust out of the equation. Worry leads to
nothing but trouble. Ask Abraham and Sarah. God promised a child that would
lead to a great nation and great blessing. Ten years on when Sarah was 85 and
Abraham 95, nothing! Anxiety mounted. They were nearing the expiration
date on making children. God had stacked the deck. So we get to Gen 16:1,
Now Sarai, Abrams wife, had borne him no children. She had a female
Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, Behold
now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant;
it may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice
of Sarai. Worry led to Abraham taking Hagar. He was denying the
providence of God. He got a baby boy. He loved that boy. Fifteen years on
God came again and said, Now that you and Sarah are too old to do this on
your own, Im sending the promised son. But Abraham loved the son of his
anxiety and he responded as we often do in Gen 17:18, Oh that Ishmael
might live before you! I love what Ive produced. Let me keep that! But
Isaac came. The promise was kept. God reigns despite our idiocy.
But consequences abound. Abrahams beloved son born of worry broke up his
own family and he had to send Ishmael away. And ever since the world has
teetered on the brink of disaster as the sons of Ishmael (the Arabs) and the
sons of Isaac (Israelites) fight it out. Thats what comes of denying Gods
providence, Beloved. We must embrace what we cannot change as coming
from the hands of a loving Father who has a plan we do not see. When we do
oh what a load it removes. And it gives us the opportunity to see God high
and lifted up something that you cant worry your way to, you can only trust
your way to that revelation.
Conc Chuck Swindoll tells of a man in his church who had wrestled for
years with turning his business over to God. He knew there were some
business practices that would have to change, worried that it would ruin his
business and would not do it. But after two decades of holding out his heart
melted. He decided he had worried enough, confessed his rebellion, and told
his pastor he was giving his business to God lock, stock and barrel.
That very night his place of business caught on fire. He got an emergency call
and arrived in time to watch from the street as his factory and warehouses
went up in flames. One of his colleagues raced up, took and look, noticed the
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relaxed attitude of his normally uptight boss and asked, Man, whats wrong
with you?! Dont you know whats happening to you? Its its burning up!
The man replied, I can see that. But just this morning I gave this company
to God. If He wants to burn it up, thats His business. Thats a man with a
big God and no worries. Beats having a small god and lots of worries. Which
are you!? Lets pray.