Worry Series

28. Who is Jesus?

March 13th, 2010

Worry

As we read through the Gospel of Luke our goal is to learn who Jesus really is so that we can model our lives after Him. Jesus gives us instructions on how to live with His teaching and He shows us how to live with His life. The Bible is all about Jesus. Our lives are all about Jesus. Everything that exists is all about Jesus. The uniqueness of man is that we have the power to ignore that in this life. We have the ability to pursue things that are not Jesus. We can devote ourselves to ungodly and unimportant things. Jesus is not calling us to believe in Him He is calling us to follow Him.

We have seen that recently Jesus ministry has been full of conflict. He has fought against demons, religious leaders, false perceptions of His identity, and the problem of the fear of man. Now He is in for what could be His greatest opponent yet: our hearts. The battle between God and money is a battle for dominance in your life. You cannot follow both. Even in dealing with the issue of money, money is not the issue. We can only run toward one thing at a time. Wealth and the kingdom of God stand in opposite directions. Doesn’t mean you cant have money but when you pursue money you are not pursuing God. What Jesus wants is not our wallets but our hearts.

The decisions we make are affected by our perspective. How you see things changes what you do. Jesus teaching is meant to guide us from a worldly perspective to a kingdom mindset. Learning to see from His perspective enables us to follow His example. Jesus is not teaching us how to live a moral life. He is teaching us how to live like Him. Jesus speaks to where we are dealing with the real issues. He talks about fear and worry, these are two of the most common things we struggle with. You know what stress is? An internal response to fear or worry. Our anxiety is a bi-product of our fears.

Lk 12:22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Lk 12:23 Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Lk 12:24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!

Money and worry are like a cute couple they like walking hand in hand. Money is a tool to meet our needs. If we don’t not focus on it, how will our needs be met? Jesus says don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. Some of us are not very good at that. Some people are so fearful and stressed they are at high risk for spontaneous human combustion.

Fear comes from not knowing and not being in control. Thinking you wont get what you want, thinking you will lose what you have. “What if I don’t get married, I get divorced, what if they don’t like me, what if..” Fear reveals our values, our longings, and our loves. The things we worry about and stress over say a lot about who we are.

In all of Scripture in the most common command is: do not be afraid. The simple truth of man is no matter when they live, where they are, or where they come from people are slaves to their fears. Fear dictates the decisions we make and things we do. We saw this a few weeks ago when we were looking at the fear of man issues and how when we let other people define us we are letting the fear of man overrule God. Fear is a powerful force that can motivate us towards good or evil. This is the whole purpose of the law. The law exists to control the behaviors of a society with fear. The reason we keep the law to avoid the consequences of breaking it. Ladies if you could kill with your glares, most of you would be murderers, some of you would be serial killers. Sometimes the difference between us and murders is not righteousness but cowardice.

Fear can be sin but not all fear is sin. You go off to war and are afraid, that is natural. You are pregnant and you have had a miscarriage that is natural fear. What makes fear sinful is not that you have it, but what you do with it. Often times we respond to fear by freaking out, going crazy, blowing up in the faces of the people of love us, and then crashing from exhaustion because you freak out until you just cant handle it anymore and you stop caring. That is sinful. Fear is not sin, it is an opportunity to turn to God and to learn to rely on Him. Fear will cause us to run toward or away from God. The direction you chose determines whether your fear sinful or beneficial.